Small creek fishing

[Bubbw77]

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...

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!

Thanks truely appreciate the honesty and all the information

 

[Bubbw77]

Wanted to thank all of you for the information you have provided me. It's truly appreciated

 

[Smalma]

To the question of where the trout go as the temperatures drop? As the stream temperature drops to mid-40s the small "trout" (less than 8 inches) they begin seeking over-wintering habitats. Those habitats include root wads, log jams, boulder piles, etc. where the small fish burrow into that structure. Once the movement occurs those fish remain hidden in those structures during daylight hours and after darkness they tend move out of those structures and hold along the stream edges to move back with daylight. For those streams with larger fish (too large to fit into the above winter habitats) the focus becomes the deeper pools. The "crick" fishing begins the following spring/summer as the stream temperatures increase above that mid-40s threshold and run-off flows drop.

The western Cascades support literally 1,000s of miles of potential small streams fishing targets. Special subsets of skinny waters are alpine streams and beaver ponds. In some cases, these waters can produce some surprising fishing.

Curt

 

[Wasatchangler]

That's a new one to me. I'll check it out, thanks! Does anyone else have experiences good or bad with the Trout Routes app? What does it add to GaiaGPS (which I use)?

No direct experience with trout routes specifically but just a word of caution. Apps like that collect your data to sell sooner or later. I’d be wary about using it to mark spots or keep personal notes. Granted, I might be on the more cynical side of the spectrum.

 

[Zak]

No direct experience with trout routes specifically but just a word of caution. Apps like that collect your data to sell sooner or later. I’d be wary about using it to mark spots or keep personal notes. Granted, I might be on the more cynical side of the spectrum.

I'll probably stick with GaiaGPS, Google Earth, and my handy atlas and gazetteer.

 

[dirty dog]

No direct experience with trout routes specifically but just a word of caution. Apps like that collect your data to sell sooner or later. I’d be wary about using it to mark spots or keep personal notes. Granted, I might be on the more cynical side of the spectrum.

Big brother is always watching.
And if big brother is watching me, he is falling asleep with boredom

 

[GAT]

I live in Oregon so I can't really address small creek fishing in the Washington Cascades. I do know that just about every larger river that ends up in the Pacific in Oregon can be traced backwards to small creeks that all hold wild trout ... albeit, they are not giants.

When it comes to creek fishing in the Cascades, you will enjoy the experience much more if you use light weight gear (I use 2 or 3 weight systems). My favorite rod is a 7 piece 7 foot 3 weight fiberglass travel rod with a dry line.

OJM (I really miss the guy) was right. Find the blue lines in a map of the Cascades and chances are, there are wild trout holding somewhere in that blue line.

 

[Matt B]

OJM (I really miss the guy) was right. Find the blue lines in a map of the Cascades and chances are, there are wild trout holding somewhere in that blue line.

When I first moved to Washington I sort of inadvertently proved this out. I had my Gazetteer (still do actually) and went up a USFS road next to a good-sized mountain fork of a good-sized River. I stopped as close as I could to pretty much every blue line on the map that crossed the road, and would "test fish" until I found if it had fish. It usually only took one or two pools (and some pools were tiny pools, believe me), more often only one or two casts into the first pool to see if the blue line was a fish stream. If it was, I'd mark it on the Gazetteer and move to the next one. I abandoned this "project" pretty quickly once I realized that all the blue lines big enough to fish (and some that weren't) have trout.

 

[Brian]

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

FIRST OFF, WELCOME TO THE FORUM! It's a great community. As you will probably see by this now lengthy post, I like small streams.

This book had just been published and started me on my small stream journey ~50 years ago. It's a fabulous book and I have given a couple copies to young "creekers" just starting out. It's still a bargain!

I have preferred the simplicity, beauty, and intimacy of small streams, & small pretty fish along with the occasional beast ever since.

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

Does anyone else have experiences good or bad with the Trout Routes app? What does it add to GaiaGPS (which I use)?

Trout Routes is an onX Maps app.
"Want to find a boat put-in near a tailwater on a top-rated stream? Our filters let you quickly home in on what you’re looking for."
This is a "Small Creeks" thread. You probably don't need boat launch waypoints. Also onX uses "guides" to populate their "apps'" destinations - places of interest waypoints. This would seem to inherently focus people to those waypoints.

Gaia has the routable nation wide topo and sat maps for less money than onX with trails and (off)road layers for research, planning and route finding along with Private - Public land layers I like to have for avoiding tresspass. I have learned to look at topo contours and sat maps to find and guide me to fishable stream reaches. Gaia keeps my waypoint, routes, and tracks data private unless I want to share it with other Gaia subscribers. It doesn't have all the hunting and fishing "guide" routes and waypoints. You can get those in other places as I mention below.

I want to start off to say I don't want personal honey hole spots.

I have had Dave Shorret's... Fishing Guide books spiral bound with stiff clear plastic covers for planning and field use.

Dave Shorett: books, biography, latest update

Follow Dave Shorett and explore their bibliography from Amazon's Dave Shorett Author Page.

www.amazon.com

The out of print Olympic Mountains Fishing Guide is available on the 2nd hand books market for less than I paid new.
The Central Cascades Fishing Guide that contains info on streams south from Highway 2 to I90, and from Sultan to Hwy 97 is closest to your Blaine location.
Driving through the East Puget Sound "mungoplex" is unpleasant for me these days so I find the South Cascades Fishing Guide more useful where I live.
I also have the late Doug Rose's ...Olympic Peninsula book, but now $$$ . I have marked it up a bit but don't take it into the field...
They were all published 18-30 years ago so I do recommend a Gaia Maps subscription to assure public access, and to get you there.

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

While there are no truly "secret spots", I am happy that my "Curtis Creeks" are not listed in Shorret's or Rose's books.

Slowing putting a kit back together.

Depending on how far you are towards your complete <=3 weight creek rod & reel kit, and if cost is a major factor to getting there, a Tenkara kit is roughly 20% of the cost of a fly rod, reel, line, and leader(s) for equivalent quality. You might consider a 390 cm (12.8') 3-way zoom Tenkara kit to restart your creekin' and small river journey!
Again, this is a small creek thread. Tenkara was documented by a British diplomat in the 17th century. It was developed specifically for subsistence (high quantity catch & kill-sell-eat) fishing on small, high gradient stream headwaters in the extremely rugged mountains of Japan. I was shocked in 2017 when a long-time friend showed me how effective the method is on small streams compared to my 7 1/2' (3-weight DT) bamboo rod.
I took up Tenkara and Keiryu fixed line methods in 2018. Since then my 3 & 4 weight rods and reels have seen ZERO use on creeks and small to mid-sized streams for trout.

Besides cost, other advantages I've found with long telescopic collapsible - flexible Tenkara rod(s) that don't use reels are

• simple & effective
• lighter & smaller to pack,
• quicker to rig,
• much easier to bushwhack with when collapsed but still rigged
• easier to make accurate fly-first presentations with an inexpensive, rod-length no-sag, high vis (~0X) #3 fluorocarbon level line, and 3' of (4X-) 5X tippet
• pie pan (to jar lid) sized accurate at ~22' for a 13' rod

With a 45° high rod tip tight line presentation I can guide and manipulate (highly effective) a fly with a subtleness I can't do with a western rod, and have instant strike detection and hookset. Finally, they make the typical small fish found in creeks feel bigger, and less common large fish are epic!

DRAGONtail Tenkara, located in Pocatello, Idaho designs very good to upper tier Japanese-quality rods, stocks an ample supply of parts, has excellent accessories; all at an affordable price, with great Customer Service. I disassemble my rods after use to clean and properly dry them so a baked in expense for a warranty isn't needed because if a rod breaks, replacement sections cost $3 - $22 and it's at my door in 3 days.
(this is a real nice rod and it looks to be closing out, I think its zoom fishing lengths and action are more versatile as a "first" creek rod)

DRAGONtail IceWING zx390 Tenkara Rod Teaser Report

DRAGONtail IceWING zx390 Tenkara RodTeaser Report - Tom Davis test drives a new zoom rod from DRAGONtail code named the IceWING zx390.

tenkaraangler.com

(new version of my first rod that I sill use and like; lighter, much better (Japanese level) quality & casting rod than mine. $30 more with a faster & stiffer action, more suitable for weighted nymphs and bigger fish like mine, from creeks to mid-sized rivers than the IceWING it replaces)

DRAGONtail Hydra 395 v2 Tenkara Rod Review | Tenkara Angler

DRAGONtail Hydra 395 v2 Tenkara Rod Review - Tom Davis evaluates the new and improved version of a favorite DRAGONtail Tenkara rod.

tenkaraangler.com

PM me if you want to know more.

 

[Brian]

FIRST OFF, WELCOME TO THE FORUM! It's a great community. As you will probably see by this now lengthy post, I like small streams.

This book had just been published and started me on my small stream journey ~50 years ago. It's a fabulous book and I have given a couple copies to young "creekers" just starting out. It's still a bargain!
View attachment 193105
I have preferred the simplicity, beauty, and intimacy of small streams, & small pretty fish along with the occasional beast ever since.
View attachment 193059


Trout Routes is an onX Maps app.
"Want to find a boat put-in near a tailwater on a top-rated stream? Our filters let you quickly home in on what you’re looking for."
This is a "Small Creeks" thread. You probably don't need boat launch waypoints. Also onX uses "guides" to populate their "apps'" destinations - places of interest waypoints. This would seem to inherently focus people to those waypoints.

Gaia has the routable nation wide topo and sat maps for less money than onX with trails and (off)road layers for research, planning and route finding along with Private - Public land layers I like to have for avoiding tresspass. I have learned to look at topo contours and sat maps to find and guide me to fishable stream reaches. Gaia keeps my waypoint, routes, and tracks data private unless I want to share it with other Gaia subscribers. It doesn't have all the hunting and fishing "guide" routes and waypoints. You can get those in other places as I mention below.


I have have had Dave Shorret's... Fishing Guide books spiral bound with stiff clear plastic covers for planning and field use.
View attachment 193087View attachment 193082View attachment 193081 View attachment 193093

Dave Shorett: books, biography, latest update

Follow Dave Shorett and explore their bibliography from Amazon's Dave Shorett Author Page.

www.amazon.com

The out of print Olympic Mountains Fishing Guide is available on the 2nd hand books market for less than I paid new.
The Central Cascades Fishing Guide that contains info on streams south from Highway 2 to I90, and from Sultan to Hwy 97 is closest to your Blaine location.
Driving through the East Puget Sound "mungoplex" is unpleasant for me these days so I find the South Cascades Fishing Guide more useful where I live.
I also have the late Doug Rose's ...Olympic Peninsula book, but now $$$ . I have marked it up a bit but don't take it into the field...
They were all published 18-30 years ago so I do recommend a Gaia Maps subscrption to assure public access, and to get you there.

View attachment 192952
While there are no truly "secret spots", I am happy that my "Curtis Creeks" are not listed in Shorret's or Rose's books.


Depending on how far you are towards your complete <=3 weight creek rod & reel kit, and if cost is a major factor to getting there, a Tenkara kit is roughly 20% of the cost of a fly rod, reel, line, and leader(s) for equivalent quality. You might consider a 390 cm (12.8') 3-way zoom Tenkara kit to restart your creekin' and small river journey!
Again, this is a small creek thread. Tenkara was documented by a British diplomat in the 17th century. It was developed specifically for subsistence (high quantity catch & kill-sell-eat) fishing on small, high gradient stream headwaters in the extremely rugged mountains of Japan. I was shocked in 2017 when a long-time friend showed me how effective the method is on small streams compared to my 7 1/2' (3-weight DT) bamboo rod.
I took up Tenkara and Keiryu fixed line methods in 2018. Since then my 3 & 4 weight rods and reels have seen ZERO use on creeks and small to mid-sized streams for trout.

Besides cost, other advantages I've found with long telescopic collapsible - flexible Tenkara rod(s) that don't use reels are

• simple & effective
• lighter & smaller to pack,
• quicker to rig,
• much easier to bushwhack with when rigged
• easier to make accurate fly-first presentations with an inexpensive, rod-length no-sag, high vis (~0X) #3 fluorocarbon level line
• pie pan (to jar lid) sized accurate at ~22' for a 13' rod

With a 45° high rod tip tight line presentation I can guide and manipulate (highly effective) a fly with a subtleness I can't do with a western rod, and have instant strike detection and hookset. Finally, they make the typical small fish found in creeks feel bigger, and less common large fish are epic!

DRAGONtail Tenkara, located in Pocatello, Idaho designs very good to upper tier Japanese-quality rods, stocks an ample supply of parts, has excellent accessories; all at an affordable price, with great Customer Service. I disassemble my rods after use to clean and properly dry them so a baked in expense for a warranty isn't needed because if a rod breaks, replacement sections cost $3 - $22 and it's at my door in 3 days.
(this is a real nice rod and it looks to be closing out, I think its zoom fishing lengths are more versatile as a "first rod")

DRAGONtail IceWING zx390 Tenkara Rod Teaser Report

DRAGONtail IceWING zx390 Tenkara RodTeaser Report - Tom Davis test drives a new zoom rod from DRAGONtail code named the IceWING zx390.

tenkaraangler.com

(new version of my first rod that I sill use; but a much better quality and casting rod than mine, $30 more than the IceWING it replaces)

DRAGONtail Hydra 395 v2 Tenkara Rod Review | Tenkara Angler

DRAGONtail Hydra 395 v2 Tenkara Rod Review - Tom Davis evaluates the new and improved version of a favorite DRAGONtail Tenkara rod.

tenkaraangler.com

PM me if you want to know more.
View attachment 193041

BTW, a recent rare, larger, small stream fish from a well oxygenated pool. It was epic but easily managed with a premium 400cm rod from DT.
Photo taken by my nephew.