Slow time of the year at work, so I’ve been cleaning out my desk. I found these regarding steelhead. Things have certainly changed in 30 years as far as steelhead harvest and plants.
SF
SF
Old Steelhead Reports
- Thread starter Stonedfish
- Start date
I can only speak for the Sky & Stilly during those years, but yeah. It was good!
Here's one of those fat 90s winter hatchery hens from the day before Thanksgiving 95.
Caught her and a little 5 lb summer buck (also hatchery) 10 minutes apart on the wild and scenic Fortson hole.
Yes, that's snow on the ground.
Here's one of those fat 90s winter hatchery hens from the day before Thanksgiving 95.
Caught her and a little 5 lb summer buck (also hatchery) 10 minutes apart on the wild and scenic Fortson hole.
Yes, that's snow on the ground.
Hillbilly Redneck
wishin I was fishin
SilverFly
Legend
30 years ago I never would've believed I'd be living on one of those streams. Still don't quite believe it now, and consider myself incredibly fortunate, but sad remembering how good the fishing was then. And now that we've contributed to development on it's banks, it seems requisite to do what I can to protect what fish still survive.
I still remember the joy of landing my first steelhead (gear on the Skokomish) and then the trials of trying to catch a steelhead swinging a fly. I fished the Kalama a year or two after St. Helen's blew up and couldn't catch a steelehead. Huh!
A career change and move to the dry side put steelheading on hold for a couple years. When I got back into swinging flies, I fished with two fishy guys and watched them land fish while I got skunked. I didn't score a steelhead that year. On the second (maybe it was my third year?) year, Darc must have gotten tired of my whining. He and I hiked up BNSF railroad tracks along the Wenatchee River to a well known run. I went through the run first and finally felt that pluck and hooked a good fish. Although I lost the fish, I got to see it cartwheel out of L----- run.
Fast forward to 2003. Darc and I are staying in cabin 7 at the Acaia Grove in Spences Bridge. Darc had caught a couple nice fish (photos on his wall of fame at the Desert Fly Angler), I was smelling like Flower from Disney's Bambi. On our fourth day, we hiked to the Top of the Y. It happened:
I know, I know, I shouldn't have lifted this fish out of the water. My bad. I still had hair. In the years following 2003 I caught lots of steelhead fishing the Central WA river that opened this year after being closed for nine years. I had some BANNER days fishing the Snake and Ronde with the two fishy guys that put on clinics before. I've never caught another steelhead that came close to matching this buck.
A career change and move to the dry side put steelheading on hold for a couple years. When I got back into swinging flies, I fished with two fishy guys and watched them land fish while I got skunked. I didn't score a steelhead that year. On the second (maybe it was my third year?) year, Darc must have gotten tired of my whining. He and I hiked up BNSF railroad tracks along the Wenatchee River to a well known run. I went through the run first and finally felt that pluck and hooked a good fish. Although I lost the fish, I got to see it cartwheel out of L----- run.
Fast forward to 2003. Darc and I are staying in cabin 7 at the Acaia Grove in Spences Bridge. Darc had caught a couple nice fish (photos on his wall of fame at the Desert Fly Angler), I was smelling like Flower from Disney's Bambi. On our fourth day, we hiked to the Top of the Y. It happened:
I know, I know, I shouldn't have lifted this fish out of the water. My bad. I still had hair. In the years following 2003 I caught lots of steelhead fishing the Central WA river that opened this year after being closed for nine years. I had some BANNER days fishing the Snake and Ronde with the two fishy guys that put on clinics before. I've never caught another steelhead that came close to matching this buck.
Yard Sale
Life of the Party
Never got to fish it but recognized that river immediately. On my drive to/from Telkwa I always camp there as a half way point and dream of what it must have been like.
What an absolute tank! Fully confirms everything I dreamt about.
charles sullivan
Life of the Party
18 fish in the Albion chum and Chinook test fisheries this year. Looks like they may get 600 or so fish back to the T. It's not great but it's a lot more than in recent years (150-250) and it shows that there are enough there to do something about.
The sad part is that it's known that the chum fishery is what kills them. I'm sure there are water issues in the tribs as well but overall if the Canadians let tehm get to the T and Nicola, Bonaparte etc. they could be brought back to respectable numbers.
I only fished the T a few times and have only landed one fish from the T. It was glorious. It remains one of the most special places that I have been.
I'm reading Enos Bradner's 1950 book, Northwest Angling. The steelhead fishing really was something to write home about, and there were no hatchery steelhead. All wild. And almost always killed when landed. It's hard to think about now, but it really was only a few years ago that you could reliably fish for steelhead in 160 different rivers and streams in WA state and expect to catch one. To think that number has shrunk to just a handful of streams with far more restrictive seasons is just so damn depressing!
The Fortson Hole photo above made me think back. I can't possible remember how many steelhead I caught out of that one pool, especially before 1980 when it was a long pool of 2 distinct sections. A friend of mine and his brother somehow had the advance knowledge when the first returns of Skamania summer steelhead came to the NF Stilly, probably 1968. They were experience conventional gear fishermen, but real crackers at fly fishing. They were at Fortson at daylight on opening day (Saturday of Memorial Day weekend) with no one else there. They hooked fish after fish, losing most of them, but finally landing a couple limits between them. That hole must have been plugged with fish. Fishing it in the 70s, if the water was clear enough on opening day, I never counted more than 10 or 12 steelhead, but by 4th of July there were always 60 or more. Steelhead hatcheries produced some incredible returns of adult fish from their outset up through the 1980s before the downturn began in 1990 - 92.
Those were the days, my friend . . .
The Fortson Hole photo above made me think back. I can't possible remember how many steelhead I caught out of that one pool, especially before 1980 when it was a long pool of 2 distinct sections. A friend of mine and his brother somehow had the advance knowledge when the first returns of Skamania summer steelhead came to the NF Stilly, probably 1968. They were experience conventional gear fishermen, but real crackers at fly fishing. They were at Fortson at daylight on opening day (Saturday of Memorial Day weekend) with no one else there. They hooked fish after fish, losing most of them, but finally landing a couple limits between them. That hole must have been plugged with fish. Fishing it in the 70s, if the water was clear enough on opening day, I never counted more than 10 or 12 steelhead, but by 4th of July there were always 60 or more. Steelhead hatcheries produced some incredible returns of adult fish from their outset up through the 1980s before the downturn began in 1990 - 92.
Those were the days, my friend . . .