The Dog Days of Summer!

Summertime on the East side of the Cascades lends itself to a broad variety of fishing and recreation options.  The typical weather pattern we see in August consists of highs in the 90's with blue skies and lots of bright sunshine.  This lends itself to early mornings and late evenings providing the best dry fly fishing windows, and rafting the river or soaking in the pool being popular options to pass the heat of the day.

Outside of those low light periods, fishing on the Yakima can be a little tough due to the fact that the fish tuck under those grassy banks or go deep - meaning you need to fish VERY tight to the brush and grass or run nymphs deep to find success.  Those can be difficult techniques to master to find a few fish, and fish will become less active in the afternoons as water temperatures warm up (which is also a good time to give them a break).  There are other options that are not that far away that you might enjoy giving a try, too.  

The main one that I've experienced a couple of times recently - consists of spending the morning trout fishing on the Yakima, then heading East to do some Bass fishing.  Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass are very active through the heat of the summer, especially towards the end of August knowing that Fall is just around the corner and they need to start packing on some weight for the cold months ahead.  There are a number of good lake options in the Quincy Lakes area including Stan Coffin, Evergreen, Moses Lake, Potholes, as well as several smaller ones on the outskirts of Ellensburg.  I took my family camping at Hilltop lake (a private fee lake that we mange access to) last weekend.  Everyone was able to catch some nice Bass fishing poppers.  My kids are 15, 13, and 8, and fishing poppers for Bass - when it's good - is something that will capture the attention of even the hardest people to get focused, due to the tenacity that they eat a popper with!  When was the last time your teenagers were content being this close to each other without sharing a phone screen?

We've got another couple weeks of warm weather before the kids are back in school and then we're into the best 2 months of fishing of the entire year!  That means there is plenty of time left to bring your family over to share some quality oudoor time.  This fish Eric caught a couple days ago is a dandy!