:Mr Chubby"

June 16, 2014

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Upper Yakima River Canyon

Casting a marshmallow, okay it only looks like a marshmallow, into a 20 MPH wind, gusting to 30 MPH, is not my idea of optimum fly-fishing conditions. But as the saying goes, ?you take what the river gives you.? Sunday, the upper Yakima River from East Cle Elum (State) to Greenbridge (Thorpe) gave us everything we could handle ? howling winds, cool temps, a cottonwood seed hatch blanketing the water and several beautifully colored rainbows. With guide reports of spotting Drakes and Golden Stones on the upper stretch, our game plan was going with a dry/dropper and staying with it no matter what. No question the Chubby Chernobyl, a.k.a. the marshmallow, with tungsten, size 14 lightening bug or a pheasant tail tied 30 inches below, provided constant action from 10am to 2pm. With adult PMD?s hatching around 3pm (they were being blown around like dust devils), we axed the dropper and went to dry fly only. The results were solid in the afternoon. 7 rainbows, up to 19 inches, whacked the Chubby. Hats off, literally, to my two fishing buddies, Tim Forbes and Tony Zaran, for getting it done under really challenging conditions, and of course special thanks to ?Mr. Chubby.? By the way, we never hoisted a fish out of water nor took a photo. Quick release means quick recovery.

Great info Mike, and a day with those two is always a good time. Good work on the fish too, good to know they will be ready to bite for the next crew.
Mike Hamilton is being modest. He caught the biggest fish to net on foot and boat when I was on the oars. The conditions were very challenging keeping the boat in a fishing position with the winds. We saw very few rising fish and the Chubby did it's job. All the big fish were rainbows. We were the only boat we saw from State to Thorp. Fishing with dries was great. It's only going to get better!
Today had a size 8 stimulator and a size 16 flashback pheasant tail below it about 2'. Hooked up with several 18-22 inch fish in a tricky back eddy. Hooked about a 20'+ and just couldn't land him with the multiple currents, ended up breaking off my dropper. All together 5 fish on the dropper and 1 on the stimulator.