Ever since my great morning, almost a month ago, at Sekiu, the Fish Gods have been conspiring to bring my catch average down. But then, I haven't helped myself, either, by chasing steelhead ever since that day.
Yesterday, I took a break from steelheading to go with a friend to the Yakima. We arrived at 10am and the wind was howling. It was an upstream wind and continued to blow unabated until about 4pm. We drove into the canyon downriver, passing a few dozen SUV's at all the usual turnouts, straight to my favorite Baetis run only to find someone wading the head. We pulled a youey and found a spot a few pools back upstream. The hatch had not yet begun, so we tied on #14 pheasant tail soft hackles, since there would be emerging nymphs in the water. I began swinging the fly downstream, all the while looking for heads to begin showing. It wasn't long before I hooked my first fish. For the next few hours, we caught rainbows from 4" to 15" fairly regularly as we worked our way down the pool. The wind wasn't an issue as long as we quartered our casts downstream and ducked whenever the wind gusted. It was the few times that I would see a splashy rise (accentuated by the blowing spray in the air) and quickly (and hopefully) tie on a #16 BWO that the wind became a factor. I like to fish dries downstream so, obviously, casting wasn't a problem. It was the upstream mends that I had to make that were nearly impossible. After a one-o-clock lunch break, we drove back down around the bend to see if my favorite was still occupied. It was, in fact, there were eight people casting into it from both sides! We drove to another spot upriver that has always fished well for me and found it unoccupied. The wind was still howling as we walk-slid down the embankment to the river. Fish were up throughout the tongue of the run. You could see splashes down and across the river in the sunshine. But in front of us, the shadows made it incredibly difficult to see the rising fish. Add to that, the near impossibility of finding your fly on the water, let alone seeing it land because of the wind - and you had the makings of a couple tough hours. The olives in the air were small and I was able to catch a number of fish by laying out a short line and dragging the #18 BWO upstream in order to find it and then drop it into the feeding lane of a potential victim. Of course, this only worked as long as the fly stayed dry. I saw a larger natural drift by and watched as it floated downstream. A nice fish rose up and snarfed it which - a Pavlovian response, here - got me to tie on a #14 Olive Parachute Adams and get into position to drift it down its feeding lane. It turned out to be another acrobatic, brilliantly colored, fifteeen-incher. The wind died at 4pm. Of course (read: bad karma returning), the fish stopped rising. I tied on a black soft hackle and picked up a few more fish that let their greed get the best of themselves. All in all, it was a good day on the Yak made even better by finding out, in the Casa del Blanca lounge in Ellensburg, that the M's get to play another game. Leland.
