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Fishing Reports
Yakima Canyon Report - Friday Nov 8
November 09, 2002
Posted by Scott Butner
Email: butner@bossiq.com
Current Report
Yaki-regulars --
Once again, Vern and I wandered up to the canyon after a
half-day at work yesterday in hopes of fishing the BWO
hatch. Two days of promising reports from Steve Joyce,
et al, and warm, humid weather had our hopes up for a
massive hatch, the sort that blankets the water with
duns, nearly duns, and not-quite duns.
Well, my friends, it didn't turn out that way.
We arrived at the Tomato Juice hole, somewhere in the
nether reaches of the canyon between MP 9 and the
Roza parking area, and things looked promising.
Conducting a quick visual inspection from the road, I
spotted a half-dozen decent sized trout making dimpling
rises in some slow water, and several more trout out in
the foam lines, splashing things up a bit. I rushed back
to the car, threw on my waders, and strung up my rod.
"I promise I'll stop after I catch two fish," I told Vern, who
is somewhat more deliberate in his preparations. "I'll
make sure there are still some fish there for you."
I snuck into casting position for the slow-water fish, which
were nearest to the bank. I still had a size 18 cdc baetis
emerger tied onto my 7x tippet from our trip to Rocky
Ford earlier in the week. The fly had done me no good at
all there, but I knew it would work here. Three casts
later, I saw a rise near the fly and lifted the rod. The line
went tight and a 15 inch trout zipped back and forth in a
pinball trajectory for a minute or so, before I finally wore
him down enough to bring him to hand. I slipped the
hook out of his jaw and he quickl;y vanished in the deep
water, off to reestablish his position in the pecking, ...er,
sipping order.
But positioning myself for the next cast, it became clear
that I'd not lived up to my good intentions. I'd let that fish
run rampant through the pod of sippers in the slow water,
which in my experience are always the easiest fish to
catch at this location. The rises that had been so regular
had stopped, and the only remaining signs of fish were
out in the fast lane, a half-dozen conflicting current lines
away. Those were tough fish most of the time.
Vern was going to be pissed!
And perhaps he was, but he didnt' show it. Instead, he
moved upstream a hundred feet or so, and worked a
different set of fish.
We fished separately for the next 45 minutes, so I can
only assume that Vern was checking the water for signs
of mayflies. The fish were rising, classic head and tail
flips, and we also saw some distinct
snout-out-of-the-water sips telling us that the fish were
taking flies on or very near the surface. But few natural
bugs were there to be seen - a couple of slate-gray
mayflies in size 16-18 or so, but very few and certainly
not enough to justify the risers. I cast a half-dozen
different cripple and emerger patterns in hopes of dialing it
in, but aside from one or two missed fish, and a little 8
incher, came up empty.
Vern, working upstream from me, had other problems.
He'd been working on "a fish of a lifetime" (which for
someone his age, is saying a LOT! :) ) for a while. The
fish had been making tempting snout rises every 60
seconds or so, for 20 minutes. Vern had spent half that
time chaning flies, but had put many good drifts over the
fish, to no avail. Finally, resignedly, he called me up to
his location and suggested I give it a try.
Of course, by the time I arrived, the fish had gone on
hiatus, but his baby brother started rising a few feet away
from me, so I tossed a size 16 sparkle dun at him, and
had my third fish of the day (maybe 12 inches).
"The one you want is at least twice that size," said Vern.
"Bigger than that carp you caught last year," he added,
reminding me of a less than honorable incident where I'd
spent 20 minutes casting excitedly to a large rising trout,
only to find out that when I hooked it, it was a 5 lb carp
that had been playing in trout territory. The fish had run
my line half-way across the river, Vern laughing and
rolling on the ground, before I decided to let him break off,
rather than listen have to listen to Vern's commentary on
my fish identification skills any longer....
Oh well, I digress.
We'd been fishing at Tomato Juice hole for about 90
minutes and the rises were starting to taper off. It was
nearing 2:00 and we decided to head up to some water
above Umptanum where we'd had good mayfly action the
week before. A quick stop at Red's to get some up to
date intell and a few flies, and we were on our way.
Nothing. Just a few sporadic risers, one of which
succombed to my CDC baetis emerger. But not the
mayfly maelstrom we'd hoped to find.
Things were getting serious. It was now 3 p.m., and Vern
hadn't yet caught a fish. We had 100 miles to drive on
the way home, and Vern had left some very productive
software debugging (the guy actually enjoys that stuff!) to
go fishing. Even though it had been his idea to begin
with, I was going to get an earful on the way home.
So it was back to Tomato Juice hole, in hopes that it
would, as it always does, "get the skunk off" my fishless
friend. When we arrived, we found no more mid-current
risers, but there were still a couple of sippers in the slow
water. This time I didn't even make a cast, but rather sat
on the guard rail and waited for Vern to take a fish. But
something happened to make the fish go off the feed, and
as we got into position, the sipping stopped. I told Vern
to rest the fish until they resumed. "Not even one cast,
until you've seen three consecutive rises!" I told him. He
waited obediently while I went up the bank a ways to see
if I could tease something to the surface. But 30 minutes
later, it was clear both of our quests were futile.
"There's one hope remaining" I told him. "Burbank Creek
is often good for the late afternoon fish, but they'll be
midging so you'll have to use an emerger."
I don't know which was gloomier -- the looming snow
clouds in the Cascades, or the look on Vern's face.
We sped down the Canyon Hiway, aware of the
diminishing daylight, and parked at the bluff above the
backwater formed where Burbank Creek enters the
Yakima. We watched the water until we saw a few rises,
and worked out a strategy. I'd stay on the bluff, Vern
would take some short casts to them, being careful not to
lose his fly on the backcast.
Well, I saw the flash even before Vern did. "There's one" I
said, just as Vern lifted the rod and found it connected to
a nice 14 inch trout. Vern counted off the seconds
"one....two....three..." until he'd made the 8 second rule.
The skunk was officially off his shoulders. Then, just to
show he could, he finished landing the fish, released it
gently.
The gloom had passed, and despite a couple attempts to
repeat the feat, it was all academic. Some days, just
getting the first fish is all you need to do, in order to go
home.
So we went home.
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