Yeah, bubba, my buddy and I might have been one of those you saw "floating"
the upper canyon on Sunday afternoon. Because the river's high, there's
actually LESS good places to fish (we were floating in our 1-man pontoons,
so casting while floating doesn't work!) Hopefully, by this time next
month, the river will be down enough to show more spots to pull off and
fish.
As for the land of smolts, trout are trout. The bigger ones will tend to
set up above (read: better locations) the smolts and dinks. We caught A LOT
of dinks Sunday (They were rainbows, not silvery smolts), and saw 2 decent
rises. I caught 1 of those decent rises (about a 13 incher) but the rest
were 6" or less. You said you caught some on streamers, so my guess is the
bigger guys are holding in deeper water. Hard to say, though. I was
dragging big and little nymphs deep and shallow. I only raised the 13"
after I targeted his rise form.
I, too, am looking for suggestions to the upper canyon dink factory. My
favorite spot below Cle Elum yielded zero.
BTW, we portaged around the Niagara Falls there above Thorp Bridge! It was
our first time on the river with pontoons, and we decided to be cautious....
Sean Grier
duckhooker
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 11:39 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: New (?) obstacle near Thorp and a Yak Question
It's been a while since I floated the upper Yakima and the partial weir just
below the irrigation diversion ABOVE the Thorp Bridge was new to me. It's
pretty obvious but you need to be far river left; maybe a four-foot drop.
Now the question. I fished both Saturday and Sunday and the fishing seemed
quite off, in fact I haven't had a grand Yakima day this year, or since the
river was filled with smolts. What gives? I got used to fishing a giant
irrigation ditch and I assume I can adjust to a giant hatchery raceway but I
can't seem to figure out where the trout have gone. I didn't see a single
respectable trout rise in two days on the river (except for a couple who
rose
to a stimi and an ant- and I caught a few more on streamers) in conditions
that I would normally expect to see risers all day. I didn't catch enough
trout to get any real pattern of a change in their behavior or lies.
I also noted as I drove out of the Canyon late Sunday afternoon that three
of
the five boats I saw in the canyon were not fishing just floating so my
guess
is others were finding it even worse than I.
Anyone care to give me some clues as too new fishing practices in the land
of
smolts, or even any EDUCATED guesses on what the long term impact of the
salmon hatchery/runs will be on the trout fishing.
Have fun
Bubba
