Pacific Fly Fishers' Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Blog

Fished Banks Lake for a couple days in May. I was primarily there for smallmouth but encountered a few other fish of interest along the way.

The first day, Vance B. met me over there around mid-morning. Earlier in the day, before he arrived, I was messing around with carp on a large, shallow flat. It was loaded with carp! I tried to sneak in there as best you can with a 20-foot boat, and managed to find a few fish that appeared to be feeding. One of our customers is a carp fanatic and has been incredibly helpful in providing information on just how to fool these difficult fish. He also armed me with some of his favorite carp flies!

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Well a couple of cancellations gave me a few days to fish with Mr. Zander and Mr. Ewing, on the Wenatchee. I’ve been trying like mad to get Ben on a steelhead river for a day. We’ve been Shad fishing, Cutty Fishing, but no Steelhead. So with a day off from the shop he headed over and met my dad and myself in Cashmere.

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Ok so I spent my B-day fishing the Klick for a few days. Hot sunny weather, good camping, fishing not so good for the swingin guy. For the temps the river was in pretty good shape. Not to cloudy but not to clear either. I was kinda hoping it would be dirtier or clearer.

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My wife, Liz, has wanted to take a vacation to Hawaii the last few years. In the recent past we’ve been pretty good about finding vacation locations that appease her desires of relaxing, kicking back in some sunny weather and eating good food, yet offer some of what vacation means to me as well… Fishing. To me, a vacation without some kind of exciting fishing adventure is like going into an ice cream parlor and walking out with a bunch of celery.

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George’s presentation will help lift the veil of mystery around modern Spey lines, shooting lines, sink-tips and other favorite tools of the steelhead Spey fishing enthusiast. This will be a great seminar for Spey beginners and experts alike, and George always finds a way to make things fun and entertaining.

Free to attend. No registration necessary.

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Every year I try to take some kind of big steelhead trip in the fall. Usually that means the rivers of the Skeena system in northern British Columbia. This year I went up there with buddies Christian and Nic and we had planned on fishing for a total of six days straight.

We headed out of town on Monday night with a plan to arrive in the town of Smithers around 11:00 a.m. and be fishing by noon or 1:00. In normal conditions, Smithers is about a 15 hour drive from Mill Creek. Unfortunately, on this trip it would take a lot longer to get up there.

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After a 6 month hiatus for most of our local rivers they are all finally open to fishing again. That means no more traveling to the coast or the Columbia River trips to get my fishing fix in. After a brutal winter fishery with the wonderful weather we had this fall, winter and most of spring, this weekend finally showed signs of summer.

That means summer run steelhead are in full swing on a few of our local rivers. The Skykomish opened up on the first of the month and with it being at a fishable level for the majority of anglers in the state, they all showed up en mass. For as crowded the river was there should have been more fish caught. Which tells me that the low water levels we have had for the last month or so has yet to bring in the bulk of the run.

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So fall is here and with every fall my mind turns to the Eastern Washington rivers and their summer run steelhead. I fish the Wenatchee, avoid the Methow and the crowds, hit the Snake or the Clearwater, but the one thing that I never miss is the Ronde. Some weeks are busy. Some weeks are slow with people.

Some weeks have been blessed with a bounty of fish and some have been the “should have been here last week” trips. All in all, no matter what week we have, its still a special trip. Fish or no fish, there is no place in middle to late October I would rather be.

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After a recent, very unfruitful, and very long trip to B.C. that resulted in almost no fishing due to high water and catching the cold of all colds, I was anxious to take advantage of some of the E. Washington steelheading that we are blessed with each fall. On Saturday, Oct. 10th, I met up with Joe’s dad, Bill Ewing, on what has to be one of the most beautiful rivers in Washington — the Wenatchee.

We decided to float the river in our pontoon boats and did a nice float from Cashmere to Monitor. It was a cool morning but by the time we got some breakfast, shuttled the trucks, and organized our gear, we shoved off around 8:30 and had already shed our jackets. By mid-morning, the sun was shining bright and the temperatures were getting into the 60’s.

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