We just finished our season on the Klickitat. It was the toughest season I have seen here. We caught a few chinook and some great steelhead, just not the numbers like in years past. One nice thing about the fishing being tough was that there was very little pressure.
The steelhead season finished just about how it started. It was colder and wetter than normal, but fishing was good. We had a lot of high water this season which limited our fishing on the Hoh River and the Queets River, but the Sol Duc and Calawah had good color and didn’t get too low and clear. It seemed like we hooked fewer fish than normal, but the average size was larger. This was a good end to the season, now I’m off to Florida to spend a few months chasing tarpon, bonefish, redfish, and more in the Florida Keys, Biscayne Bay, and the Everglades.
The 2017 winter steelhead season is here. We started off with some unusually cold steelheading conditions for Forks, with highs not reaching 30 degrees. The fish were coming in even with the cold temps and low water. We just got the first good rain of the year last week and the weather is more normal in the 40’s. Fishing has been good and the angling pressure seemed above normal for early January.
It was another great steelhead season on the Klickitat River. Chinook fishing was tough and there were fewer steelhead around than normal which kept some of the pressure away (not a bad thing). But, there were enough fish in the river to keep everybody happy. Here are a few pictures from the season.
We have had a lot of water over the last month, the rain kept coming. We were able to fish about 5 days, but we were seeing wild fish coming in. We got some nice early wild steelhead over the past few weeks as well as some hatchery fish in the Bogachiel. The extended forecast is calling for clear skies. We are excited to get on the Hoh and see all the changes that happened this Fall. We have some dates available between now and Jan 15 if you are looking to hook into some wild steelhead. This picture of Ashley was from last week, she was in town from Texas and caught her first ever steelhead.
The Klickitat is in great shape, with cool water temps and plenty of water for the fish to make it up. Those things are tough to find in the northwest right now. There are a lot of steelhead in the river right now, a good mix of hatchery and wild fish. The chinook are coming in thick as well. Over the past week there have been around 20,000 chinook a day coming over Bonneville Dam, and yesterday over 35,000 came over. The salmon fishing should get good this week. We have some dates open next week if you are getting the itch. Late October and early November has some availability as well. See you out there.
Just as we expected, the summer steelhead are in the Hoh. It has been rising every night from run off and the river starts to drop mid-morning. The visibility has been on the low side, but the fish have been biting when you put it right in their face. We have been hooking fish on the dead drift and on the swing. The coho have been coming in good as well. Fishing should be good through August. Then we are headed to the Klickitat on Sept 1. We have some dates open on the Klick between early Sept and early Nov for summer steelhead and fall chinook.
With the low water, we have been sight casting at salmon. The steelhead have not been showing up in good numbers yet, but we are looking forward to the Hoh opening Aug 1. The cold water on the Hoh is probably pulling a lot of the steelhead into it, the don’t seem to excited to come into the Quilayute system with it being around 70 degrees.
The sun has been out and the rivers are at a record low for this time of year. The low snow pack is really visible in the river levels. It sure is nice to be wet wading though. The salmon and steelhead are still coming in, even with the lack of water. We have been getting some steelhead, summer chinook, dollies, and sea run cutthroat lately. The summer coho are on their way as well, we landed one of those a few weeks ago while trout fishing. We are going to be offering spey lessons over the summer. If you want to try out some rods and lines before you buy a setup this is a great time to do it. Or if you have a rod and want to learn not only how to cast it better, but how to fish it effectively you should come out. We will try some
We have been catching some late winter steelhead, early summer coho, big dollies, and sea run cutthroat recently. The dollie in the picture about spooled us, we had to chase it with the boat. Throughout May, the Spring Chinook have been the primary target on the OP. A few have been caught on the swing, but gear and bait is the way to consistently catch them. The Bogachiel, Calawah, Queets, and Upper Quinault open this week. There should be summer steelhead in the Bogachiel and Calawah on the June 6 opener. The Hoh looks great, but it isn’t going to open until August 1 at the earliest.
We got some rain and the fish came with it. We have had some insane fishing over the past week. There have been a lot more nice fish coming to the net. Marlon and Robert came out and we had very high water conditions, I gave them the option to cancel their trip because the water was so high. They said they came to fish and if there was a chance of catching one we should go. With low expectations we put the boat in and Marlon found this magnum buck, in the mid-20 pound range. Then we hooked quite a few more. It was an awesome day, much better than expected.
The water has been getting low and we could sure use some rain. We haven’t been putting up big numbers in the low water, but we have been hooking enough fish every day. Bob and Keith came up from CA and had a great trip. The weather was warm and dry and we found some nice fish. Then Norm and Pam came out from the East Coast. Norm has done a lot of steelheading, but this was Pam’s first trip. Maybe it was beginners luck, but she caught some big steelhead. Overall, fishing has been slower lately than it was in February with the low water we have been having, but there are still plenty of steelhead in the rivers on the OP. It should be really good fishing after the next big rain.
The rivers are on the drop, we haven’t had any rain for a while now. Fishing has continued to be really good. Over the last week we have seen some awesome fish. Ben came out and caught a huge upper teen’er buck in the same slot that is brother caught a huge one in late January. We landed that fish and got a picture within 20′ of where we landed his brothers steelhead a few weeks before. It was awesome. Doug and Jim came up from CA again this year and found some more great steelhead. Fishing has been good and the Hoh and Queets are in shape. It is a great time to be on the Olympic Peninsula.
2/17/15 – After the rain let up, the rivers dropped right back into shape. There have been a lot of steelhead around. We spent the weekend at the Lynwood Fly Fishing Show. The turnout was great to our presentations, Olympic Peninsula Steelhead – Where they live and how to catch them. Next year we will be attending the show again and giving presentations on the OP. Here are a few pictures from the past week, there have been some nice steelhead coming to the net.
This January was great fishing. I had multiple days already this season that were better than any day last year and the peak of the season is not here yet. The last blow out brought a big push of steelhead into the OP Rivers and we are coming off another huge blowout. If you are interested in hooking into a few of these awesome fish, we have some dates available: Feb 22, 28, March 4-6, 8, 15, 22, 29, and quite a few dates in April. Here are some pics from the past few weeks.
Well, the rain is pouring once again and there are some awesome wild fish in the rivers right now. We got these and a few others yesterday on the rise. After this next drop fishing should be good. It has been a wet few months. Yesterday the Hoh was flowing at 1,500 CFS and now it is at 23,700 CFS and just peaked. That should get some of that wood moving around, it might wash out some of those sweepers in the upper river. There have been some big wild fish getting caught. I am looking forward to getting back on the rivers when they are falling, fishing was good on the rise. I still have some dates open for the winter season, here is what I have open in January: 18, 19, 28, 31. There are still some prime openings in February, March, and April. Call or email and I will let you know
Happy New Year! There have been enough hatchery fish around to make it interesting and the wild fish are showing up now too. There are some major changes on the Hoh, well the whole upper river is different. I will be checking out the lower river in the next few days. There are some big sweepers about a mile below the park line and another major blockage before the last high bank above Minie’s. Below Spuce Creek the main river heads right under a log jam and you have to take a small braid to the left. The channels connect back up below Owl Creek. It is going to be fun learning it over again. I hope your Holidays went well. See you on the river.
We’ve been fishing the Bogachiel and the Hoh lately. There are a ton of Coho salmon around and some hatchery steelhead are starting to show up. Bogachiel: The river had about 2 ft of vis, coming off a small bump the day before. This was Jeff’s and Kyle’s first time chasing salmon or steelhead. We found some nice silvers. There are still a lot of bright fish moving into the rivers out here. Pink and orange were the colors that were working good for us. The trick right now is to put your rig in front of as many fish as possible, which means posting up on a pile of fish sending a bunch of casts through them. That has been better than running and gunning all day. Hoh: The coho are still coming. I took Eric and John down to the Hoh to see if there was a good amount
There have been a lot of chinook and steelhead in the Klickitat lately. Norm and Jimmy came out from Pennsylvania for five days and had an epic trip. They were really out for the Fall chinook, but after their arms got tired of pulling on 15-30lb chinook they were glad that there were plenty of steelhead around. The weather was not quite salmon or steelhead weather, 60-80 degrees with bright sun. One morning we saw a black bear across the river. It just hung out for about 10 minutes, looking in the water and pacing up and down the bank. We were able to get some great pictures with the low light just coming over the canyon walls behind the bear. The amount of angling pressure on the Klickitat is more every year. But, there are a lot of fish in the system.
The past week has been pretty good fishing. We have been getting summer steelhead nymphing and on the swing. The steelhead have really been coming in the rivers and the little bit of rain we have been getting isn’t hurting at all. It will actually help to keep some of the fiberglass on the bottom of my boat.
