Sunday, September 28, 2008

More like the "EverGRAY" State...


What do you do when your boss says, "How do you feel about going to Seattle for some training?" First, you understand that this means you are going to Seattle, whether you want to or not. Second, you begin frantically reading, googling, browsing message boards and tying flies in preparation for a few days of "exploring" before said training begins.

After some searching and phone calls, I narrowed down my plans to include fishing the Skykomish and Stillaguamish Rivers for whatever salmonids were going to be available. From the sounds of things, steelhead and sea run cutthroats were going to be the primary targets, but odd chances existed for everything from Dolly Varden to Coho Salmon. In other words, things were looking up. I made reservations to sleep in the car at a campground on the upper Sky (better safe than sorry) and planned on just winging it from there.

As the trip neared, I learned that (due to a number of conditions) summer steelhead numbers were but a fraction of what they used to be. Years of logging headwater streams, gillnetting the oceans, poor management by fisheries managers and just general bad timing meant that steelheading was sure to be a test of endurance...but getting a tug from a wild, chrome fish was a possibility. On the upside, I learned that I would be flying into the peak of sea run cutthroat season if all else failed. How bad of a back up plan could catching a new species of fish be?

So, off I went. Leaving Pittsburgh in the afternoon and arriving in Seattle just as the sun was setting into the ocean. After getting a fishing license, standard rations and realizing the hard way that Seattle has some very confusing streets, I ended up on Highway 2 and in the headwaters of the Skykomish River sometime around midnight...or 3 am in Pittsburgh time.

Due to the darkness, I had no idea what the river looked like and anxiously woke from my luxurious accomodations....


...to find some of the most beautiful water and surroundings I have ever seen...
I quickly rigged the two-hander....
...and casted....and casted...and casted....
....and swung my fly....and swung my fly....and swung my fly...

...for two days. Through some of the best looking fly water I have ever seen. With nothing but a steelhead smolt and sore knees and feet to show for my efforts.
I was completely comfortable with the idea that the odds were stacked against me, but this was getting ridiculous. As I pounded the water, talked to myself and worked out every sort of spey cast I could remember, I stopped and looked around and thought to myself, "If there is a better place to get skunked than here, I'd like to see it."
The area was absolutely gorgeous. Everything from the huge boulders, to the old growth pine trees, to the cloud-shrouded mountains were everything I had imagined hey could be and I suddenly grew comfortable with the fact that there were certainly worse things I could be doing at the time....

Saturday quickly rolled around and I headed north to Arlington to fish the Stillaguamish River and it's North Fork. For the uninitiated, the North Fork of the "Stilly" is where summer steelheading basically got it's roots. Legendary steelheaders such as Roderick Haig-Brown, Trey Combs and Mike Kinney have all swung their flies on North Fork for it's famous summer runs that originated from Deer Creek; a tributary that ran high into the mountains and produced steelies that had a particular liking for rising to waking surface flies. Unfortunately, these summer runs have suffered from irresponsibility and are but a remnant of what they used to be. Having learned of this and having not seen a fish in 2 days, I decided that sea run cutts sounded pretty good. This would also be the first day I had actually seen the sun in 4 days, though it was just for a brief moment...

It wasn't long before I had my 5wt bent and a small cutt that was acting much more like a rainbow than the stereotypically lazy cutts I had run across in other places...
This would also be the first day I had actually seen the sun in 4 days, though it was just for a brief moment at sunset...
Over the next week, I made several trips to the river to fish for the scrappy cutts and was greeted with at least a few fish, including several on dries during a nice BWO hatch.


I also stopped at the mouth of Deer Creek to swing a fly through a few pools and see if a few steelies were around. Though no fish were interested, it was an incredible feeling fishing water that had some very deep ties to steelheading history...


As the week and training ended, I was faced with a decision. Fight rush hour traffic to Seattle or hang around for a while and have a nice easy drive back. This was a no-brainer and I headed up the North Fork to fish for a few hours. This was an unusually clear day and previously cloud-covered mountains were visible off in the distance as I wound my up 530 East out of Arlington. It was at his moment that I did something completely out of character and decided to bag the fishing in favor of some sight seeing. I grabbed the Gazetteer and found "Mountain Loop Road." Aptly named, this road would lead me on an 80 mile round trip up the North Fork, through the Mt. Baker National Forest, along the Sauk river and down the South Fork of the Stillaguamish. This turned out to be a great decision and I saw even more of an area that will stand out as one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to...






As my plane touched down in Pittsburgh, I already had confirmed plans to do a double float to close out the smallie season the next day and while I looked forward to the float, part of me was wishing I had a few more days to stand in the rain and cast for fish that probably weren't there...



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