Hoh River Fog; Tony Moares

Two winters ago, a lifelong fishing buddy and I met up at his house in Seattle, Washington for a little catch up time and a fishing trip to the Olympic Peninsula. It was the middle of April and the winter steelhead should be in full swing.

Battling the rain to make a fire, we managed to warm our hands after a long cold day of swinging on the outstandingly beautiful Hoh River. The water had swelled the previous week and had come back into shape for our trip. We had done our research, talked to some experts, and had our ducks in a row; to say the least we were feeling pretty good about our chances…

Four days later we made our way onto the ferry back to Seattle, wet, confused, and without a fish story.

The next day we decided to head down to the Pike Place Market to find some gifts and chase some tail of a different sort. Making our way to the fish market I immediately noticed a large wild buck steelhead with a single red stripe down its side. Above his gaping mouth stuck in the ice was a sign posted “Wild Hoh River Steelhead”. The price was unbelievably low for what seemed like gold to me.

This fish had obviously been gill netted from the Hoh River within the past week or so. No wonder we didn’t have any luck.

Thanks to a number of bloggers and angry sport fisherman I would like to announce this!

From the Seattle Times:

Lynda V. Mapes

One thing you won’t find for sale here [The Pike Place Market] anymore is wild steelhead from the Olympic Peninsula.

Yokoyama [owner of the Pike Place Fish Market] and his staff recently announced on their blog they would no longer sell the delicacy, after a barrage of angry e-mails organized by steelhead sport anglers. In the process, the staff decided to review everything sold at the market, with a goal of going 100 percent sustainable.

Along the way, they stepped squarely into a long-running political fight between tribal and sport fisherman — and discovered that while it sounds simple, the word sustainable means many things to many people.

Yokoyama said he doesn’t believe the steelhead he sold were unsustainable, but he thinks having angry customers is.

“For us it was a matter of our customers and what they wanted. We had people who hated us for selling it,” Yokoyama said. “That’s not what we are about. We are committed to world peace. Just that fact that we were getting people upset in the world is not part of our vision as a company. As soon as that steelhead issue came up, it was a key to our intention, a trigger.”

For Yokoyama, a lifelong resident of the Puget Sound region, selling fish is just a small part of his market’s mission. Through team-building meetings, consensus goal-setting, and yes, their earsplitting call-and-response routine, the staff works as a synchronized unit.

Thanks to community outcry, next time my friend and I visit the Olympic Peninsula, maybe there will be a fish or two left in the river for us to exercise.

“It’s about time” Says Bob Quigley.

Beautiful! The first words that come to my mind as I whip finish a neat head on my favorite spey pattern; The Green Butt Silver Hilton Spey. The long flowing hackles undulating in my slight breath overtop of a neatly dubbed black body with even wraps of silver oval tinsel. All of which are accented by a neat silver tag behind a glowing chartreuse floss tag.

It is now the beginning of June; the Rogue River is raging at 14,000 cubic feet per second in Agness. The high water, more likely than not, is bringing in the first large wave of our Summer Steelhead. The water is way too high to fish so I will whip out a couple more spey’s instead.

I have been experimenting with spey hackle now for the past couple years. I have tried everything from long schlappen to the costly blue eared pheasant. All the materials I have used have their time and place. The one hackle that I have settled into that makes me happy is Rhea. It is easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and comes in a multitude of colors and sizes. Its long wispy fibers undulate in the water without collapsing like marabou. The one down side to the longer fibers is that they can be fragile but for us tiers that just means more time at the vise…tough life.

I tie my traditional spey’s on the Alec Jackson Heavy Steelhead Iron in sizes 1.5 to 5. I use the longer rhea fibers on the 1.5, the shorter tip fibers on the 3 and rhea body feather for the 5. The Alec Jackson hook is a very elegant hook with a sharp point and a heavy wire. The heavy wire adds weight to my speys and helps keep them riding true in heavy currents. This is a hook that when the fish grabs, it almost always sticks and stays. Barbless sticks as well as the barbed and causes a lot less damage to the fish.

The multitude of sizes and colors of traditional speys makes them a viable steelhead pattern all year long. Fished on a sinking tip, the pattern will swim beautifully across heavy winter currents because of its sparse material makeup while maintaining a large silhouette because of the long spey hackle and wing. In the summer months, when the water temperatures have warmed, a spey fly swung dry lined is my second favorite way to catch a steelhead (the first is skating a dry fly). And here is the best thing of all; they are easy to cast!

Here is a fun pattern that works great on the Rogue:

Halloween Spey

Hook: Alec Jackson Steelhead Iron Black Size 1.5

Thread: Ultra Thread Fl. Orange 70 Denier

Tag/Rib: Gold Mylar

Body: Rear 2/3 Orange Floss; Front 1/3 Hot Orange SLF

Hackle: Fl. Orange Rhea

Collar: Orange Guinea

Wing: 4 Matched Black Hackle Tips

We have a lot of Rhea here in the shop. Each feather goes for $5.00 but you can generally get 4-6 flies out of one feather. While in the shop, ask to see some of Paul Miller’s Rhea Intruder style patterns. They are beautiful, unique, and I would be willing to guess that they cast a lot better than rabbit strips with lead eyes.

Fishing Chironomidae (Midges) can be a very effective method of fooling our little slimy trout friends because of one very good reason; they are active in lakes and streams all year round. On any given day, they can be found in three different forms; Larva, Pupa, and the most familiar Adult. Midges come in a variety of sizes depending on the environment you are looking for them in. Lake midges (2-20 mm; 0.07-0.8 in) are larger than stream midges (2-7mm: 0.07-0.3 in) and can be found in a variety of colors (blacks, browns, greens, tans, creams and reds).

Introducing the Lake Chironomidae Indicator System:

            Chironomidae Larva and Pupa are found on or near the bottom so often times fishing them in a lake means using a very long leader below an indicator, sometimes up to 18 feet. This may seem like a difficult task but in a lake we generally don’t have to cast far so we can get away with it…until we hook a fish. Imagine this, you are on Diamond Lake fishing the opening trout season here in Oregon and hook a pig! You fight the fish and finally start to get the fish towards the boat when all of a sudden you can’t reel in any further because you have hit the end of your 18 foot leader where you have a fixed indicator. Choice words are most likely “spoken” while the fish flips you the fin and swims away.

            In order to combat this problem before you experience it, Will has brought in “Quick Release Indicators” in two different sizes and colors. Here is how they work:

Step 1:

Insert leader (orange line) through black stop and orange ball.

Step 2:

Form a loop in the line that will be pinched between the ball and stop.

Step 3:

Push the black stopper into the ball pinching the loop. Note that if you push the stopper in too firmly, the system will not work. I recommend trying this a couple times to get an idea of how much pressure is needed.

Step 4:

Now that you have it all rigged, cast out, watch your indicator closely, and then set on any erratic movement of the indicator. Now that you have put pressure on the indicator, it slides easily up and down your leader allowing you to land the fish easily…

This system will work very well on lakes like Diamond Lake, Klamath Lake, Hyatt Lake, and Howard Prairie. To compliment this system we brought in a whole series of Chironomidae including the Ice Cream Cone!

Best Regards,

 Stuart Warren

The Ashland Fly Shop

(541) 488-6454

As summer approaches, those of us who are aware of the natural aquatic insect cycle will get the Salmonfly Fever…a natural response to what we know is coming; The Giant Salmonfly Hatch. This hatch is by far one of the largest and most prolific hatches of the early trout season. And best of all, the trout go stupid for them. In respect of the up-coming hatch I thought I would put together an entry dedicated to the Giant Salmonfly (Pteronarcys).
Taken by Stuart Warren

The Giant Salmonfly is the largest aquatic insect that we use here in Southern Oregon to catch trout. The nymph version is a large dark brown to black and is 25-50 mm (1-2 inches) in length. These insects are generally found in rocky riffles and moderate to fast moving runs. The great thing about the nymph stage of the Salmonfly is that they take two to four years to reach maturity, meaning that at any given time of the year, streams that are home to these insects will have a large variety sizes within its stream bottom or being swept down the stream (a go to pattern for most trout and steelhead anglers).

After the nymphs have reached their mature size, they begin to migrate towards the banks of the river in the late afternoon, and under the cover of darkness will crawl onto shore where the adult version will split the nymph shuck and spread its wings. The adult is 1.25-2 inches long, dark brown with a red-orange abdomen and four wings. Crawling onto nearby foliage, the adults begin to mate. During warm parts of the day, the adults will become active and take flight often losing control and ending up in the stream! Fish Food! The adults that make it, more specifically the females, will begin to dance over the water releasing their dark grey egg clusters back into the water to begin the cycle all over again.

http://www.worleybuggerflyco.com/insectidentifa/salmon_fly.htm

As fisherman, this is a very easy insect to imitate. There is a multitude of patterns out there that do a great job at imitating these. The patterns we carry here at the shop to imitate the nymph are the Tungstone Trout Retriever, the Rock ‘N Roller Stone, and the Biot Epoxy Stone to name a few. The adult stone is best imitated by a simple orange Stimulator, Rogue Stone (black or orange), Norm Woods Special, Foam Salmonfly, or the Chubby Chernobyl.

Mercer’s Biot Epoxy Stone                                  Foam Salmonfly

The Salmonfly hatch will begin here on the Rogue River in a couple weeks or even sooner depending on the weather. Other local streams that get a Salmonfly hatch are the Klamath River in Northern California, the Upper Sacramento River, the McCloud River, and the North Umpqua River.

Best Regards,

The Ashland Fly Shop

(541) 488-6454

Here it is the sixth day of May and we are still experiencing an outstanding winter steelhead year on the Rogue. One would normally say this time of year “Oh, those fish are too dark to mess with…” Well that is what I thought too until I ventured up to the Hatchery Run with a buddy and landed five, three of which were silver hens with rosey cheeks, and two single red striped males.
For those of you who have never caught a steelhead on a fly…there has never been a better opportunity! Hatchery fish are kegged’ up below the Hatchery in low, clear water and are grabbing just about anything. Flies that have been producing fish are the Hoh Bo Spey, Loop Leech, Tunstone Trout Retriever, Chart. Copper John, and King Prince .
Our fish counts are now 13,368 over Gold Ray Dam. It gets better; the fish are STILL coming over Gold Ray at approximately 125 a day! For those who enjoy Salmon fishing, the Spring Chinook are in the river in great numbers in the Lower Rogue and 1,000 over Gold Ray. Happy Fishing!

We are blessed in our area to be able to fish just about any day of the year and have a chance (however slight) of catching something! Here’s a few shots of us gettin after it. Enjoy!

Longshore goes long

Wish you were here? you could be..

Craig from Shasta Trout halfway through a Circle C

Overcrowding? Not in Feb... this is a Sunday

The Reward

A Trouter goes for Steel

A big thanks to Bob Quigley, Rich Zellman and Jon Hazlett for coming down and making our first 2 Fly Tying nights a blast! They all had good audiences as they created their artful creations. These guys are tying some of the more innovative and edgy flies out there right now. And they catch fish! (but we all know Steelhead will eat anything )

Also a special thanks to Keith Liddy and all our youngsters (and their parents) who are making it out to refine their skills add some of their own flies to their collections! Thank you!

We are again offering 2 classes from Local Master Tyer, Bob Quigley!

Bob has been fly fishing and tying in this region for over 20 years and taking his class is a major insight into what patterns are successful on local waters and beyond. Not to be missed.

Bob Quigley in his Tying Room

Saturday, March 13th - Tying Quigley’s Signature Trout Patterns

Saturday, March 27th - Tying Quigley’s Best for Local Steelhead & Trout

Call the shop for details on this opportunity to learn from one of Fly Tying’s Greats. There are still a few spaces left at this writing.

Where: The Ashland Fly Shop

Time: 10 - 4 pm

Cost: $50

Winter Fly Tying Sessions are Back!

Please join us the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays of the month for our FREE fly tying sessions held at the shop from 5-7pm!

The tables & chairs will be up by 5 so come early to get a good seat. Remember to bring your own vise and materials if you have them, but if you don’t there is usually an extra around for you to use.

There is no true “structure” to the tying, though many choose to follow along with what Keith is demonstrating for the evening. You may also choose to work on your own flies and get hints & tips from the hosts along the way.

Again this year Keith Liddy, Stuart Warren and myself will be on hand to host and we usually have a special guest host tying as well.