Thanks for the excellent report, Cliff.
Brent
--- Cliff & Karen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> A buddy and I fished the Yakima in Cle Elum on
> Thursday afternoon, but missed any hatches that
> might have been occurring there. We fished some wets
> under indicators and/or a huge Chernobyl ant-type
> thing, but we couldn't get a strike. We then drove
> down to the canyon, but we had missed the Blue Wing
> Olive hatch by an hour or two, according to some
> guys at the Evening Hatch. Still, we gave it our
> best at a couple of pools upstream from the Umtanum
> area, then we fished the Umtanum bridge area with
> negative results, with the exception of a couple of
> hits on pheasant tails under an indicator.
>
> Spent the night at some basin lakes and fished them
> the next morning, then came back in time for the BWO
> hatch in the canyon (noon). We weren't
> disappointed. We pretty much stayed right around the
> Umtanum footbridge because that's where it all
> seemed to be happening, at least on that stretch of
> the river. Guys several hundred yards north of us
> were busy, as were some folks several hundred yards
> downstream, on the east bank. I've never fished this
> hatch before and it was almost unbelievable, there
> were fish rising everywhere, sometimes 7 or 8 in a
> 10ft x10ft square area, all at the same time. The
> bugs were really difficult for me to spot, and my
> closest imitations were some BWO's I had from a trip
> to MT a couple of years ago, but my flies were
> larger and had much lighter wings. Anyway, I'm
> almost ashamed to tell how many hookups I screwed up
> (hence the subject line). I'm guessing I screwed up
> 15-20 hookups, just couldn't get the hang of it. I
> hooked and lost probably another 10 fish, some
> large, and landed a couple of dinks, a couple in the
> 10"-12" range, and a nice fat 14" bow.
>
> The hatch lasted for a couple of hours, off and on,
> and would dissipate for 15 minutes or so, then come
> back on. It seemed like clouds would roll in and
> they'd be rising, then go quiet again in the
> sunlight, but then we also observed them actively
> feeding (a feeding frenzy would more accurate) in
> direct sunlight. It all started tapering and was
> pretty much done by 3pm or so, although there were
> sporadic hatches even then, but I think it was mixed
> with a small caddis hatch. After we left the river
> we drove down to Roza Dam and back up through the
> canyon. There were LOTS of fishermen and boats on
> the river, so I'll bet it's a madhouse this weekend.
>
> Happy fishing,
> Cliff
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