Skating Crane Flies on the Yakima
I hope everyone had a great summer and fall fishing is going well. I was sad to miss last month’s meeting and I look forward to seeing everyone at the next meeting.
I have had the pleasure of fishing the Yakima river a few times recently. As part of Red’s Fly Shop’s University of Fly Fishing, you can take a number of fish along courses in a variety of topics. I have gone on one of their euro nymphing fish alongs, small mountain stream fish alongs, and most recently floated the river two days in a row for a rowing class and a personal watercraft fish along. It is a really nice way to get some one on one instruction and inside information on fishing the Yakima and some of it’s tributaries.
This was my first time floating a river in my pontoon boat and it was a great way to learn the fundamentals with an instructor. If anyone else is new to floating rivers and is interested in learning this is a very nice way to learn.
The first day we floated from just up river of mile post 10 down to Roza. The next day we floated from Reds to Wymer wall. Both days we focused on landing at islands and working the top and bottom as well as stopping at ledges at the river bends.
For Euro nymphing we fished heavy stone fly droppers with small blue wing olive style euro nymphs as tags.
On our floating lines we used large october caddis and then tied a crane fly 18’’ behind. We worked these straight out and down stream and would skate the flies at first then dead drift the seams.
Both days we saw and landed a fair number of fish. Euro and dry were both very effective. Didn’t get into anything too big but lots in the 14-16in’’ range. The river was at about 1300 cfs so was very wadable. I stopped off and fished a few other islands after the floats and was able to wade and catch fish the same way by accessing from the road.
If you haven’t skated crane flies on the Yakima I highly recommended it. Also, if your looking for a fun way to learn more about fishing the Yakima, the Reds Fly Fishing University is a great resource.
Joe
Great report, Joe. Thanks.