Yakima River

[sagefisher]

Yakima River in Eastern Washington

Last Friday, December 18, a buddy and I went over to Ellensburg for a drift on the Yakima River. The temperatures had warmed up from the single digits to around 33 degrees Fahrenheit. There was a foot of snow on the ground but most of the roads were in good condition. It was foggy and we never did see the sun that day.

We met up with our guide, Ryan, at the Worley Bugger Fly Co. shop in Ellensburg and left the shop around 10. We were going to do a short drift from the KOA to Rinehart. The cold water means you really have to work sections of the drift, casting many times to fully cover the area the fish are holding. I didn't even bother rigging up my dry fly rod, I brought it with me just in case, but we figured we would be nymphing all day and we did.

We saw some wildlife, like two otters that were frolicking around on the shore and in the water, a couple Whitetail deer back in the brush and a couple Bald Eagles who were looking for their dinner.

Fishing was a very slow at first then the fishing warmed up between noon and 1:30 PM. After that it pretty much died off. I only got two to the boat and lost two. Bill got three to the boat. All were Rainbow trout and in the 12 to 17 inch range. They were fat and sassy, looked very healthy and all fought really well. The water temperature varied between 34.88 to 35.96 F. The air temperature got as high as 37 degrees.

The Whitefish have been spawning for a while so Ryan tied on some Whitefish egg flies as well as a Skwalla Stonefly nymph. He later replaced my Whitefish egg fly with a pink San Juan Worm. The five fish we caught were hooked on all three types of flies, with three of them taking the SJW.

The ice on the river was a bit of problem. We had large sheets of ice flowing by us all day and the ice along the shore was around 8 inches thick, but it was starting to break off causing the ice flows. We did hit one section of the river which was blocked by a fallen tree and the small area to drift by that tree was blocked with large chunks of ice. Ryan unloaded us and managed to fight his way past this obstacle by actually getting out of the boat and standing on the ice (no way I would have done that) and breaking enough ice off the outer edge to force the drift boat through the opening.

It just felt great to be out on the river after a couple months of no fishing. The two fish I caught really felt good on the end of my line and I am looking forward to January when I will come back for a couple more days of fishing.

View the slideshow at:

http://s661.photobucket.com/albums/u...t=04339402.pbw


Larry ---sagefisher---