in
our beginning pursuits of 10" or bigger rainbow/cutthroats in
'somewhat-remote-hike-in' rivers in western washington, we ended up this last
weekend fishing the downey, diobsud, and bacon rivers. also, after a
recommend from a fisher on bacon creek, we tried to find access to jim
creek, which flows out of twin lakes (at a us naval station), but alas, could
not find access anywhere.
downey
beautiful river. you have to either *seriously* wade/climb/forge
your way up-river, or take a steep trail up the west side to get access.
saw dozens of huge haunting beautiful salmon slowly making their way
upstream. caught dozens of cutthroat, rainbow. largest landed was
12", lots in the 8" to 10" range. fished a royal wulff with a bead-head
dropper and had rises/fish in virtually every hole. at one point i had on
a HUGE beast of a fish... easily close to the largest river fish i've ever had
on a fly... not sure what it was... summer steelhead? a huge
cutthroat? one of the rumored dolly varden? it sipped my dropper, i
played it close enough to see a massive silver flash, it took off for a series
rapids, i tried to turn it, line snapped and i was left howling. tis true
that the ones that get away mark you the most. we fished about 2 miles of
the river, up and back, all in all it was an extrarodinary
experience.
diobsud
this
is a small hike-in river that flows into the skagit. beautiful pools...
the pools/water was reminiscent of the hike-in sections of kelly creek, idaho,
but alas, the fish were not. small fry's... lots of them.
6"-ers. they'd take most anything we cast.
bacon
again, beautiful water, but no fish. one small rise. met two
other anglers (from montana) who were dumbfounded that such beautiful water with
such tantalizing pools and seams would not produce a single fish. a
mystery.
~sky
