Caddis Fly Shop: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog

My first Olympic Peninsula winter steelhead pilgrimage went just about as I’d expected: great scenery, the promise of large native chromers just out of grasp, and consumption of staggering amounts of Wild Turkey at a local bar in Forks, WA.

The OP is experiencing the same bizarro late winter drought we are, so all of the rivers are extremely low, and very clear. Conventional wisdom said to put off the trip — wait a month for more native fish and better water. But circumstances dictated this trip was now or never.

We started the trip Friday morning at the Olympic National Park on the Upper Hoh River. We hiked in on a trail that runs upriver from the park visitor center and it’s the highest access point on the river.

The Hoh has a wide channel, with gravel bars spreading out to either side of the river, and with the low water we had access for miles, up and down the banks. But there wasn’t much holding water. The fish were supposed to be kegged up in the deepest pools, which were few and far between. But we didn’t sniff a bite on this upper section.

That night we got smart, pouring whiskey into a local fly fishing guide until he helped us come up with a plan: Fish the lower Hoh River with black or purple leeches. The water below 101 was much fishier. Bigger water, gun-metal blue glacial silt, and some really great runs for swinging flies on spey rods.

One of our crew hooked a steelhead on a big black string leech, but lost it a foot from the bank. Some plunkers had a nice hatchery fish strung up down by the reach of tide. But day two passed with no fish to hand.

We spent another night in that weird, Twin Peaks-ish town bar and wound up on a guided trip on the middle section of the Hoh for the next morning.

The middle section of the Hoh has great swing water, and a lot of deep boulder-strewn holes for pitching an egg and thingamabobber. But as the title of this post indicated, we didn’t catch any steelhead. Of the seven boats that the Washington Fish & Game official had checked that day, only one had caught a fish in that stretch.

The Olympic Peninsula is a fickle place. While there are a lot of gorgeous places to get skunked on winter steelhead closer to home, something about those rivers will likely call me back to Forks.

-MS

The first 4 days of February in Sandy Point Bahamas on the Island of Abaco resembled spring weather in the Columbia Gorge. Gusting winds up to 40mph, air temps dropping below 60 degrees and 9 foot swells on bonefish flats, we really should have brought the wind surfing gear and wet suits.

Despite the tough weather our group of 11 had a great time. Our guides, who were dressed in everything they owned,  looked like they were ready for the ski slopes hung tough and fished us everyday. Bahamian guides simply are not used to the cold we had this past week. One day Ricardo Burrows owner of Rickmon Bonefishing Lodge told his clients he simply could not get in the water and wade around with them, the water was just to cold. Instead he poled his guys around all day and they fished exclusively from the boat.

We did have good tides and fished a nice variety of flats around Sandy Point. Day one we headed off to Moores Island about a 40 minute boat ride. Moores can be great, and is know for it’s big solitary bonefish. These fish have attitudes like Barracuda and don’t seem to be bothered by much. The generally stay just out of casting reach and if you do stick one they can be in your backing 2 or three times during the battle.

We had shark attack that day. Having  a 5 foot black tip  eating your bonefish 6 feet from where you are standing it’s a bit invigorating.

Day two was out to Gorda Key or Castaway Key 9 miles out of Sandy Point, Disney owns the Island and uses it for a daytime stop over for it’s cruise line. Gorda has both inside and outside flats and with the right tides is home to both Permit and Bonefish. The wind made it tough for us on the outside that morning so we headed to the internal lagoon/flats and found a few fish cruising around but were unable to land any of them . When we got back out of the lagoon and onto the outside flats there were about 400 bonefish in several schools milling about on the flats. We had some success that afternoon.

Day three and four found us on the flats a stones throw from the lodge. Boating was simply dangerous in flats boats with ocean whipped up as it was. “The Town Flats” of Sandy Point are excellent and nearly always have numbers of fish, and fish with size roaming in and out with the tides. Unfortunately the wind was howling,  to cast all you had to do was hold your rod up at about 45 degrees downwind. The guys and guides hung tough and some fish were landed.

The gear that performed well on this trip included: Sage TCX 9ft 8wt rod with a Nautilus NV 8/9 and a Scientific Angler Bonefish line. Echo 2 Saltwater rods 7 and 8wts. Sage 4580 CF reel was a surprise as it is amazingly light and had ample drag, Saltwater Sharkskin lines were the hit. Perhaps the most well likes piece of equipment on the trip was the Original Buff Headwearthat we all wore religiously. The Buff Headwear was protection against wind, sun and unfortunately for this trip the cold as well.

For more information on this trip, booking this trip or Bonefishing in the Bahamas give us call or an email anytime.–CD