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First off, this isn't a single day report. My family was camping at the Ohanapecosh camp ground for three nights and I took advantage of every morning and evening that I had free to head down to the river for some fly fishing. I ended up fishing Thursday evening 7/30, Friday morning and evening 7/31, Saturday evening 8/1 and Sunday morning 8/2. And now for the report.

I have been to Ohanapecosh many many times, but this is the first time that I ever actually fished the river. The section I fished is in Mt. Rainier National Park, which lists the river as fly fishing only under the special park rules. As such, it was time for me to finally face up to the fact that I really don't know how to fly fish rivers (I'm still very new to fly fishing period) and try to figure out how to catch some fish. I had no problem identifying good holding water, targeting the rifles and seams at pool head ins, figuring out how to present the fly so the fish would hit it though was an entirely different story. The first night I only fished for about 45 minutes using a small black/brown custom fly that was given to me by a friend. This particular fly had a bit of purple UV flash in the tail, but the trout didn't seem to want to give me the time of day while using that fly.

Not deterred, I got up the next morning and headed down to the river again, this time using a brown Knudsen Spider in what was probably about a size 10, or maybe 8 (short hook, but fairly wide gap). This fly proved to be much more attractive, however, I still needed to figure out how to present it correctly. Eventually I figured out that simply letting the fly swing through the seams and begin to sink at the end of the drift was the best, as I had my first fish (a little coastal cutt) nail the fly after letting it hang under the surface in the current at the end of the drift. I eventually got another coastal cutt that morning using approximately the same technique. Heading back that evening I tried the same technique at the same spot with the same fly, targeting the seams, and it was highly effective. I landed another little coastal cutt, and had many many other missed hits/thrown hooks. I quickly realized that while I loved the 9' length of my fast action 5wt for controlling the line, it was simply not the right tool for targeting stream trout that are on average only about 6-7" long. Unfortunately, that is the only fly rod I currently own, but that may be changing soon.

After fishing Bench and Snow lakes the following morning, I went back to the river in the evening and was able to continue my learning and catching experience by landing an 8" coastal cutt and a 6" brook trout (very surprising, but yes, it was indeed a brook trout) on the Knudsen, as well as another 6" coastal cutt on one of my size 10 beadhead olive woolly buggers. On this particular night I started adding a small split shot to my leader to help take the fly down faster (I only had a floating line with me), which I believe is perfectly legal for this fly fishing only river, seeing as the river falls under the jurisdiction of the national park which makes no mention of being able to add weight to the line or not. Getting the fly down faster definitely made a big difference and I yet again had many other hits and thrown hooks throughout the evening.

On the final morning of the trip I went back to the river and quickly got to work with the weighted Knudsen setup, carefully paying attention to where my fly was in relation to the end of the floating line, trying to let the fly swing as naturally as possible but still keeping enough tension on the line to feel the take, and again targeting both current seams as well as deeper pool sections. My gained knowledge over the past few days really paid off as I managed to bring 5 trout in that day, two of which were coastal cutts, two of which were westslope cutts and one of which was another brook trout. An interesting note about the brook trout was that it hit right in the center section of a different, much slower, pool. Rather than hitting the fly as it drifted/sank, it hit while performing a slow retrieve by simply raising my rod tip and slowly bringing the fly back up out of the depths.

All around it was yet again another nice set of fishing trips. The fish weren't big, but it was super entertaining watching them zip around in the pools trying to attack my fly, not to mention the facts that there were quite a few of them and they were quite aggressive toward a properly presented fly. I'll have to spend more time fly fishing for stream trout in the future, perhaps with a slower action 3wt setup.

Tight Lines!

Kaptain King

8/10/2015 9:24:00 AM

The fishing on that river can be really, really tough. I have fished it a bunch of times above La Wis Wis in a steep canyon. The water is so clear that they will see you before you see them. I have tried flies and lures and the lures with a flash always seemed to out-fish the flies. Since the WDFW has been dumping salmon and steelhead in down at Scanewa I think some of them have made it up into the Ohanapecosh and the Clear Fork of the Cowlitz because I have seen some HUGE fish up there and I honestly think they are steelhead. It looks like steelhead water but I always wonder if there is enough food in those waters to support them. I was thinking about trying a pink worm and maybe throwing some metal at them next time. Sure is a pretty area though. Nice report.

odddoylerules

8/10/2015 11:50:00 AM

Report for snow? Always wanted to fish it. U mean the snow lake under unicorn peak after the trail walk, right?

AJFishdude

8/10/2015 12:23:00 PM

Thanks for the info Kaptain. I was hoping to hook into something bigger, but the larger fish that I landed was 8". Odddoylerules, yes, I fished the Snow lake under Unicorn. I just put up a report about it. We had some success there, and probably would have had more if we had gotten there earlier.

N E 1 FISSION

8/10/2015 1:43:00 PM

Man, thanks for report, It's been over 40 years since I was there last,...my father would take us there for vacation, those pics of the river flowing brings back many great memories!!

AJFishdude

8/10/2015 7:56:00 PM

Thanks Fission. I love Ohanapecosh, the river truly is a gem. I wish I could have explored further upstream, but my passage was blocked by a bedrock canyon that would have been extremely unwise to try to traverse. On another note side note, I noticed that the river was a cloudy glacial blue in the mornings, whereas in the afternoons it was a much clearer light blue/green. I can only assume that the previous day's sun had been causing silt laden melt water to flood into the river in the evening and morning, whereas in the afternoon the silt had settled back down enough to allow the water to clear quite a bit before the next wave of melt water came through.

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