Small creek fishing

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Bubbw77

Freshly Spawned
I want to start off to say I don't want personal honey hole spots. I grew up fly fishing small creeks in central PA. Haven't fly fished in 20 some years and really want to get back into it
Slowing putting a kit back together. I live just 15mins south of Blaine WA, don't mind driving and walking to find places to fish.

Just hoping someone here might point me into a direction of where i might go to start this journey again.

As for rods I have a 9' 5wt, 12' 5wt trout spey ( still learning this one) and a 9'6" 8wt

Thanks again
 
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I grew up fishing small creeks in PA as well and can tell you there is no comparison. Most PA streams are stocked with some holding wild fish. Very few WA streams are stocked that I know of and hold small native fish. PA streams have the benefit of being limestone that hold a multitude of insects while WA streams are mostly granite based and quite sterile. WA was once a mecca of Salmon and Steelhead fishing but those fisheries have all but disappeared. I would agree with a 3 wt and exploring the thin blue lines for small fish.
 
The 5 weight will still work for the Cascade mountain streams, though! The main thing is get out there before the water comes up and the fish really shut down for the winter. I don't know where they go but the same areas that hold fish in summer become seemingly devoid of trout 'round about October time it seems...
 
I grew up on a small creek (it was a crick back then). It meandered through its valley that was open in places but usually in pretty dense overhanging trees and brush. I didn't fly fish as a kid (periwinkles and Pautzke) - I started fly fishing small creeks since moving to the Columbia Basin; I had your 9-foot 5-weight for the first couple trips. My friend had a 7-foot rod, he spent a lot less time untangling (or breaking off) flies hung up in that overhanging jungle. I have two "shorty" rods, my favorite is a 6'-6" 2 weight. Have fun! And welcome to the forum!/Pat
 
There used to be a forum member who has since passed named Old Man Jim, AKA Old Man. He loved fishing blue lines as he called small creeks. Some gas, a reg book and a gazetteer are what he used to explore. It worked back then and will still work today. After reading many of his posts over the years, I think Jim enjoyed the exploring maybe more so than the actual fishing.
Good luck out there.
SF
 
Grew up fishing the Lake Washington creek in my backyard so have a fondness for small streams.

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I've had better small stream fishing on the east slope of the cascades. The streams seem to be lower gradient and there's a longer growing season. There are some gems...

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The small streams on the West slope of the cascades are usually pocket water plunge pools with a fish a pool but small fish. I'm not giving up secrets when I mention the Taylor River (catch and release and close to Seattle) because it has miles of fishable water, much of it accessible off a trail. The tributaries of the Skykomish and Foss and the Beckler have fish as well as do multiple small streams in the Skagit drainage. Try to find a small stream with a falls or blockage which prevents the migratory fish from accessing it. The trout will be more numerous and a little bigger.

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@MattB is right that many small streams go quiet in October. Not sure what's going on. Maybe the fish are migrating downstream to find bigger water where they can overwinter.

A small stream right along the road often isn't so good. If it bends away from the road the fishing will be better. I've found some jewels like this which involve a hike...

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^Dave gives some great tips there and IMO the photos show how a 9’ 5wt is 100% a viable choice for especially the larger mountain streams in our area. Fish what ya got! Then you can dial in what you think might “need.”
 
I find WDFW's FishWA cell phone app to be very handy in figuring out which streams are open.

Fish Washington® mobile app | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife https://share.google/pWdkxG7B9qofwZwva

The fishing regs here are a lot more complex than my old Vermont regs (which were pretty much Trout season Open, Trout season Closed)
 
Bubbw77 said:
I want to start off to say I don't want personal honey hole spots.
Click to expand...
FWIW, small PNW creeks are both the easiest to get general advice on and the worst for specific advice. This is mostly because the west side of the cascades just doesn't have the kind of moving water trout fisheries that you can find in other parts of the country. Our moving water fisheries (and habitat) are all based around salmon and other anadromous fish. So any creeks that have decent sized wild trout in them tend to be kept close to the vest, and if they are shared, it's usually person to person and not posted on the internet. This goes double if the person asking is looking to take trout for the dinner table (not implying that you are). Few folks here are morally opposed to killing fish to eat and lots of us take a fish for the grill or oven at various times. But many of us have no interest in seeing a rare thing like a productive west side creek made even more rare by pointing someone to a creek if they are going to be taking fish home from it.

On the other hand, one, almost universal, truth about cascade creeks is that if you can find one with a barrier to salmon passage (waterfall, dam, etc) you are very likely to find a population of wild trout living above it. Now, you need to be able to enjoy catching 5-9" fish. Anything over 12" is a genuine hawg in these waters and worthy of pride. But if you find satisfaction in that game, you can have many delightful days on water you have all to yourself. It is why I have ended up owning six different 3-4wt rods.

A few suggestions:

- Go down to the Confluence Fly Shop in Bham and buy a copy of the "Delorme Atlas & Gazetteer: Washington" (or, if you aren't headed south in the near future, check your local bookstore or grab it on Amazon). Then sit down with your drink of choice some evening and start following blue lines looking for creeks with a barrier to fish passage. Then figure out what logging road or trail you need to access that section of creek.

- While you're at Confluence, buy a handful of creek flies and ask Scott or Brandon for a few beginner hints. No, they won't give up the super secret spots either. But they are exactly the kind of guys who give you some pointers in the right direction to go along with your reciept.

- Start hanging out with the 4th Corner Fly Fishers club. Attend a few meetings or events. Those guys know a ton about fishing in NW Washington and buying a beer or two will get you both good advice and some new friends.

Welcome to the forum and good luck!
 
As for gear, a short 3wt is usually the rod of choice for PNW creeks. But having a 5wt shouldn't stop you at all. The 8wt won't be particularly useful for creek trout. Though if you were heading to the Skagit/Sauk for bull trout, that 8wt could be very fun. The 5wt trout spey is also less useful for creek waters around here. But could be very neat for some of the sea run cutthroat trout rivers in the sound. I've even seen people using light two handers off the beach for cutts in the salt (though that's usually more of a south or west Puget Sound game).
 
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Stehekin River if you enjoy hiking in the high country.
 
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