About the Author

Joe Rotter

Joe is the "blogger in chief" here at Red's in addition to being our guide service manager and partner here at Red's. He is a father of 3 spunky children his wife Kelly can only be found fishing when the temperature gets above 85 degrees and the fish are gobbling up dry flies.

In addition to being a fly fishing junkie, Joe is a hard core bowhunter, is a volunteer Hunter's Eductation Instructor, and loves riding horses with his kiddos. Joe still guides a small part of the time but spends most of his time working on web marketing, travel, and helping customers find the right tools and information for the job.

This week... is YOUR WEEK! and... some Little Guides

November 6, 2014

The forecast is looking good for this next week, in fact, the next 10 days are forecast to be very reasonable weather with night-time temps in Central Washington only dipping a bit below freezing at night later this month. The fishing has been good, you will have to filter through our shameless sales pitches before you get to see what flies we have been using though. Anyone can afford the Yakima River Guide Trip we are offering! It is about half the price of a decent Seahawks ticket.

The Klickitat River is back in near perfect condition, but the Wenatchee and Methow River are still in rough shape, think about those closer to Thanksgiving time. More on those when they clean up.

I am going to twist your arm a bit and tell you to get out here, and go fishing. We don't push very often but time is running out. The winter comes hard, and fast here so you'll wish you had wader'd up come December. Plus it would be silly not take advantage of the Go-Vember Overnight Specials that we have running through November 30th! Our guide staff needs to squirrel away a little cash for Christmas time so don't be afraid to help them out while getting a great deal on a float trip. Think of it is as doing something nice for somebody else :)

One Day, One Night at Canyon River Ranch - $225 per person

This is our "Go-Vember Special" and you need to take advantage of this. Single day Yakima River Guided Trip is $299 per boat (1 or 2 anglers - no lodge stay).

Canyon River Grill is open for dinner, Thursday - Saturday nights! Try to book your group so that you can enjoy an amazing dinner at our on-site restaurant!

One Day, One Night Trip Details:

Full Day Fishing - $225 per person, based on double occupancy.
Guided Pheasant Hunting Cast 'n Blast - $499 per person, based on double occupancy.
Sporting Clays Cast 'n Blast, $275 per person.
October 15th - November 30th
Includes one night at Canyon River Ranch Lodge
5 hours guided fly fishing on the Yakima River w/ lunch, flies, rods, and tackle
Waders are available to rent
Nightly stay can be before OR after your day of guided fishing
Does not include dinner or breakfast service
Includes guide's vehicle shuttle service
11 am - 4 pm - approximate fishing time.
Please check the Canyon River Grill's winter hours

Klickitat River Steelhead Lodge Dates Remaining

Chinook season is now closed and with it goes much of the fishing pressure that haunts the months of September and October. There are still some die hard anglers (like you for example) that want to chase Steelhead with some serenity. After the massive rains that occurred last week the river has recently dropped back into GREAT shape and the fishing is good, very good at the moment. We have some space remaining in our lodge operation and we encourage you to consider a spontaneous trip. If all you can do is a single day trip and a quick overnight at a Motel, that is fine too. We just want to take you fishing.

Call (509) 933-2300 for Reservations!

November 8th - 9th - 4 Anglers
November 10th - 14th - 2 Anglers
November 17th - 23rd - 6 Anglers

Cost for Multi-Day Klickitat River Adventures:

2 Days, 2 Nights - $945 per angler.

3 Days, 3 Nights - $1345 per angler.

4 Days, 4 Nights - $1745 per angler.

5 Days, 5 Nights - $2145 per angler.

Prices based on Double Occupancy (an even number of anglers).

Single Angler Rates:

2 Days, 2 Nights - $1355 per angler.

3 Days, 3 Nights - $2255 per angler.

4 Days, 4 Nights - $3055 per angler.

5 Days, 5 Nights - $3855 per angler.

*the Mt. Adams Lodge is first class! It is a beautiful old timber framed lodge built in 1945, the staff is wonderful and the food is amazing. You will have a great trip!

Yakima River Fishing Report

The river is back in great shape after it swelled up and went stale on Saturday. Thursday of last week was as good as it gets streamer wise, but the rain showed up and put us in a lull. By Tuesday however the nymph fishing got nearly silly again and the streamer fishing softened up. Things were on again today as I found out by fishing for 45 minutes at Ringer Road with my 7 and 5 year old sons after school.

We have been doing a lot of "micro spey" work with light spey rods and switch rods swinging flies in a traditional manner. Some days it is very productive from a fish count standpoint while other days it is fairly slow. Either way, the anglers that are interested are learning to spey fish and swing flies while trout fishing where the leaning curve is much more forgiving. The casts are a bit shorter, the fish are more ample, and you get enough takes to build some true spey skill that you can take to the next level. Check back in the next 48 hours for a blog post designated strictly to this.

On Tuesday the nymph fishing was really good. The streamer fishing was slower, although we did hook several very nice trout. A couple right in front of the shop and lodge. How convenient is this? You can EAT, SLEEP, SHOP, and, FLY FISH all at Red's!

We won't claim to be setting any new IGFA records in front of the shop, but we catch some chunky little wild rainbows with an occasional slab mixed in. Good fun, plenty of fish most of the time.

Having a dad that is a fishing guide sounds pretty awesome, but much of the time dad works such weird hours that he can't be there for the regular stuff. As the fishing season comes to a close time with family becomes more obtainable. After fighting off a flu bug for the last 24 hours I decided to work a short day in the shop and pick my 7 and 5 year old boys up from school and surprise them with a quick float trip. We fished for about an hour and had a ridiculous amount of fun. So much happened that blew it my mind in that hour I couldn't even begin to list it all.

They dove right into the pop-cooler and started guzzling Sprite before I could stop them, it was pretty much a mutiny situation after that. My 5 year old was all jacked up on sugar and set the hook into a 4" Chinook smolt and landed it IN the boat on his hook set. The next fish he got on the line was a 12" Rainbow and since the "heave it in the boat with one yank" trick worked with the little fish, while he was reeling in he was also yanking on it like he was starting a chainsaw. It was only when I asked him "what are you DOING son?", he was out of breath from reeling and yanking but managed to grunt a reply ... "trying to get the fish to fly into the boat again DAD!". Silly me, I guess it worked on the first fish so why not the second.

My 7 year old son, just lost his first front tooth. He doesn't look like a fly fisherman in this picture haha.

And finally, my older son that all he wants to be is a guide won't quit fishing even after I took the boat out. He walked back upstream to stand on this rock and fish till dark. I let him cast and cast with a tangled line and everything. It was all the restraint I had not to stop him and re-tie but by that point it would have broke his heart for him to know that he had been tangled up for 20 minutes straight while I was taking the boat out. Best not to tell him.

On the way home I thought it was so cool that the boys brought sticks in the backseat of the truck with them and started stripping the branches off. I was willing to tolerate them messing up my nice clean truck, especially since they were taking such great care in what they were doing. I could only assume they were crafting their own fly rods. That was until I asked them and discovered they were actually planning a sword fight. :)

Boys are just younger versions of ourselves. Go fish. Adults are allowed to act like this once in a while too, I see it all the time with our best customers. I think we all wish we could totally let go like this every now and then and drop all the other baggage of the world behind. Did I just describe exactly why most of us fly fish?

Now for my boys to get totally trumped in the cute department, one of our guides took his 9 year old niece out and she landed this Steelhead on the Klickitat! I don't know how he did it, but Brian Williams wins Superguide of the Year award. He said she listened, focused, and totally got the drift and did it all herself. No joke. Amazing. Super Fishy Chica!!! I couldn't show this to my boys, they would be sick. My little one is still stoked about 4" Chinook smolt and I have no problem with that.

Superguide BTW with his 9 Year Old Niece's Steelhead

This fish was caught today on the Klickitat.. along with a few others. :) Its back in great shape. Call (509) 933-2300 to make a reservation.

The smiles say it all!
Where should I look here on Red's to find the latest list of flies that are working? I can't find that info anymore. . .
Tim, try the right margin of the main blog page and there is a long list of hyperlinked flies that are current for the fall.
Joe, glad to see that your boys don't have the same aversion to fishing in cooler weather that your wife has!!! Enjoy these posts.
Hey, there is that fishing fireman!, how did that kid catch a bigger steel head than mine? I know she wasn't screaming like a girl like I was ....or was she ? Good times , great memories!!