Hello folks,
Good to see there has been a great start to steelhead season on our local rivers and that many new anglers are finding success. Congrats to all lucky first timers. Looking forward to making it out onto our local flows when time permits.
This series of reports will briefly review the 8 days I recently spent down in Washington targeting steelhead and bull trout. I will try to make it more pic heavy than than wordy.
I headed down on Boxing day in the old 1983 motorhome. Somehow I managed to make it across the border without being searched. Usually scruffy dudes rolling in beat up motor homes get pretty special treatment heading south but I was very lucky.
My first stop was the mighty Skagit River near the town of Marblemont. To those who fish this river on our side you would be amazed to see how much bigger it is down south. I think to say it is just a touch smaller than the T around Spences would be a fair comparison. It is a very nice river still though and was flowing crystal clear when I was there.
The first morning I started fishing right by where I camped out, the confluence of the Cascade and Skagit Rivers. there is a very fishy pool right where the cascade enters the Skagit:
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If you look in the photo you will see the Cascade coming in from the right and a nice slick being created by the meeting of the 2 currents. This was very fishy slick and I saw a happy local catch a very nice hatchery doe from this location. The whole stetch around the Cascade confluence is very fishy as the majority of Skagit hatchery steel are bound for the Cascade and use this area of the Skagit to rest before they head up the much smaller Cascade.
I spent an haour short floating roe on this stretch but came up empty.
I decided to start bush wacking my way up the Cascade from the confluence, the going was slow and I found very little fishable water with heavy brush and log jams being the order of the day. I finally saw a clearing in the bushes and stepped out onto the first open gravel bar I had seen in a while. I was happy to see I had found a beautifull pool deep and flowing at that perfect choppy walking speed. Unfortunatly there were also 12 guys lined up along each side of it
. After talking to a few locals I determined that I had bush wacked my way up to the Hatchery Pool :wallbash:.
I sat on a log for a while to observe the interesting techniques being utilized by the locals and then headed back to the motor home to have some lunch.
After lunch I decide to put the 3106 away and break out the 6wt. Little did I know that this breif morning bushwack would be the only time the trusty old 3106 would ply it's trade on The Skagit or it's tribs. Armed with glow bugs and streamers I headed up stream above the hatchery for some peace and quiet and hopefully some nice sized bull trout. The Cascade above the hatchery is like a different world than below. The crowds of anglers are replaced by a sparse scattering of folks. The bush wacking and log jams are replaced by a perfect sized pool/ riffle walk and wade stream:
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I spent a very pleasent couple days fishing the Cascade far from the hatchery and it's crowds just me and the bull trout
This is the area of the Cascade that I would reccomend to those reading this, there are far less steelies up here but the scenery is great and the solitude is what sets it apart. The last photo for this post will be of my lunch break on the second day: relaxing on a nicely placed log giving the 6wt a rest and enjoying a fabulous Alaskan Winter Ale.
![]()
Very peacefull!
Good to see there has been a great start to steelhead season on our local rivers and that many new anglers are finding success. Congrats to all lucky first timers. Looking forward to making it out onto our local flows when time permits.
This series of reports will briefly review the 8 days I recently spent down in Washington targeting steelhead and bull trout. I will try to make it more pic heavy than than wordy.
I headed down on Boxing day in the old 1983 motorhome. Somehow I managed to make it across the border without being searched. Usually scruffy dudes rolling in beat up motor homes get pretty special treatment heading south but I was very lucky.
My first stop was the mighty Skagit River near the town of Marblemont. To those who fish this river on our side you would be amazed to see how much bigger it is down south. I think to say it is just a touch smaller than the T around Spences would be a fair comparison. It is a very nice river still though and was flowing crystal clear when I was there.
The first morning I started fishing right by where I camped out, the confluence of the Cascade and Skagit Rivers. there is a very fishy pool right where the cascade enters the Skagit:
If you look in the photo you will see the Cascade coming in from the right and a nice slick being created by the meeting of the 2 currents. This was very fishy slick and I saw a happy local catch a very nice hatchery doe from this location. The whole stetch around the Cascade confluence is very fishy as the majority of Skagit hatchery steel are bound for the Cascade and use this area of the Skagit to rest before they head up the much smaller Cascade.
I spent an haour short floating roe on this stretch but came up empty.
I decided to start bush wacking my way up the Cascade from the confluence, the going was slow and I found very little fishable water with heavy brush and log jams being the order of the day. I finally saw a clearing in the bushes and stepped out onto the first open gravel bar I had seen in a while. I was happy to see I had found a beautifull pool deep and flowing at that perfect choppy walking speed. Unfortunatly there were also 12 guys lined up along each side of it
. After talking to a few locals I determined that I had bush wacked my way up to the Hatchery Pool :wallbash:.I sat on a log for a while to observe the interesting techniques being utilized by the locals and then headed back to the motor home to have some lunch.
After lunch I decide to put the 3106 away and break out the 6wt. Little did I know that this breif morning bushwack would be the only time the trusty old 3106 would ply it's trade on The Skagit or it's tribs. Armed with glow bugs and streamers I headed up stream above the hatchery for some peace and quiet and hopefully some nice sized bull trout. The Cascade above the hatchery is like a different world than below. The crowds of anglers are replaced by a sparse scattering of folks. The bush wacking and log jams are replaced by a perfect sized pool/ riffle walk and wade stream:
I spent a very pleasent couple days fishing the Cascade far from the hatchery and it's crowds just me and the bull trout
This is the area of the Cascade that I would reccomend to those reading this, there are far less steelies up here but the scenery is great and the solitude is what sets it apart. The last photo for this post will be of my lunch break on the second day: relaxing on a nicely placed log giving the 6wt a rest and enjoying a fabulous Alaskan Winter Ale.
Very peacefull!
