Metolius River (Upper), OR

Back-to-back weekends on this river! My life sucks! The original plan was to spend the whole week in Central Oregon but work had other plans. My family was staying at Eagle Crest Resort in Redmond, OR so I couldn't resist stopping by to fish a couple hours on the way home. Hit the holes I know and see what I could do. I caught a rainbow this time so that makes a trip!

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Summary:
Location: Metolius River, Camp Sherman, OR, located about 100 miles (2 hrs) east of Salem, and 20 min from Sisters, OR
Time: 9am - 7pm
Rod: 5 wt w/ floating line, 5 wt w/ sinking tip
Tackle: 8 black stone nymph, 18 rainbow warrior, 18 zebra midge, 18 copper john hybrid, 10 Clark Stone, 10 Rogue Stone
Fish:2
Species: White Fish & Rainbow
Biggest Fish: 12"
Smallest Fish: 11"
Rating: 9/10

Metolius River (Upper), OR

The river I fish the most. People may think I'm crazy or others just recognize the peer love I have for this place. My buddy and I needed a fixing and so down I drove meeting him in Portland. If I haven't said it before there is nothing easy about fishing this river. With time, patience, and a bit of luck you will have success though. I have fished this river since I could hold a fly rod in my hand. I've fished it when it was stocked and have continued to fish it since it became a protected river. What makes this river great is not only the reward of catching possibly one of the hardest fish to catch, but the scenery, smells, and locals that complete the experience. I know of few places you can catch a red-band rainbow trout, German brown, brown, rainbow trout, white fish, kokanee, brook trout, or dolley/bull trout all on the same river. Enfisizing the German brown and red-band rainbow. Two of the most unique and beautiful fish you will ever catch.With that said this would be one of those trips I caught only white fish!

Read this for more info.

Summary:
Location: Metolius River, Camp Sherman, OR, located about 100 miles (2 hrs) east of Salem, and 20 min from Sisters, OR
Time: 9am - 7pm
Rod: 5 wt w/ floating line, 5 wt w/ sinking tip
Tackle: 8 black stone nymph, 18 rainbow warrior, 18 zebra midge, 18 copper john hybrid, 10 Clark Stone, 10 Rogue Stone, 8 black and brown Pat's Stone, 16 lighting bug, 18 rainbow warrior
Fish: 4
Species: White Fish
Biggest Fish: 14"
Smallest Fish: 13"
Rating: 8/10

 No trout so you get Puppies!

Taneum Creek, WA

As where many of my trips this summer, I wanted to find new places to fish and new places to explore. On gazetteer this river had been marked as a place you could fish and I drove by it several times on my way to the Yakima or somewhere out east. It came to the point where I wanted to finally check it out. A little bit tricky to get to but well worth the trip. This has already been marked as a place to return next summer. Besides fishing, I also learned this area provides great mountain biking, hiking, and dirt biking as well. Never being here before my friend and I got to the river and just started heading up. Checked out the campground and kept it on our list as a place to come back to. It was dark mind you when we pulled in, sometime near 10pm, typical to most of the times we had showed up to camp on Fridays before. There were signs for other places and we kept treking. We ended up at Elk Meadow, there is no designated place to camp, a large field (later we discovered it was the weekend of a meteor shower), seclusion, and we were relatively close to one of the forks of the river.
The next day we discovered how small the river was, at least for that time of the year. There wasn't much opportunity to fish but the couple pockets we found had one or two little guys in each. We made are way back down river to where the two forks meet. Here a bridge crossed the road and the river doubled in size but still remained less than 20 or 30 feet across. There were however many deeper pools and much more opportunity to fish although still very limited. Fishing each one, climbing through a few log jams to get to the next, and walking down to another campground we had a fun an relatively successful day on the river. This fish were not picky and so anything that was small and floated worked well.

Summary:
Location: Taneum River, near Thorpe, WA off I-90 west of Ellensburg.
Time: All day
Rod: 5 wt floating line
Tackle: Elk hair caddis, purple and traditional parachute adams, misquitos, and multiple other little duns and caddis'
Fish: 10+
Species: Rainbow and Cutt Throat
Biggest Fish:10"
Smallest Fish: 4"
Rating: 7.5/10

 The Meadow

 Caught the biggest fish under there!

 Buddies Best Catch!

Foss River Lakes, WA

In my years at college I had heard that hiking the Alpine Lake Wilderness between Stevens and Snoqualmie Pass can produce so great Alpine Lake fishing. Also in my years of college it had been talked and talked about going back packing. I had scouted this trip out a long time ago know that in a 7.5 mile (one way) hike I would pass 5 fish-able lakes. I did my research too and confirmed that many of these lake if not all at one point had been backpack planted with fry and would have many fish in them.So then, one fine Friday afternoon a friend and I headed out after work to go see what this hike was all about. Set back after set back put us in the parking lot sometime near 8pm. Knowing that we wanted to set up base camp at the third lake (Copper) and with a reasonable climb ahead we set off. In hindsight, I would say this was terrible because the moon was bright and the weather was much cooler than the hot days. However, I would not be wise to recommend it either. Needless to say we made it otherwise I wouldn't be writing this blog!
The second day we did a quick hike over to Malachite were I fished for a half hour or so, running into a man camping alone. Then, we ventured back to Copper to fish for a little and a day hike up to Big Heart. On the way we stopped, swam, played and fished at little. Finally we moved onto Big Heart where I got in my float tube and drifted around for twenty minutes before we had to turn around and return to camp.
Trout Lake:
Great lake and 1.5 miles in offers a great day hike but I never got to fish it.
Malachite:
Often overlooked was the only lake I hooked and landed a fish. It was a spawning cutt throat, as much as I wanted to get a picture the man who was trying to take it couldn't figure my camera out, and I wanted to let it go before I disrupted her spawning. She was gorgeous though!
Copper Lake:
Best lake to camp at, was very beautiful and had lots of fish. Wish I had spent time fishing in the evening when the hatch was on and the fish were feeding. I fished only in the day with a spinner. This fish would bite my gold swivel but never the hook.
Little Heart Lake:
No sign of fish but a nice place to play in the snow.
Big Heart Lake:
Crazy beautiful but again no sign of fish.

Go here to read more about the hike.

Summary:
Location: Alpine Lake Wilderness
Time: All day
Rod: 5 wt w/ sinking tip & light weight spinner
Tackle: Brown wolley bugger, black wolley bugger, casey special and a chartreuse with black speckle dick nite.
Fish:1
Species: Cutt Throat
Biggest Fish:12"
Smallest Fish: 12"
Rating: 9/10

 Big Heart Lake

 West Fork Foss River

 Delta Lake

 Copper Lake

 Copper Lake

 West Fork Foss River

Copper Lake

Little Heart Lake

Pyramid Creek, WA

My buddy and I wanted to go shoot some guns so we headed up to the national forest land off the 410 out of Enumclaw. What we were told is to go up FR-70 and there would be plenty of places to shoot. We also packed our rods along in case we saw anywhere good to fish.Checking the regulations we were not to fish the Green River below the lakes but we could fish many of it's tributaries, one of which was relatively close to where we went shooting. The creek is very small and we didn't expect much except for maybe some small fish. That was exactly what we caught. An abundance of small fish. It was fun and the weather was great. The growth along with the small creek presented some challenging cast as well.

Summary:
Location: Pyramid Creek, tributary to Greenwater River off of FR 70 off Highway 410.
Time: 3pm - 5pm
Rod: 5 wt w/ floating line
Tackle:  14 tan/brown elk hair caddis, 16 parachute adams, & 12 stone-stimulator
Fish:20+
Species: Rainbow & Cutts
Biggest Fish: 10"
Smallest Fish: 3"
Rating: 7/10

Cedar River, WA

A friend approached me, via email and text, asking if I would want to spend a day working with Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing. What they are about, "dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military service personnel and disabled veterans through fly fishing and associated activities including education and outings." Personally as this blog suggest, I love to share my joy of fly fishing with others and if you're going to give me the opportunity to give back to the men and women who have given so much for me through what I love most, you really didn't have to ask. Needless to say I was honored and excited to spend a day on the water with some veterans and service members. What I didn't know is the life changing experience it was going to be. Below pictured with me is Randle, a veteran, with a son that served as well. I have never spent a long time teaching or fishing with a stranger before but I can tell you I enjoyed fishing with Randle more than most people I have fished with in my life. He had great stories to tell, had a great sense of humor, and loved to be on the water. The stories he told me touched my heart and I would love to share them except that I want to keep his personal and private matters that.

Anyways back to the fishing part! We had two residents of the area let us use their property. The first one where we BBQ'd had a few great holes. Unfortunately Randle and I got the short end of the stick maybe or just bad luck but we didn't catch anything. What this did lead to however was getting invited to the second property and probably the best fishing hole on the river. This is also where I was taught that although it seams like a 12" fish on this river is a lunker, you haven't caught squat unless its over 20". The gentleman who owned this property tells me the biggest he has caught was 24" and when some marine biologist swam through the spotted several of that size in the hole next to his house. He showed me a home tied 3" olive sculpin he likes to fish with.I gave it a try and had no luck. However, fishing a koffman stone and a copper john dropper I did land an "alright" fish. Randle happen to catch a fish as well.

I also learned that because much of the river bank is private the best way to fish the river is by pontoon or raft. That you fish a hole, float 50 yds down the river, get out, and fish the next, so on and so on. Overall it was a great day and a priceless one to spend with the great men and women who have protected my freedom.

Summary:
Location: Cedar River out of Maple Valley .
Time: 11am - 4pm
Rod: 5 wt w/ floating line, 5 wt w/ sinking tip
Tackle: 8 black stone nymph, 18 olive prince,14 sparkle elk hair caddis, 14 tan elk hair caddis, 12 parachute adams, size 1 olive sculpin
Species: Rainbows
Biggest Fish: 13"
Smallest Fish: 13"
Rating: 8/10

Cedar River, WA

One of my co-workers really wanted me to take him fly fishing and I knew about this river near our work in Federal Way. I also knew that I was going to be working with Project Healing Waters that weekend and thought this would be a good opportunity to go scout the river and see what would work and what would not. We starter at the park next to Highway 18 where the river flows under the trail and then under the highway. There were lots of people playing at the park so we waited our way up river. Upstream we found some nice holds behind rocks and a few deep cuts. Fishing each of them we were able to land a few fish but nothing of real size.
Still interested in exploring the river we got in the truck and headed up to Landsburg where I had heard of some more fishing opportunity. I felt that we were in the right spot because there were others getting off the water and still some showing up to go out. We ventured a good half mile down the trail to what seemed like a good couple holes. After hammering the first hole for sometime, having no success, we were just about to work down river, when another fisherman graciously walked through the bottom of our hole and into the one we were eying. Figuring not to make too much of a stink we instead packed up and headed out for the day. Word to the wise, be courteous when fishing around others. Ask if you are going to fish close and give as much space as you can. Heck let them fish it and come back to the hole when they are gone.

Summary:
Location: Cedar River out of Maple Valley and Landsburg.
Time: 3pm - 8pm
Rod: 5 wt w/ floating line, 5 wt w/ sinking tip
Tackle: 8 black stone nymph, 18 olive prince,14 sparkle elk hair caddis, 14 tan elk hair caddis, 12 parachute adams; would try pmd's, ped's, orange stones, and later in the year more nymphs.
Fish: 8
Species: Rainbows
Biggest Fish: 8"
Smallest Fish: 5"
Rating: 7/10