An Ode to the Sol Duc

Introduction

Holidays attended to and done with, it was time to check up on my favorite place in the world, the Olympic Peninsula. In search of wild winter Steelhead, Teagan and I booked a stay at Jeff Woodward’s River Inn B&B (a welcome luxury since we usually camp) and booked a day on the Sol Duc river with living legend Keith Allison (another rare luxury). Here’s how it went.

Friday

Gear loaded, cats attended to, home secure, and we were on the road yet again to our favorite place in the world. In the fall, winter and spring, the ferry route to the Peninsula is ideal as it cuts an hour of driving time off the journey and is a pretty nice experience, but in the summer the ferry wait times can get absurd, so the southern routes are usually optimal.

We made the mistake of opting not to bring our raft this time, a mistake we will not make again. We decided not to bring it because we had a day booked with Keith on Sunday and thought banking and exploring on Saturday could be a good idea. Ever since acquiring our first raft we have become more and more familiar with a dilemma that can occur when fishing areas with multiple rivers. Let’s use the OP as an exmaple of this dilemma:

Option 1:

Spend a day floating one river. You float from A to B, covering much more water than you could if you were banking, getting access to stretches of water only accessible by boat.

Option 2:

Spend a day banking multiple rivers, or multiple spots on one river (or more…). This option allows you flexibility in case one river or one large stretch of river is not in shape or fishing worse than you might have predicted, since you can pack up and either drive to another river, or another spot on the same river.

The more I fish, and the more I learn the rivers that I like to fish, the more I become a fan of option 1. I think we tend to have more success and more fun floating a river because we are more connected to the body of water when floating it. Floating a river is the best way to learn it, as you find holding water, swim lanes and you connect with it in a very tactile way. All this to say, next time, we are bringing the raft…

The drive went quick and easy and before we knew it we were in the backroads of Forks, winding down the road to the hatchery. We wouldn’t make it all the way to the hatchery, since the River Inn B&B is situated just before it. The B&B is operated by an absolute fishing legend in Jeff Woodward. Upon pulling into the dirveway, there is a large workshop on the left and a beautiful cabin on the right, both positioned directly adjacent to a surreal stretch of the Bogachiel River. We were greeted by Jeff on arrival and he showed us to our lodging, which would be inside the aforementioned cabin. This cabin is truly insane. It is littered with more fishing regalia than you could imagine. Massive mounts of fish he and his clients have landed over the years and display cases of the lures that caught ‘em. Decades worth of photos highlighting the countless memories created on the rivers he has guided. It is truly a shrine to a lifetime of angling and a career filled with passion, joy, and hard work. This place was jaw dropping, and it inspired me to at least try to live a life like Jeff’s.

We spent some time introducing ourselves, sharing our plans for the weekend, and detailing a short history or our many trips to Forks. Jeff even tipped us off to a few spots to fish the next day before leaving us for the evening. We then prepared a nice meal in the kitchen and dosed in front of the TV before heading to bed.

Saturday

We allowed ourselves a slightly later wake up than I would have liked because our last few days had been pretty hectic, but it only took us a few minutes to get foot warmers, waders and boots on. We headed out to the car where our rods were secured in our ski racks and began a short walk to our first spot of the day. The day started wet and would only continue to get wetter. Fishing in the winter in many parts of the Northwest is a wet affair, but fishing the OP in the winter is new definition of the word. Goretex is a good start, but by no means protects the angler entirely. Water will find a way, so every angler needs to either be ok with water seeping in to any crack or crevice it can, or they need to devise a system to prevent these leaks. Even if either of these options are mastered, there is a mental fortitude required to battle the constant pitter patter that rattles the ground around you for days at a time. The rain can feel never ending, and sometimes it is.

Our first few holes yielded as much as the rest of the day, nothing. However, we did get to try out a new baitcasting reel we got over the holidays and some new hi vis orange braided line. After an hour or so at the spots near the B&B, we loaded up our rods and hit the road. We would try some of our favorite bank spots on the Hoh next, but to no avail. The water was fishable for certain, but the river was rising and it was a bit early for wild fish to be up where we were, so we redirected our efforts to a hatchery run on the Salmon River, a tributary of the Queets. This was a new river for us, and upon arriving we saw quite a few rigs parked along the road that cuts a path through the Queets Rainforest. I was unsurprised by the amount of cars stationed here, as hatchery steelhead runs tend to attract the masses.

Fishing hatchery runs is a funny thing, as the fish tend to pile up right around the hatchery which can result in relatively monotonous days on the river, surrounded by crowds throwing the same gear at the same hatchery fish. While certainly useful and valuable resources, I am quickly learning that hatchery run steelhead fishing is not really for me. However, we found a spot to park and began our trek into the Rainforest in search of the river. We were quickly surrounded by nothing but ferns and towering spruce trees. With water seemingly oozing from the sky, foliage and ground alike. Thinking back on the experience of hiking through that rainforest, one word in particular comes to mind: WET. With all of those cars parked we were determined to find some solitude even if at the expense of a honey hole. We eventually made it to the river’s edge and continued to hike alongside it, essentially just hiking to explore with little intention of actually fishing it seriously. The river was low enough where there were few truly fishable spots, and most of them were taken it seemed.

After a while, we decided to pack it back out to the car and head back to the B&B to prepare for our day on the river the next day. According to Keith, we would either be floating the Calawah or the Sol Duc. We were giddy with excitement. When we arrived back at the River Inn, Jeff came out and checked in on us to see how the day was going. I got a chance to see inside his shop which was another absolutely awesome shrine to a life of fishing, crafting and hunting.

Sunday

There’s nothing that will get me jumping out of bed well before sunrise like a promising day of fishing and on that Sunday we woke around 6. We packed up our gear, put on our thick socks, stuck on our footwarmers, and layered up. We both slid our pairs of fingerless wool gloves on, followed by black nitrile gloves. I shook up some hand warmers and stowed them in my rain jacket pocket to begin heating them up. I like to get fully ready before going outside, so that I keep the warmth I wake up with. We slid the rods into the racks and drove to the Outfitters where we would meet up with Keith.

This would not be our first time with Keith, as last year we floated the Hoh with him in late November for B run coho. He is an excellent guide with several decades of experience under his belt. He laughs, cracks jokes, looks you in the eye when teaching you something new, and knows just about everything there is to know about fishing the Olympic Peninsula. Of all the guides I have hired, he is the best.

We saw his truck and trailer pull up in the morning darkness and were very excited for what the day had in store for us. We piled in, leaving all of our gear behind and were off. At this stage in my fishing career, I like to leave all my gear behind and fully surrender myself to what the guide has prepared, as I think that is the best way to learn and absorb their knowledge. We would be fishing the Sol Duc river. The Sol Duc is spring fed and will thus hold its shape a bit better than its glacially fed counterparts. Its gleaming emerald water fuses the tans, reds, oranges, and grays of the gravel beds beneath with the greens and browns from the spruces above to form a color that I have seen no where else. Beneath its glittering surface lies ideal spawning grounds for its anadromous inhabitants. Sprawling boulder fields and overhanging alders provide refuge for the 5 species of salmon that run up it’s sacred veins every year.

*Not shown is Midge, running circles around us!*

We checked a couple launches to see how many boats had put in and where. We drove all the way up to the State hatchery, a popular springer and coho spot, and decided to put in there. We have fished there many times, so launching the drift boat there was very exciting, especially since we knew some of the holes we would pass over, holes we had spent hours and hours at trying to entice the bite of chinook in the summer and coho in the fall. Keith’s dog, Midge, had been getting antsy in the truck and was sprinting around the launch when the time had come to load the gear into the boat and dip it in to the water that it was all to familiar with. Teagan, Midge and I piled into the Clackacraft Eddy three person drift boat and awaited Keith, who was pulling his truck into the lot.

When Keith hopped into the boat, he tended to the first, and most important, step of our journey: hot coffee. He raised the anchor and we were off. The first bend ushered us into familiar territory, a small rapid (or large riffle) that forms a long pool river left. Keith rowed us into position and we let loose our first casts of the day. We threw short, contained casts, lobbing our float setups into parallel positions for nice long drifts, and so began the long mesmerizing game of of waiting for the bright orange head of our bobbers to dip beneath the surface of the emerald water.

I am decently sure I had a fish hammer my bead at that first hole, but I missed the strike. Missing strikes with a float setup can really lead me to question my ability, despite having nailed many bobber downs in my life. For the first 6 or so hours, I was either setting the hook on false alarms, or missing strikes. It’s hard to know how many were legitimate takes, but I think there were definitely one or two in there that I missed. Keith continued to navigate us downstream, offering laughter, jokes, advice and stories along the way. He pointed out several important lines to take for certain bends and rapid sections that will be extremely useful for me when I eventually row this river in future. It is a fairly technical river, and it’s challenges change with the seasons, but I am eager for the day I get to row it in our trusty green raft.

As the river carried us further and further downstream, we changed setups now and then to try to trigger a bite. We threw a few different color steelhead worms, beads, spoons, and Teagan got lots of practice using the centerpin reel, a reel that specializes in long, utterly drag-free drifts. We eventually set up one rod for bobber dogging, a technique I had heard a lot about, but never employed it. Keith rigged up the rod, walking me through the entire setup, then threw a few example casts out. Here is a an example of a bobber dogging setup (image courtesy of BNR Tackle):

The goal is to essentially drag your weight along the bottom of the river, with your buoyantly neutral presentation floating just off the bottom. If done correctly and your presentation (soft bead in our case) crosses paths with a fish, the soft bead should essentially hit the fish right in the noggin. One drift, I was looking longingly at my bobber, almost willing it to submerge, when a chrome, muscled steelhead broke the surface right next to my bobber. Keith and I both saw it and we both knew it was having a go at us. That fish knew we were having a rough morning of fishing, and he wanted to rub it in! A few moments later, on the retrieve, Keith spotted another investigating my bead as it was pulled towards the boat. The switch to bobber dogging was yielding some action, so Keith rigged up another bobber dogging rod for Teagan.

We were in for it though. Up until this point, we had only lost a hook and one hard bead, but this was about to change. We started hanging up on underwater trees, logs, branches and rocks. I think we could have done a better job of tapping the tip of our rods with the bounce of our float to usher our weights over and past these obstacles, but we were knew to the technique and Keith’s tackle box began to pay for it. We probably lost 5 or 6 beads in a span of an hour or two.

At this point, the day was nearing an end and I knew we were close to our take out. The light was beginning to fade and my hopes of coming face to face with a wild steelhead were fading. Keith could tell in various moments throughout the day that my confidence was dwindling and would say “Fish your future Luke! Not your past!”. These words will stick with me for a long time, because they combat the depression that can come from fishless hours on the water. I believe I am slowly getting better with this, and I am working to become a more resilient angler, but when people say, “Oh I don’t need to catch a fish to enjoy fishing”, I think it’s easier said than done. I think only the true masters of this craft really embody that. And Keith’s phrase of fishing my future will get me one step closer. I could tell the entire day that Keith wasn’t nervous or rattled at all by our lack of fish on.

We were one bend away from the take out, nine hours into our day. We were anchored up on the inside of final bend, casting into a nice pocket of water throwing parallel casts. I was at the front of the boat, so I would cast first and Teagan would follow, placing her bobber a few feet behind mine. I would retrieve first, followed by Teagan a few moments later. At the end of the third drift, crestfallen by no takes, I looked away for a second and began to retrieve when I felt my line pull back. I knew instantly that a fish was on the other end of my line. TUG TUG…TUG.

“Oh, I’m on!”

Rod tip up, I began to reel in a bit to ensure I had tension on the line. I angled the rod tip up and to the right to encourage a bit more tension. I started reeling in a bit too fast due to my nerves when Keith began to settle me down:

“You hear that? That’s the drag, we don’t wanna be hearing that. Ease up a bit. Yep, ease up a bit.”

I wasn’t feeling anything but deadweight at this point. Dread filled me. I was reeling slowly, but I hadn’t felt any tug or fight in a few seconds. Teagan would later say she thought for sure that I had a log on the other end while Keith thought I had a spawny coho.

Then a wriggling beam of reflective silver broke the surface of the icy water, a foot above the surface alerting the whole boat that she was here and she wanted to be left alone! Now it was on. I did not want to lose this fish. I wanted to hold her in the crystal lifeblood of the Sol Duc. I wanted to come face to face with her and see her swim off on her way up stream after shaking her hand.

The fight lasted some amount of time. Time is a tricky thing in those moments, as everything slows down and speeds up. When a steelhead is on the other end of the line, you can feel it days, weeks, months after. You can think back to it when you’re sitting in traffic and teleport to the very spot where you were standing. You can feel the jolts of energy shooting through your forearm that is grasping onto the tool connecting your to Nature incarnate. It is all consuming. It is everything, altogether, all at once, for all time.

She had several really nice runs in her. I would get her close to the boat, close to Keith’s net and then she would be gone. She wasn’t a big steelie by any means, but she was determined, she was wild, and she was perfect. Eventually we got her into the net and I let out a big cheer of celebration and relief. Having Keith as your net guy is a luxury as he was calm and dishing out commands while I did my best to execute them. Once landed, I hopped out of the boat and into the water to join Keith. He was unhooking the hen. I took off my gloves, wet my trembling hands and grasped the fork of her tail firmly with my left hand and gently cradled her head with my left. Pink, amber, silver, pearl, jett black and more. Colors that don’t exist outside of these fish. These colors simply are not reproducible outside of the moment. Once in my hands, she was calm, her body never left the water, as Keith and I left her at least halfway submerged at all times. She said hello, and the three of us were simply marvelling at her, doing our best to reply. I stared down at her rosy gill plate, at her stark lateral line, at her olive back. I was trying to sear her into my brain for all time…and then, I released tension on my right hand and she as on her way, pushing upstream. I hope that the feeling of the four of us, hanging out for those precious seconds in the holy water of the Sol Duc rattles around in my brain for all time, until there is nothing left rattling around, and that that memory is one of the last few to fade away.

—

The Sol Duc and the creatures that breath life into it form a melody written by Mother Nature that cannot be unheard. This tune has been playing for a long, long time, and I hope it keeps playing for just as long.

Thanksgiving on the Hoh