Okay, so we had an adventure on the Wynoochee this Saturday. We fished the top of the river in the wilderness, starting around the barrier dam fish counting facility, then up above below the dam, and then around the 7400 line bridge.

The water was low and clear, it rained the first half of the day and we got soaked. The rain creeped up my raingear sleeves and it was an altogether wet morning. We got there at first light and saw one big fish swirl, which was promising.

My father had been up there a couple weeks ago and nailed 'em so I was expecting it to be a big fish day, which didn't happen. I also got outfished by both my brother and my dad, which is very wierd. Doesn't usually happen that way.

The rainbows and cutthroat were very cooperative. My brother was nailing them left and right on small spinners. In one hole, he caught five fish that were between 17 and 20 inches, a rainbow that was 18" and a cutthroat that was pushing 20". My dad was catching the cutthroat too, and as the trout bite was turning out better than the steelhead, we switch to using ultra light 2-4 pound 4 foot trout rods with 4 pound test. Which are awesome little rods for small stream trout.

As it turns out, my dad hooked the only steelhead of the day on this setup. I can't believe it. The rod is basically a whip, which four pound test and he lands this feisty summer run on it. After a ridiculous fight, he actually landed it, it was spectacular.

We caught a bunch of whitefish up to 3 pounds, which were fun on ultralight. The trick is to not let them touch the surface, because as soon as they do they roll over and play possum.

I got totally scratched up from bushwacking through jungle to explore the river. There are so many cool places to fish on this gem of a river. Although I'm not fond of all the brown algae on the bottom, I'm going to have to steam clean my waders and boots to make sure I don't spread it. What's up with the Nooch slime? Probably something to do with the lake?

We did see some steelhead up in the canyon and the barrier below the dam, with no way to get down to them. I don't have enough experience on this river to know how the flows work, do they let water out, or regulate it like the Cowlitz? Because there was very little water and I think that that may have been why there weren't many big steel at the top, I bet they are holding in the lower river waiting for water. But the fact that we didn't see any other anglers all day in remote wilderness totally made up for the fact that there were few steelhead in the river. The water was beautiful and the trout were BIG. We caught many around 10" but there were a lot of monsters in there.

Spinners were the go to bait for the day. My brother is still rubbing it in about how he outfished me. I'm usually the one with bragging rights to big fish, but I seem to have lost my small stream trout touch. Micro Kastmasters in rainbow colored brass also worked, blue fox spinners in size 1 or 2, and mepps baby spinners in brass and black worked too. There are so many cool deep canyon holes in the upper river. It was a hike and I'm SO investing in a machete.

---