I just got back from a 5-day trip in the Methow Valley. We rented a house
on the river and had a fairly good stretch of water there plus we did some
hikes to lakes and visited another small stream at the recommendation of the
rental house owner. The fires surrounding the area added a bit of
excitement to the trip and gave us some amazing red suns in the afternoon
and at sunset.
The Methow itself was fishing pretty well for cutts and rainbows from 7-12"
in size. I hooked one bigger one of about 13-14" that suprised me a bit.
All the fish were hanging in the very fast water at the top of a pool, just
below the really hard white-water from the riffle above. Most fish came on
a MadamX though I got a few on a BH GRHE nymph. I think we landed about 2
dozen fish in hitting different portions of the river on three seperate
walks down to the river on Thursday late afternoon, Friday morning, and
Sunday afternoon.
On Friday afternoon we hiked into Blue Lake at Washington Pass and found it
chock full of small cutts in the 4-10" range with a few monster fish of
11-12". They were in the shallows at the north end of the lake and could be
found rising or chasing anything thrown at them. I have no idea how many we
caught in there and it was fun letting my 12 year old step-son catch them
for a while and he ended up with the biggest fish of the day.
On Saturday we fished Boulder Creek in the morning, a small tributary to the
Chuwich River. This creek is very tiny and full of brush so a short rod is
in order. I used a #16 Royal Stimulator and it was beat to a pulp by the
end of the morning, I caught probably 30-40 brookies over the course of 3
hours and one really nice cutt. The brookies ranged from very small 3" fish
(suprised they could take a fly) to a few that were over 10". Very fun
fishing.
Saturday afternoon we hiked to Cutthroat Lake off of Hwy 20. Easy hike in
for 2 miles to a very shallow lake on the one end. We worked around to the
far end of the lake and fished briefly since the sun was under and the wind
was blowing and it was a bit cool. We caught a dozen or so very small cutts
there, most of the fish were 4-6" in size with a few going maybe 8".
There seemed to be a lot to explore in this region, many other creeks,
rivers, and lakes we could have hit if we'd have had more time. The Methow
itself is getting better fish now that it is under C&R regs according to the
land owner. We fished most places without ever seeing another fisherman in
the area, the only exception was Cutthroat Lake which had a group of people
spin fishing when we were up there.
