Sleepless in the Canyon
This is the inaugural post of what I hope will be a lengthy living documentation of my time seeking out our fishy friends. I am writing this about a week after the Thursday referenced in the title of this post, but I think said Thursday is a great place to begin our story. So without further introduction, please enjoy a tale of insomnia, noobie nymphing, and my first time on the new (old) drift boat.
May 9th, 2024
Pre-Fishing
It’s 10 am on a beautiful Thursday morning in Redmond WA, the first truly warm day in five or six months. I have just jolted awake on the couch in the living room after sleeping for 2 hours or so, and I immediately pull out my phone to text my buddy Sam that the plans are still a go. The reason I couldn’t fall asleep, the reason the warmth and lack of wind are so perfect is because me, my partner Teagan, and my buddy Sam have all planned to take our “new” (10 year old) Aire drift boat to the Lower Canyon section of the Yakima river.
It’s not uncommon for me to sleep 1-2 hours before a much anticipated day of fishing, my body just won’t sleep. I can feel my heart beating hard and fast as I lay awake waiting for the moment I can dip the oars into the current, or waiting to stumble upon a new hole with a trout lurking in it’s depths. But when Sam texts me back saying he’ll meet us at Red’s at 1:30, the 2 hours of sleep I got from 8am to 10 is suddenly more than enough.
After hitching up the new (again, old) Trailwater trailer to our truck and throwing our rods, waders, boots, and cliff bars into the bed we are ready to get on the road. The drive from Redmond to Red’s is quite beautiful as we go up and over Snoqualmie pass. On the drive we pass the South Fork of the Snoqualmie, the Cle Elum and ultimately the upper reaches of the Yakima. Seeing these beautiful rivers in their late spring / early summer form is a treat. Even from the passenger’s seat of the truck, I can discern the varying shades of blue, green, brown, and silver that sparkle and shimmer from these special waters.
As we pull into Red’s, trailer and boat in tow, the day has only gotten warmer and more enticing. Teagan, an excellent trailer captain, spins through the relatively subdued Red’s parking lot and finds a nice spot to reverse into where we can put on our waders, rig up our rods, and assemble the various necessary accessories for the boat. We 1) slot the oar rings into the towers, and thread the oars into the rings, 2) slide the cooler, with some water, a Coke, bars, and sandwiches into its spot in the NRS frame that sits atop our 13 foot green Aire self bailing raft, and 3) insert our two 9 ft, 4 weight rods into their homemade rod holders (constructed from molded electrical conduit).
Sam is only a few minutes away, so Teagan hops back in the truck, lines up the boat launch and masterfully pushes the trailer slighlty into the water. I hop onto the trailer and push the raft into the water where Teagan guides it into the soft water near the bank, alongside some other parked drift boats. Now the day was on. Whenever the boat touches the water, the day of fishing feels as if it has truly begun. The gentle slapping of the sparkling, green water against the thick beam of the boat is a sound that makes me giddy.
March Browns everywhere!!!
To skip ahead so this story doesn’t evolve into a short novel, Sam arrived soon after putting the boat in and we shuttled the truck down to our take-out at Big Pine Campground. The float from Red’s to Big Pine truly is one of my favorite floats as we can really take our time to intimately fish the river, focusing on truly learning this short section of river. Sam and I meet back up with Teagan at Red’s and with her on the sticks we are off.
On the River
By this point it’s well into the afternoon, with the March Brown hatch essentially over. I (sitting in the back) still want to throw on a small dry to see if I can get any early luck with a rise. Sam (in the front) has a similar thought and also tied on a small Mayfly attractor pattern, while I tie on a small March Brown imitation. The wind is still low, with gusts only getting up to about 15 mph, so tossing the drys to start the day is even more appealing. Despite its appeal to us, the trout didn’t seem to agree. Few fish were rising, but I wanted to take my chances at our first stop before switching to a nymphing setup. This type of stinginess, perhaps even laziness, rarely pays off for me and today was no different. After no action on the dry, it’s time to switch up the rig.
Luckily the other rod, still safely in our homemade rod holder, has a small beadhead pheasant tail nymph that I tied on earlier in Red’s parking lot, with a purple Oros indicator about 3 feet up the 4x Fluorocarbon tippet. I need to check with my local shop to see what exactly this fly is called, but if those reading this know, please leave a comment.
This is my first time getting to cast from the rear seat in the new boat. The Lower Canyons section of the Yakima holds such lovely drift water, it makes tossing an indicator rig a true joy. With the help of a good helmsman it’s easy to keep my presentation in the zone nearly indefinitely. As we reach about the halfway point of our float, we have anchored up a few times, each time someone hops out of the boat and covers some water above and below the anchored boat, while others stay within the pleasant confines of our floating abode to cast or snack. No action yet while anchored or moving.
As we continue to cruise downstream, I am getting a better feel for casting this indicator rig. I come from primarily fly fishing in mid to late summer, almost exclusively throwing dries ranging from Purple Adams to large hoppers and ants, so naturally I don’t have a ton of experience fishing nymphs. I do have quite a few days of float fishing for trout, salmon and steelhead with a traditional spinning setup though, so I know what a strike looks like.
As we approach the Canyon wall at Lmuma Creek Rec site, I see my indicator wiggle and then tuck under the surface. Bobber down. Finger on the line, rod tip up and back, hook set. Next is one of the best things an angler can see. Proof of life. The silver flash of the broadside of a fish. A small trout, around 7-8 inches has deemed my presentation worthy. Oh! I’m on!” I exclaim to Sam, Teagan and the fishing gods. I begin to work the line in, making sure to keep a finger pinching the fly line to the rod to keep tension while I reel in the slack. I turn back to see Sam and Teagan eagerly awaiting a clean landing and net job, which they did not receive. I let my finger off the line for a moment to readjust my hands, and barbless hook took care of the net job for me, with the trout slipping off and already on his way back to his feeding grounds.
The Canyon wall at Lmuma Creek is the climax, or crescendo of sorts for my fishing adventures on the Yakima. It is where I usually have hooked on to bigger trout, usually of the 13-16 inch variety. Today was no different. Only minutes after our first hook up of the day, I find my bobber pulled much more dramatically underwater just pass the bend of the Canyon wall. A hook set is hardly necessary, as the trout that’s on the line absolutely hammered my fly. This time, I won’t make the mistake of letting this trout off before I get a good look at him. After a couple minutes of solid fight, I manage to line up the trout with Teagan (rowers seat is also the landing seat) and guide our fishy friend to the security of the net. Now this is a nice fish. This is the type of fish I think of when day dreaming about a day floating the Yak.
I’m 50/50 on taking pictures with fish. Part of me is ok with it, part of me finds it to diminish the purity of their beauty. But I am glad I took one in this case, as it can serve as a nice addition to the story I am telling now. I made sure to wet my hands before holding the beauty, but I will admit I didn’t execute the cleanest release; I could of resuscitated him longer within the confines of the net. That said, the rainbow was safely released and on his way.
We spent the rest of the day enjoying the weather, company, and elation of our previous catch. I like to think that whenever a fish is caught from within the confines of a boat, everyone on board is responsible for the catch. It is one of the best parts of floating a river with others. You are all a team. All part of the same vessel with common goals.
I could continue to recount some of the smaller excursions we had that day in more detail, but I am already wary of the length of this post. It was truly an excellent day, one that I was worried would be stolen away by lack of sleep. Oddly enough, I never noticed any effect from my lack of sleep. A day out on the water with buddies seems to exude magic. A magic that transcends physical and worldly limitations. The mere thought of it grasps the mind entirely, and that magic is why I am writing this now. Hopefully with this story and more stories to come, I can try to capture that magic and pass it on to others, or at the very least, future versions of myself.
Thanks for reading,
Luke
More March Brown Madness
