Enjoyable read and excellent summary. I also was told, from a biologist
that had conducted shocking tests on the Yakima, that the Dept. had tested
very few 20" rainbows on the Yakima. A guide that I knew, and worked with
on the Yakima, Larry Graham, (we called him the "bug man" because of his
interest and knowledge of aquatic insects) use to get upset at fly anglers
stretch of the truth in actual length of a trout. Larry fished the Yakima,
for 20 yrs, intensely, before even guiding, and had never seen, or caught a
20" rainbow. Then, many new guide operations began on the Yakima, more
competition for clients, and 20" fish were commonplace! Larry use to say,
"It is 16" from the tip of my middle finger to my elbow and that is a very
large trout." Try it sometime, maybe the next time you think you just landed
an 18"er! Those rainbows in Montana will even get smaller! Within close
proximity to Seattle, we have to be content with "getting away from
population" and enjoying smaller trout in serene settings, like the Ty,
Beckler and Foss rivers up on Stevens Pass east of the town on Skykomish.
The Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie is some of the best action around and I
have caught legitimate, 14" cutts on that fork. I guided for Sea-runs on
the Snoqualmie and had it, for the most part, all to myself! An angler,
that took advantage of that excellent fishery, and I stayed in contact with
him frequently, was Kramer(forgot his first name right now!) from the WDFG.
That guy loved those sea-runs and kept that one pretty quiet for his own
pleasures. What I found, on the Sea-run cutt fishery, was that you needed
to float the river and many fly anglers are unwilling, or are bankies. I'd
get down in the bowels of the Snoqualmie, water unfit for steelhead. Water
in the floodplane full of snags and yuckey bottomed with gravel here and
there, especially near the mouths of feeder streams and have a ball with
several clients, many from out of state that couldn't believe how good
fishing was on the Snoqualmie!! The Stilly is a better, SR river to bank
fish because of its size and an anglers ability to get up and down from the
bank. Jere
----- Original Message -----
From: "Preston Singletary" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Washington Fly fishers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 9:41 PM
Subject: steel/trout/primitive
> Most Washington rivers, especially those on the west side of the Cacades
are
> high-gradient streams with low mineral content. The resulting environment
> has little insect life and consequently very little food for resident
trout.
> What food is available must be shared with immature salmon, steelhead and
> sea-run cutthroat in their pre-migratory phases. At one time there were
> small populations of resident rainbows and cutthroat in many western
> Washington streams; they were slow-growing and have only rarely been able
to
> withstand even the lightest fishing pressure. There are still a lot of
> people who insist on fishing for "rainbows" when, in fact, they are
catching
> steelhead parr and smolts.
> The situation in eastern Washington is a little different and some rivers,
> like the Yakima, Methow and Stehekin, have sufficient mineral content to
> support large insect populations and thus self-sustaining populations of
> trout that grow to decent size. These rivers can't, however, come close to
> producing the size or numbers of trout that the rivers of, say, Montana
do.
> A guide once told me that in thirteen years of full-time guiding on the
> Yakima he could count on one hand the number of actual twenty-inch trout
> that he had seen. With the large-scale re-introduction of chinook, coho
and
> steelhead to the Yakima, even its trout fishery may become a thing of the
> past.
> Some of the state's best trout fishing, at least in western Washington, is
> for sea-run cutthroat. These anadromous cutthroat, unlike salmon and
> steelhead, continue to feed after re-entering fresh water and their
> aggressive habits and saltwater-tempered strength make them a
> highly-desireable quarry for the fly angler whether in saltwater or in the
> rivers.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
