I went up to the Narrows from Olympia on Thursday. When I got there it was
about 5:45pm. I ate a quick sandwich for dinner, rigged up and headed down
to the water. I saw one person in the water and the tide was coming in,
almost full high tide. Just as the one person was leaving the water, the
fish started to show with his back to the water. When I talked with this
guy, he said he hadn't seen a fish in 4 hours. I didn't tell him that they
were everywhere I could see. With the tide being as high as it was, I had no
choice but to fish right down the hill from the parking lot. In front of
what used to be Doc's house. I couldn't make more than a thirty foot cast
because the tide was so high that every time I tried to extend my cast, I
would snap off my fly on a tree or black berries or something. I lost 6
flies in about an hour and a half. I only caught 1 fish. It was the only
one that I even got a bite from. I had a few other problems beside the short
casting range.
First off, I could see huge pods of fish crusing in all directions. You had
to stop and look for a little while to notice what they were because their
porpousing in pods looked very similar to the ripple on top of the water due
to current. The difference was that the fish ripples where moving toward or
sometimes away from me. I could see, at times, 4 or five pods of fish
crusing up and down the shoreline. Some of the fish were way out of range,
maybe 200 feet or more. These were some of the biggest pods. As long as it
took for a pod to cruse past me, there must have been hundreds of fish in
some of them. The pods that were closer in to shore seemed to be smaller.
Maybe 25 to 50 fish per pod. Seeing all these fish had my blood pumping and
I had to start casting away. Wrong move. When the fish are there, you know
it. No need to do any casting until you see fish and can time your cast to
hit the front of the pod. If you just start casting, you'll inevitably have
to much line out when a pod starts to get close, it'll take you to long to
strip in enought line to start casting, and the pod'll be right in front of
you and spook when you cast over them.
Next problem was the type of line I was using. I started with a full sink
cause that's what I usually use to fish Cutthroat from a boat. That didn't
work to well. Next I went to a clear intermediate line. This line worked
okay but only if I started my strip as soon as the line hit the water. Using
a sinking line means that the only mending capability you have is in the air
before the line hits the water. With that in mind, getting the right
presentation meant picking the right fish to cast to. I had to make sure
that my fly got to swing right in front of the pod. The only time I got this
right and still had a fly on the end of my leader, I caught a fish. I would
recomend either using a floating line or a floating line with a clear sink
tip. This way you can mend your line and get better presentations to fish
crusing in either direction.
I could not believe the numbers of fish I saw. When I got to work the next
morning, the first thing I said was, "You have got to go up there and see it
for yourself". Don't get discouraged if you don't have this experience. The
guys who fish the most catch the most fish.
Tom Bolender
