It's rare to summer steelhead fish on the Olympic Peninsula on 65+ degree days. I'm certain I've NEVER winter steelhead fished on a string of days as beautiful as it was Thursday and Friday. The fish of 1000 casts (if using bait), 100,000 casts if swinging a fly - is nearly impossible to catch when conditions are perfect (perfect water flow, good cover, cloudy 0r drizzling skies, freezing temperatures). In fact, it is alway too cold/hot, water is too high/low, fish are too skittish/lethargic - most of these explanations from a guide ends with the statement "You should've been here yesterday."
We had a few things working against us
- Lots of boats (it was the annual Hohdown - more info here)
- A front page article about the Queets (my favorite river) in the Seattle Times
- Did I mention the sun? It's hard to catch a ghost in bright daylight.
We had a fantastic day with our guide - author and friend - Doug Rose. He literally wrote the book on flyfishing for steelhead on the Olympic Peninsula.
I've left my gear out on the coast since I'll be back in a couple of weeks, hopefully it will be drizzly, freezing, cloudy, with perfect water flows. It'll be a crappy day for fishing and a great one for catching - that's winter steelhead for ya.
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