----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 2:05 PM Subject: How do you find the fish?
> I've been fly fishing all my life but only this year have decided to try for > salmon and steelhead in the rivers. What little I've learned is that first > and foremost the fish have to be in the river. But how do you find that out? > > I hesitate to bring this up with the current tenor of the email list but > maybe I'm defining a group of folks who have this problem in common. With the > crowding we find on the rivers these days many folks are reluctant to pass on > information about what waters are "on", I can understand that, but it doesn't > help me much. My frustration is that I can ultimately figure out flies and > techniques that work but not if I don't have fish to try them on. So all I > want to know every now and then is where my odds of finding fish are high so > I can work on learning the rest. In fact I'm really enjoying having to learn > new tactics, it's breathing life back into the sport for me; but the > seemingly necessary tight lippedness of my brethren is a frustrating dilemma. > > I have a family and my own business so I only get a day here and there to hit > the water. Tomorrow is one of those days and I'm looking for information on > which rivers might be ripe for some fishing. I look at the flows online but > without experience they don't mean much by themselves. Where do I go to get > such information? Fly shops, the web, or sell my soul? > > Have fun > Paul there's lots of information out there. for general run timing, one can get harvest data on steelhead from WDFW. the USGS has flow data available over the web, plus one can check rainfall totals in their local paper (and i'm sure it's on the web too). there's plenty of places available for general information and most of it's not secret. but even with reports, if one runs to chase fish based on reports (even recent reports) often things can change in a short period of time and one will not find the same fishing as in a report. with salmon and steelhead, things often change very quickly (and the fish may just be off the bite the day after a report). the best thing is to just pick a river and learn it. i know you mentioned not having much time... but a day here and a day there adds up, and you will learn what flow regime you prefer. i've done well when the flows were higher than i thought would be fishable, and poorly when i thought the river was just dialed in perfectly. tackle shops in the areas you want to fish will tell you if there's fish around. also, don't be afraid to call some of the non-fly shops for information. with steelhead fishing with a fly, having a ton of fish doesn't guarantee success... and i've had plenty of decent fishing when the reports were poor on the rivers i was fishing. you can't catch fish if you're not fishing, so i recommend just going. chris
