Red's Fly Shop | Power Hour Fishing Report - Yakima River Fly Fishing Report

Red's Power Hour Fishing Report
October - December 2002

The Power Hour Fishing Report is brought to you exclusively by Red's. The content of this report is not the generic "fishing has been good in the morning, and afternoons, and later in the evenings, too." Rather, when we go fishing, we will analyze one session and report the day, time, location, fly, number of fish caught, species, and size (if we caught any). We'll also write up the method we used. Keep in mind that the fishing report is based on a prior day's fishing and weather conditions.

The weather yesterday stayed cooler with a light freezing rain coming down for most of the day. The water temperature was 39 degrees, and conditions were calm all day long. The snow from the past four days is continuing to melt, which bumped the flows up slightly to 809 cfs, but visibility has remained excellent. Today (12/29) is a beautiful clear and sunny day with conditions looking very favorable. Nymph and streamer fishing are still the best options, but keep your eyes open for midge-sipping rainbows on these warmer days.

We had a bit of a cold snap move into the Yakima Valley over the holiday, which lowered water temperatures considerably. The water temperature was 38 degrees yesterday, and as a result, the fish were not very active. Things are warming up a bit this morning, but until the water gets back up to about 40, the fishing may be a little tough. The best options are a slowly retrieved or even dead drifted streamer; or just fishing the riffles with a standard nymph rig. We got about 2 inches of snow on Christmas Eve, that is slowly disappearing. It's hard to describe how pretty the canyon is with a fresh blanket of snow covering the hills... I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday.

It was a pretty productive day overall on the streamer fishing. The water temperature was still hovering around 41 degrees, and the fish were pretty willing to "chase" the big flies. We saw more fish come to the fly when we were using a faster retrieve, which is somewhat atypical for this time of the year. The rate of retrieve is something that you want to play around with each day when you are streamer fishing in cold water conditions. When the water temperature hits a certain level (usually sub 40 degrees), the metabolism of those trout slows down significantly, and they are less apt to move for a fast moving bug.

Results: (1) 12" Whitefish landed, another close, and (1) 13-14" Rainbow got off at my feet

I didn't get out fishing until a little later than I had hoped, but it seemed like fish were fairly active. The weather yesterday was absolutely fantastic. The river is in good shape and the water temperature yesterday was 41 degrees. Some people don't appreciate Whitefish, but the thing to keep in mind is that presentation must be flawless in order to get a Whitefish to eat, so if you're catching Whities, you're definitely doing things correctly! Yeah, I know, it's my story - I'll tell it how I like! Now seriously, Whitefish are a sign of a healthy river system, and I'd always choose to catch a Whitefish over nothing at all.

After the river ballooned up to 1300 cfs two days ago, it's now back down to 990 cfs and still dropping with visibility back up to 3-4 feet. Fishing a dropping river can be very productive. The weather has cooled down a bit; but we don't have any snow, and it's still above freezing, so you don't have to worry about your guides icing up! We'll have a fishing report posted for you tomorrow.

No fishing - just a status report. As of 8:30 this morning, the river has swelled to 1215 cfs at Umtanum (and still rising), and visibility at our place is down to approximately 12". It has been raining hard since Friday afternoon, and it will take a couple of days to get things back in shape. I better get down and fertilize in the campground ... talk about strange winter weather!

I started fishing the streamer and landed (2) nice fish in the first ten minutes. After about twenty more minutes of non activity, I switched up to the nymph rig and immediately started catching fish again. Don't be afraid to focus your nymph fishing on the middle of the river riffles instead of the pocket water near the edges. I didn't see any fish on the surface in this particular section, but driving up and down the road today I saw that there were fish feeding in certain spots. The weather started out beautiful this morning and finished with some rain and cooler temperatures but most importantly, the wind stayed away. The forecast calls for clouds Saturday and Sunday with a chance of rain both days.

These last two days have been some of the better midge fishing I've seen this year. The fish have been feeding in that characteristic flat, smooth water starting early in the morning and continuing all day long. I have fished this same type of water many times, and have come away skunked many times; however, yesterday just happened to be one of those days when it seemed like the fish weren't as finicky. Once in a while you win, and the thing to keep in mind is that if it weren't for all of those tough days we've had in the past, we wouldn't appreciate those truly special ones! I will be leaving for MT this afternoon. I will not be back until December 10th. The shop will be open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until I return. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I took the day off yesterday and went bow hunting. We saw two groups of elk and a few deer, but were not able to get close enough for a shot. The weather this fall continues to amaze me - yesterday we were in short sleeves at 6000 feet in elevation. The fishing the past few days has slowed down a bit. Nymph and streamer fishing are the best options, with a little bit of midging in some spots. It did cool down enough last night to leave us a frost, but the weather for today looks like we're in store for a bluebird day.

I will be heading back to Montana next Wednesday for my wedding. The shop will be open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in my absence and closed: Nov 27 (Wed.), Nov 28 (Th.), Dec 2-5 (Mon.-Th.), and Dec. 9 (Mon.). I'll be back on December 10 (Tues.).

The weather yesterday afternoon was just too nice to be in the boat, and the shop dog, Fidget, needed some exercise, so we took the gun for a walk. It was Fidget's first formal bird hunt, and it definitely won't be the last. It seems like most of the time when you hunt with a dog, you may walk 2-3 miles and the dog goes about 6 - not the case with Fidget. She stayed close to me until the going got a little tough. She'd wait until I picked my path to where I was going, and then she'd bee-line it straight to me with a big smile on her face ready for a drink of water. She's a great companion in the shop or on the trail. I talked to 2 boats who came in from fishing yesterday and both said it was a slower day. Neither boat saw anything feeding on the surface, and nymph fishing was slow until about 2:30 pm. They didn't fish streamers, which is not a bad option with the current water temperature of 41 degrees.

Flies: sz. 16 Parachute Adams, sz. 20 Black Midge, sz. 10 20"er stonefly nymph, sz. 16 Red Copper John, sz. 20 Brassie

Well...the fishing should have been better than it was. For dry fly activity, we saw (2) fish feeding consistently, The first, I was unable to get to eat, and the other one was caught by Greg. Other than that, we fished nymphs and we fished them hard. The water temperature was 43 degrees yesterday, which is definitely favorable for the fishing. The weather conditions look good for the next few days, and then the forecast calls for things to cool down a bit.

Flies: sz. 8 Black Attack streamer, sz. 18 Parachute BWO, sz. 22 Black Midge, sz. 18 Grey Baetis Emerger

We had a hatch right after we put on where there were fish up for about 20 minutes. We hooked a couple of nice fish on dries, but didn't land either of them. Tony also hooked a big fish on a streamer that we lost. I did see the big fish from a couple of days ago ( I saw him feed twice) - with the same results as a couple of days ago - he'll be feeding there the next time down, too! Anyways, I enjoyed streamer fishing yesterday. I set up a new reel with a 5' mini tip that casts really well. It's definitely a different feel than throwing these small dries like we've been doing for the last month.

Flies: sz. 16 BWO Sparkle Dun w/ a sz. 20 Beaded Brassie trailer (approx. 14" behind)

Conditions yesterday were excellent. We had a little cloud cover, 53 degrees, and no wind. I may have been a little late yesterday, but I did not see a whole lot of surface activity where I was at. Driving up and down the river, I did see fish working in other spots throughout the day. It seems like the fish are working pretty hard on midge early, and then in some spots they will turn to Baetis in the afternoon. Water temperatures are good (42 degrees yesterday), and the fish are pretty active on nymphs. As the BWO activity declines, we will be devoting more time to streamer fishing.

I found two good pods of sippers. All of the fish I landed were on the Baetis and Emergers. Overall, I would say that the fishing was as technical as I've seen it this year. A drag in presentation not only resulted in no takes, but it also put the fish down. When this happened (and it happened several times), I would sit down, change flies, and wait for them come back up again. I worked on one nice fish off and on throughout the hour and never did get a hook into him - I'll try him again next time. We're getting a light sprinkle this morning at the shop, the temperature reads 43 degrees this morning, and it's calm. The stars may be aligning for a prolific day on BWO's.

Flies: sz. 16 BWO Comparadun, sz. 16 Grey CDC Emerger, sz. 16 Tan CDC Emerger, sz. 20 Cream Midge

We may have been a little late yesterday on the catching the hatch. Our most productive window was from 3:00 until 3:30 where we had a pod of 10-15 fish working. After that we picked off a few singles that were not feeding very consistently. It is currently cloudy and we even had a few drops of rain this morning. The air temperature is 38 degrees at our shop, and it is a little breezy this morning. Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same weather, which is not bad for the Baetis fishing if the wind doesn't blow too bad. The best time to be on the water is from about 1:30 until 3:30. These fish may have started a little earlier yesterday with the favorable weather conditions.

The weather warmed up yesterday, the clouds rolled in, and the wind stayed away. All factors combined made for a very productive afternoon session of fishing. The evening low last night stayed around 30 degrees and we should see things stabilize here for 4 or 5 more days. We did well fishing the Baetis patterns still, but I have talked to other guys who have been switching over to some midge patterns and doing well with them, too. When the fish are feeding like they were yesterday, just give them a drag free drift and you'll catch them!

Flies: A wide variety of nymphs in sizes 16 - 20, and then a sz. 18 BWO and a sz. 16 Baetis Emerger

We fished nymphs intensely from 11:00 am until 2:00 pm and it was about 1:30 pm before we hooked our first fish. After that, things picked up and we did find good pods of feeding fish from 2:45 until 4:00pm. The temperature two nights ago was back down to 10 degrees (too cold!). The water temps. just needed to warm up a bit yesterday for those fish to start feeding. Last night only got down to 20 degrees, and things are warming up nicely today - we should see a high of about 50, so I expect the fishing to pick back up again. Looking at the extended forecast, we have some higher daytime and evening temperatures with cloud cover predicted. I'm still hopeful that we have some of the best BWO fishing of the Fall ahead of us...

Flies: sz. 16 Olive Hares Ear, sz. 16 Olive Troutmaster nymphs; sz. 16 Parachute BWO, sz. 16 Grey Baetis Emerger dries

The fishing did not really turn on until about 1:00 in the afternoon yesterday. Tyler and Jason had floated before us and did not have much action at all. The dry fly window yesterday went from 2:45 until 3:30 pm with fish up on BWO Emergers and some Midge. The evening temp last night was down to 10 degrees, so I would expect the fishing pattern today to be similar to yesterday.

I went to the flat at Lmuma with hopes of hitting the BWO hatch in full force, but it didn't come off very strong in that particular area. I may have been a little late, or the water may still be a little cold (nightly lows have been 15 and 10 degrees the last two nights). Anyways, when I got to the flat, I sat down and watched for about 20 minutes before I even made a cast. Those two fish were the only ones that were coming up at all, and I saw each of them rise 2 or 3 times. The first fish took me about five minutes to finally stick, and the second one ate the fly on the first pass. There were deer and sheep all up and down the canyon yesterday. The weather is supposed to warm up a bit this weekend, and the forecast looks like some nice sunny days.

The fish were looking for the BWO's, even though the gusty wind probably kept a lot of bugs from taking flight. For the most part, we were casting to sporadic feeders or just fishing likely spots; however, we did have several short 5 minute intervals where pods of fish would feed more consistently. Today (Tuesday) is supposed to be a windy day and we currently have a little cloud cover, and then the rest of the week looks like it will be fairly nice weather. Even a short 1-2 hour wade fishing session this time of year can make for a very enjoyable and productive get away.

Worley Bugger Fly Company is hosting their 5th Annual Yakima River Clean Up next Saturday (November 2nd). Anyone who can make it is invited and all participation is appreciated. Grab your boat, if you have one, and head on over! If you don't have a boat, you'll be paired up with someone who does. Participants will be divided into floats covering Irene to Roza Dam. An appreciation BBQ will be held following the event. For registration and meeting details contact Worley Bugger Fly Company at 509-962-2033 or get on their website at worleybuggerflyco.com This is a great program that we all benefit from. Red's Fly Shop will be donating shuttle service, rental boats, and man power to the cause.

Yesterday was a cloudy day out here and I thought it would be a great opportunity to float the lower end and see if we could get on some pods of bigger fish that one occasionally sees down there. Well, we didn't.... We only saw one pod of 3-4 fish up the whole day. Bug activity in general was not nearly as prevalent on the lower end as it has been throughout the rest of the canyon. I'm certainly not saying fishing is not good down there - Roza has taken on a completely different look with the current water conditions. Roza Dam is pretty much passing through all of the water that's coming down, so it now looks like a river, all the way to the dam. There are a lot of nice riffles and banks that look like pretty good holding water for nymphing and are even well set up for fishing streamers. There's a good chance that those fish down there have not been fished to all year, and our dry fly tactics yesterday didn't change that aspect of it. We'll be trying them again sometime soon.

I would say that yesterday was probably the best rise of the Fall, so far. We fished to likely spots until about 2:00, and then we had sippers almost until we took off at 6:00. The fish are drag sensitive, but for the most part, if you get the fly over them, they'll eat it. Sunday is currently forecast as the only cloudy day we'll get in the next week, and the predicted cool evening temperatures are definitely favorable for the BWO's. Current flow rates are running 1052 cfs, so the float time is approximately 1.5 miles per hour. A 6 to 8 mile day should be plenty of water to bite off, especially if you're sitting on a pod of sippers!

Flies: sz. 16 Lightening Bug and sz. 18 Flashabou (Nymphs), sz. 16 Parachute BWO and sz. 16 Grey CDC Baetis Emerger (dries)

The evening temperatures cooled down again, which brought the water temperatures back down again, which brought the BWO's and fish back up again. Last night and the night before we had temps. down in the twenties. The fish were podded up and on the surface pretty good from about 2:00pm until 4:00pm. Outside of that time frame, we fished nymphs in the morning and pitched streamers for a bit in the evening. The nymph fishing session was steady after about 11:00 am, but we didn't do anything on streamers. When fishing dries to feeding fish, the best angle you can give yourself is to get in position about 45 degrees upstream from the sipper. You want to land your cast 2-3 feet upriver of the fish and mend your fly immediately when it hits the water. Do not ever touch your fly when it's in the "fish zone." Even if it's dragging, let it drag past the fish and then pick it up and recast. If you spook the fish or splash a cast down on top of the fish, the best thing to do is to quit casting and wait until the fish feeds again. This style of match the hatch dry fly fishing to sippers is arguably the most technical and, for most, the most rewarding.

Once again, the BWO hatch did not come off over the weekend like it had been during the middle of the week last week. I really believe that between Friday and Saturday it just warmed up (76 and 74 degree air temps) too much out here for the BWO's. We still brought plenty of fish up fishing the small dries to likely spots, but the opportunity and challenge of targeting specific feeding fish and and going after them did not present itself much over the weekend. On the brighter side - with this warmer fall weather, the best of the Fall as far as October Caddis and BWO's is still ahead! The nymph fishing, although we only did it for a few runs was productive through the weekend. The key on the nymph fishing is go small and add split shot.

Although the catching was still pretty good yesterday, there was definitely less surface activity than there had been the previous week. That can be attributed to much warmer water and air temps yesterday. We did pretty well fishing dries to likely spots, but like I said we didn't see many fish rising on naturals. The best dry fly activity actually took place during the last hour of daylight. Today is supposed to be cloudy, which will definitely help the BWO activity.

Once again, we weren't able to get out in the peak BWO activity period, which has been starting about 2:00 pm and lasting until the shade starts to hit the water about 5:00 pm. Yesterday was another bright sunny day, calm, with very comfortable temperatures in the high 60's. Today is supposed to be the same and tomorrow (Saturday)- we are possibly looking at some cloud cover! Reports yesterday are the same as they have been all week - fish up on BWO's and good success by just about everyone out there! The Big Horn sheep have been hanging out everyday on the bare hillside North of the Rock Garden (Mile Post #'s 19 & 20). Two days ago there were 43 of them scattered across the ridge. The rams are now starting to separate the ewes into smaller groups and we'll be hearing the crashing of horns echoing through the canyon soon.

We were a little too late for the main part of the BWO hatch, which was good again yesterday. There are places on the river where the fish will continue to feed on the surface more towards dark, but the area we were fishing gets a pretty early shade. We had good reports from anglers who were fishing some soft hackle Pheasant Tails (sz. 14) prior to the BWO emergence yesterday. Areas on the river that we have seen particularly heavy BWO activity have been the Rock Garden, the slick below the Rock Garden, the flat above Umtanum Bridge, the pasture above Lmuma, and the Miracle Mile above the Slab. The weather has been beautiful, and looks like it will stay like that through the week.

Well, despite the bright sunny days we've been having, the Yakima River Rainbows have podded up to begin their Fall assault on the Blue Winged Olives. We started seeing podded fish yesterday at about 3:00 pm and it continued until we took off at a little after 6:00 pm. Prior to that time frame we fished small dries on the move and had enough success to keep things interesting. Nymph fishing may be a more productive option up until that time frame, but we didn't explore that. The early part of this hatch, like all hatches, is a lot of fun because the fish are not as color, size, and even drag sensitive as they will be in a few weeks after they get stung a few times. Cloudy days will get the hatch going a little earlier than the bright sunny days, and the windless aspect, or at least tolerable levels of wind are essential. Yesterday we had a series of events that I still can't quite believe took place. We were coming down the right side of the river at the boat ramp in front of the Slab, and I'd moved us far right to go around a boat that was anchored in the middle of the river. Two more boats were coming down the river left side to the takeout and there were a couple more at the ramp. About the time we got even with the boat in the middle of the river, Rita flipped her fly into some pretty atypical trout water and a big fish came up and grabbed her bug. So we got past the boats and I dropped anchor to net the fish, which I stood up and did; however, at the same time my anchor released and the boat turned sideways. One of my oars caught a rock and went launching down river. Being that I did not have my spare oar with me yesterday, I immediately handed the netted fish to Bill and bailed in after it. I retrieved the oar about 20 yards down stream and brought it back to the boat where Bill had been doing a good job of keeping the fish upright and in the water, and we safely released it. After we pulled up and were on our way again, Bill picked up his rod to resume fishing and discovered that it had been broken in half during the melee. I did have a spare rod along, so we strung it up and finished the evening with with a few more nice fish and no further glitches. There are two morals to this story: Always carry a spare oar in your boat and always carry a spare rod, as well. Losing either one can end your day of fishing prematurely and losing an oar could be dangerous.

Well, yesterday morning looked pretty promising: the cloud cover was good, things were calm...until about 10:30 - and then the wind came up and blew the clouds away. There were still a lot of bugs taking flight yesterday and there seemed to be sporadic surface feeding going on throughout the day up and down the river. Although we've seen a few places where fish have podded up to begin the Fall smorgasboard, we're still a little early for the main event. We had our first frost of the year last night - that may help move things along.

Flies: sz. 16 BWO, sz. 16 Parachute Adams, sz. 16 Baetis Emerger, October Caddis patterns (Phat Fly, Stimulators, etc... in evening)

I returned from a great BC trip on Tuesday, and it looks like my timing was just right. The fish are definitely starting to key on the Baetis. Yesterday was a bright sunny day with temps topping out at 82 degrees, and the fish were looking for Baetis. We fished small dries for most of the day, and then switched over to some bigger October Caddis patterns in the evening. The evening session was not as productive yesterday as it has been, probably because of the evening breeze that kicked up and blew the bugs away. We got into a lot of smolt yesterday and it's hard to stick with the small dry flies when that's happening. It's tempting to fall into the pattern of big fly big fish, but don't do it - not with the BWO's! Big fish are out there looking up for those little bugs, and it's your job to find them and get their heads above the water. Today is much cooler with some nice cloud cover - if the wind stays down, today could mark the start of the Fall BWO season on the Yakima River.

Flies: Orange Bugmeister, Orange Phat Fly, Orange Chernobyl, and Silver Lightning Bug

While waiting for a boat to roll into the Slab Rod thought it would be a good idea to grab his rod and throw a few bugs out. The results were two good size fish, 18" being the biggest. The Orange Bugmeister with a Silver Lightning Bug dropper proved to be the best bet. The first fish, being in the 16" range, hit the Lightning Bug after about 20 minutes of fishing. The second fish caught right after the sun went down. Aside from that the fishing has been pretty decent. Small dries like the PMD's, Sparkle Dun, and some Baetis patterns have been working really well according to many fisherman on the river. There have been slow periods in the day, but always starting back up again in the evening. Today (10/5) is looking like a great day to be on the river, good luck!

It was a tough day of fishing. The weather reported wind gust up to 40 mph, making it very hard to get your fly in the right spot. The fish caught today were in the color change, and slower moving water. Fish were rising, but it was really difficult to get to them with the harsh wind. Props go out to all the wade fishermen toughing it out today. Lets hope for little calmer conditions tomorrow!