Joel,

What kind of fishing do you want to do? River or stream or lakes?

The Northwest (Oregon & Washington) has a huge assortment of styles of fishing. You have coastal rivers that offer summer run steelhead and salmon and SeaRun Cutthroat (now called coastal cutthroat I believe). There are small lakes along the coast that contain some great bass and crappie fishing along with trout.

Then as you move inland a bit you have a limited number of rivers that actuall produce good fishing. Many of our rivers are fed mostly by glaciers and are very milky during the summer from glacier runoff. There are a number of lowland lakes that offer decent spiney ray and planted trout fishing.

Then you get up into the Cascade Mountains. That area offers some really nice small stream fishing, river fishing, and high mountain lake fishing. HOWEVER, in June? IN 2011? I don't think so. We may end up with a big snow pack this year, then again we may not. But, so far the weather has been bringing in lots of moisture and that means snow up in the mountains. So, depending upon when the snow starts to melt, again the weather dictates that, you may not be able to access any high mountain lakes or rivers or they could all be blown out or you may be too early as many of them may still be closed.

Then as you travel eastward you get into the real fishing areas of WA and OR. The Eastern areas, made up mainly of high dessert or arid type area. Rivers like the Yakima River near Ellensburg, WA or the Deschutes River in Oregon fall into this area. They are located on the eastside of the Cascade Mountains. They are great for fishing. But, they are subject to runoff like any mountain river can be. We have some really good lakes over in the eastern parts of WA and OR, some have trout but most have bass and crappie/bluegill/perch fishing.

So, it all depends upon what type of fishing you like to do and what type of water you like to fish.

Larry ---sagefisher---