Spring Fishing is Looking UP, and a few anchoring tips...

The Yakima River is high throughout the system, but has good clarity and has fished pretty well the past few days!  Flows are up with releases from the reservoirs, so even though the level is high, the water coming out of the reservoirs has settled out and runs clear.  We've seen big numbers of Salmon flies, BWO's, March Browns, and a few early Caddis coming off.  Yesterday we had cloud cover and relative calm and enjoyed an hour of casting March browns at feeding fish.  Outside of the seeing fish eat, look to fish the "slow side of the slow seam" with a LARGE (size 4 or 6) Pat's Stonefly nymph and a Lightening bug or PT profile (Mayfly) nymph underneath of it.  The fish should be done spawning now and are in beautiful shape.  The Salmon fly emergence in the canyon usually coincides with the start of the Caddis hatch, so it's likely we're just a couple sunny days away from that busting loose!  We're looking forward to the best of the Spring fishing over the next 3 weeks! 

As for flows, we expect them to ratchet down over the next few weeks and settle in at our summertime levels around 4400 cfs.  That being said, be careful where you drop your anchor.  Sometimes we get excited when we see feeding fish and stomp the release before thinking about the current speed and potential hazards.  If you drop your anchor in too fast of water and it catches on a boulder or log and hangs up, you may lose your anchor or worse, fill your boat with water.  Also think about once dropping the anchor it's going to take some time to get it up and the boat under control again.  Don't drop it too close to a sweeper or above a blind channel, because it doesn't take long to move 100' in these flows.  Whether floating or wading, it's more productive to set up inside and fish out to the fish anyways, as it's really tough to get a slow natural drift across the big side of the seam.  Cast straight, set hard, and have fun!