Saturday, 11/3/01 Fished the Yakima, in and around Umtanum. The water was much cooler than when I was last there 2 weeks ago. The hatches (baetis and mahogany duns) this time were much, much less prolific, and it was challenging (for me) to get a fish on the line (a fish over double-digit length; those smolts are still every where). Instead of the jailbreak-feeding frenzy of 2 weeks ago, at mid-PM there was only a short, slight bite. Later in the afternoon I found fish intermittently slurping midges (I believe) in the surface film of a tail-out. Not having any midge patterns on me, I went down-and-dirty with a streamer, which proved effective on a few fish before I headed home. Unfortunately, a spunky 14" bow contributed to the breakage of the tip of my 3 hour (no typo here) old Sage 590XP. It wasn't broken high-sticking, because he wasn't close enough (yet) for that to happen; and I was only using 6x. Had to be a factory defect; I'm sticking to it.
Sunday 11/4/01 Visited the Stilly, from 8 am to 3 pm. Coho, chums, and steelhead are in the river, but not in great numbers. On Sunday, the bite was sporadic at best. A few coho were landed, a couple still in pretty decent shape; a couple of steelhead to hand (not by me); and chum hooked, but LDR'ed. Richard Embry
