Joined
·
3,796 Posts
Well, I hit the Skagit (upper) for the second time this year. The water had receded about 3 - 6 inches since opening dayh, which is to say that at Sumallo Grove and down from there the river was basically unfishable. After trying to coax something out of the water for about 1/2 hour, we decided to drive further up river to find skinnier water. We stopped at the Cayuse campground and went down to the river. There were lots of small pools and runs and, aside from deadfalls everywhere, it was very wadable. The good news was that in the next couple of hours we were into 10 to 15 fish each on the dry fly. The bad news was the largest fish was about 9 or 10 inches. Still on light fly rods we often felt like we had a fish on. The fish were son new to the game that virtually any dry fly you chose to use would produce takes. I think the river is going to need at least another 2 weeks to even start to come into shape. Still visible snow up in the mountains to melt yet. The mosquitos aren't ( and never have been) a factor on the upper river, yet another reason I won't waste my time fishing the lower. The other reason is that I never see many anglers on the upper river. For example, yesterday we were the only vehicle in the Sumallo Grove parking lot. Anyway, the fishing was goofy, but the day was not wasted by any means.