This months Fish A Long was about more than fly fishing. Besides catching fish in a beautiful coastal forest setting, we had a steak lunch, camp fires plus some very good weather.
Several of us decided to have a long weekend, starting off with a late lunch at Copper River in Hillsboro on Thursday before hitting Howell Ponds for Bluegill. We fished for a few hours then headed to Rainier Lakes, arriving about 8pm, pitched camp and started a fire.
On Friday we slept in then enjoyed coffee and conversation around camp. There didn’t seem to be any reason to rush as the early morning anglers were not catching anything, so we eased into the day and started fishing around 10:30 then quit for lunch at 2:30, all of us doing pretty good on Chironomids, both cast & slowly strip or dangled under an indicator. With the warmer weather many of the trout were six to eight feet down in the cooler, deeper water near the dike.
We made a run to Longview and had a late lunch at this great place called Porky’s then picked up a few supplies for our Saturday lunch at Fred Meyer.
On Saturday I went down the hill to open the gate, made coffee and waited for people to arrive from 7:45 to 8:30 while listening to an Audible book. It was a relaxing way to start the day.
With the warm weather all week the bite was a little slow but everyone got fish.
The best flies were Red V-Rib Chironomids, Brown Snow Cone Chironomid and an Olive Chironomid w/red tail, all around size 12-14.
Our steak lunch was a big hit and we had a perfect day for it. Afterwords several of us had a strong case of food coma. This lead to the invention of a new effective technique; dock nymphing. This is nothing more than being too lazy to put back on your waders and fins to float tube, so you sit on the dock, soak an indicator rig close by and tell jokes & lies until a cooperative fish comes along. It’s surprisingly effective!
The weather turned cooler on Saturday evening. Sunday dawned cool & cloudy. We each caught a few in the morning before packing up and heading home.
Thanks to everyone for coming and making this months Fish A Long a success!