Yakima River -- Oct 10

I had to go over to Ellensburg in eastern Washington for a board meeting of the Washington State Council FFF, which was on Saturday. So, I drove over on Friday morning and did a drift on the Yakima River with Steve Worley of the Worley Bugger Fly Co. fly shop.

The weather was nice enough, a slight freeze in the morning but thenit warmed up into the high 50?s. It was very sunny all day and a slight to moderate wind kept a bit of a chill to the air. We drifted the Green Bridge to the Diversion Dam area, a short drift of only 4 miles, but with lots of great water so we would spend a fair amount of time at many locations, really working the river in those areas.

As for hatches, there were a lot of huge October Caddis coming off, the females dancing upon the top of the water laying their eggs, but we never saw a fish come up after those. We were hoping for a larger Blue Wing Olive hatch, one did come off but it was small. However, the fish did key in on those and that was the only surface feeding we saw all day.

As for fishing styles, well it was a busy day for Steve, who kept changing flies on three different rods as we tried to find the magical fly for the day. I caught most of my fish on a streamer, a big ugly yellow and brown JJ streamer ( I guess the fish would think it was s Sculpin or something) cast using a sinking tip line. I worked the deeper sections of the river around the huge rocks and in the mid-sized to larger soft water pockets that are very common along that stretch of river.

However, there was no consistency to the fish. We started off nymphing and got nothing through some good stretches of water, so Steve had me try the streamer while he put on some different nymphs. I caught a couple of fish on the streamer then that died off so Steve had me try a dry then a dry dropper, then some nymphing then the streamer, on and on. That is pretty much how the day went, switching rods and flies.

Like I said the JJ streamer was the most productive, and some small BWO flies, both dries and emergers, also caught fish. I had a few fish hitting the large October Caddis fly but more often they would go after the BWO dropper.

I caught a few on nymphs, especially after the drift and when the flies were on the upswing.

At the take out there were three other fly fishers there who had been working that stretch using their pontoon boats. I asked how they did and they sort of shook their heads, one had caught two, another had some on. So I guess my day was a whole lot better than theirs. I managed to get around a dozen to the boat and had a number come off, including a really, really nice cutthroat who put up a great fight and managed to come off the fly right at the boat. I didn?t mind it, I had a great fight with him and he won.

Larry :D ---sagefisher---