FISHING-REPORT.RAINCOASTGUIDES.COM

Steehead Fishing

2010-03-07T15:05:00Z

Sorry for the long absence.

Fishing has been, over-all, good.

Yes I have now had two days this season when we didn’t even hook a fish, but I have also had some of the best fishing I have ever seen in February or early March.

The weather has been …awesome.

Thanks to everyone who has come out so far, you have made it fun.

As for the crowds there are an awful lot of boats around but most days I have been able to hide.

This fish was caught here last week by Oclaire Enstad while fishing with my friend Mike Zavadlov of Mike Z's guide service

The fish was caught on spinning gear and a jig and float rig. I like the fact that the picture looks very honest, no attempt was made to "blow up" the fish. This fish was neither weighed nor taped, but estimated about 27 pounds. When you fish the Peninsula in the winter this can always be at the edge of your imagination.

Something like this could always be very near your fly. If you want a fish like this every cast, mend , and hook set, matters this much.

How cool is that.

Jim Kerr Rain coast guides

Open Dates

2010-02-25T01:00:00Z

Opps,
Cancellation! March 4,5,8 are all back in play, also I have April 1,3,4,9,12 and 15 open. Word is the Hoh will be OPEN in April. Last year the best fishing we had was on the Hoh in April. Check out the website for the three guy super special.
Jim

Winter fishing here in Forks

2010-02-25T00:09:00Z

Very good, good, excellent. That's kinda how the fishing has been. Two days we landed 4 beauties, yesterday we got two smaller steelhead and lost a couple good ones. Today we did a workshop and hooked 4 dandies in four hours.

There is a lot of traffic in the obvious spots, and plenty of fish of the beaten track.

Here is Paul with a beautiful Hoh Hen steelhead on a sunny 55 degree day.
That rates a "doesn't suck"
Jim Kerr

Dodging crowds

2010-02-22T03:34:00Z

I am fishing every day so reports will be a bit sparse for the next month or so. There are lots of fish around, and lots of people. If you know how to sneak away though, you can find fish all by yourself.

Bright up river buck

Cool spot where no one ever goes

Jim Kerr,
Rain coast guides

Big Time

2010-02-17T05:02:00Z

Well, we are in the thick of it. Plenty of fish and falling

water. Maybe you should try the Methow?

Fresh lower river buck

You gotta ask yourself, do you want to fish with a guide service that doesn't have its own beer?

Max, thanks for the label, that rocks!
Jim Kerr
Rain coast guides

Steelhead season

2010-02-06T15:43:00Z

Unusually warm, low water and good fish numbers. That's all that is going on here. Maybe you should head over to the Methow. The Creekside report said that the Methow is more or less on fire, I also hear that the North Fork of the Nehalim is fishing well. Sadly I am stuck here. I have the 16th,17th 18th, and 19th open, maybe one or two days free in March.

Found hiding in a side channel
Some people think that warm low winter water and fresh fish make for good swinging, those people are right.

Snider buck, going home

Jim Kerr
Raincoast guides

Fun Days

2010-02-02T02:31:00Z

Well, Its been fine. I have fished with lots of fun people this week. We hooked a bunch of nice bright steelhead. Some big, some medium all chrome bright. We found fish up and down the Sol Duc AND Hoh. If I had made it to the Bogachiel I am sure it would have fished fine. The weekends have been crowded, but the week days have been quite and lazy.

Check out how thick the wrist of this fishes tail is, total chunker.

I have days open here and there through out the rest of February that I would love to fill. Give me a call if you want to give it a try.

Camo Synder buck

Jim Kerr
Rain Coast Guides

Birthday trip

2010-01-28T02:03:00Z

I took a few days off this week to hang with Lauren at our southern estate in Astoria for my birthday. As a present I took myself creek fishing, at a brand new creek (new to me anyway).

I was invited; very generously I might add, by my friend Adam McNamara (Cast away guide service) to fish a awesome and forgotten river where he has been swinging 3 or more fish a day. I declined, I needed some family time.

So, this morning, when Lauren left for work, I headed out for a little creek about ten minutes from the apartment.

As I said, I have never fished it before, although I have driven over it a hundred times. You know the creek, on the way to work, looks interesting, maybe a little brushy and slippery, but wouldn’t it be cool, if you really had time to learn it.

Well I don’t have the time so I planned a one-morning stand, hit it and quit it type of deal.

It’s been a long time since I have fished somewhere new. It was great. When I got there it was just like I remembered, some ones wife or girlfriend or daughter was sitting annoyed and impatient in the parking lot. Two guys on the river turned and looked at me like a leper when I walked up. The banks of the creek were boot beaten down and there was a generous amount of beer cans and fast food wrappers strewn about the parking lot, stuck in the bushes, lying in the river. It really felt like home.

In about ten minutes me and the glowering locals where old pals, they gave me directions to a few of the better pools, told me what was private land, what was public, and where I should sneak.

I fished down river and enjoyed the awesome weather, the company of other anglers I met, and the fact that although I wasn’t seeing any fish I wasn’t loosing many flies and I hadn’t fallen in the river.

As I fished my way back to the car I finally saw a guy hook and land a fish.

It was a great fish, a really nice long jawed buck about nine pounds with a snow white belly and just turning pink on the sides. It was a miraculously thick hatchery fish, and it made me feel a little more optimistic to see it.

The hole at the parking lot still had a couple guys flogging it when I returned, now that the sun was on it I could see it a little better. There was plenty of room, and every one was friendly so I decided to give it another try.

About two cast later I thought I hooked a fish, I wasn’t sure at first, he was slack lining me pretty bad, sliding toward me just a tiny bit faster than I could strip line, but I knew it was something. After I got tightened down and he started running I began to wonder. This is Oregon, and a tiny little hatchery creek; the fish can’t be that big. But he kept holding down and running fast and long all around the hole at will.

When he finally rolled over I thought I might be about to catch a 20-pound steelhead on my birthday.

After I got him to the beach though I saw that although he had the length, he wasn’t far enough around. A nice healthy solid teener wild fish.

I had time to get one more before I headed for my massage appointment.

Happy birthday to me.

Fishing in Forks is damn fine right now, I will be headed back Friday and I do have open days next week. Give me a call

Jim Kerr

Raincoast guides

Nice water finaly

2010-01-22T00:39:00Z

Got out today, fished from 9:00 to 2:30, hooked five nice fish, landed three, had a bunch of elk cross the river right in front of the boat, saw about 15 eagles, 1 other fisherman.
Didn't suck.

Wayne grabs one back

Jim Kerr
Rain Coast guides

Fishing tomorrow

2010-01-20T18:44:00Z

O.K.
Looks like tomorrow will fish. I am not booked right now, but would love to be. I am willing to cut a deal to get a warm body in the front of my boat, same goes Friday.

Green water and no pressure for the last 10 days or so should make for some hungry chromers

Jim Kerr
Rain Coast guides

Rivers getting close, workshop this Saturday

2010-01-19T21:47:00Z

Steelhead workshop this Saturday

2 spots open

Yep, the last winter steelhead workshop of the season has two spots left open.

Here is the skinny.

This workshop is designed to get walk in fly anglers comfortable with a variety of spots and techniques that will put you in fish around the west end of the Olympic peninsula.

Here is the way it works. We meet at the crack of 8:00 am at my house in Forks and sit down to breakfast and coffee and look over maps of good walk in water on some creeks and big rivers. Then we grab a bunch of gear and head out to fish a spot or two, discuss and demonstrate some different techniques and generally try to get everyone on the right track. Then we eat some lunch and do it some more.

After fishing we meet back at my house for a dinner and a chance for everyone to ask any questions about gear, techniques, fly’s, or spots that they didn’t think of before.

The workshop will be full at four guests.

Cost $125.00 per guest

Remember, the goal is to learn new spots and how to fish them, NOT TO LAND A STEELHEAD. We might hook a fish, but if landing a steelhead is your goal you would be much better off booking a trip.

Thanks,

Jim Kerr

Raincoastguides

Native Steelhead

2010-01-10T22:53:00Z

Thursday sucked goat nads, Friday was much better. We had the creek workshop on Saturday and cast some switch rods today. The rivers are a little high but fishable right now, looks like we have a mother of a storm on the way.

Scott with a snider creek hen steelhead

I Have open days in January, February, and April. March is pretty solid but I may have a tiny bit of wiggle room.
There seem to be quite a few big early Native steelhead around. Lets hope the trend continues.

Steve with a large native steelhead, much bigger than any of scott's

Jim Kerr
Rain Coast Guides

Tools of presentation

2010-01-04T01:24:00Z

In an effort to write just a little bit about presentation I have deleted almost more words than I have written.

Fly-fishing, for most of us is made up of, books,conversations, rods, new wading jackets, long car rides and pictures of places we can’t afford to go.

We want tighter loops, higher floating lines and wading shoes that will keep our hats dry.

Not to mention, sun dappled streams, dusty roads, cold beer and the smell of Bar-b-que at the end of the day.

Oh, and fish.

Presentation is about what the fish want.

I am going to try to write a few entries about the things that happen at the far end of the leader.

Because we are fast slipping into the coldest months of the year I will start with the tangled and often mis-understood topic of nymphing,particularly nymph fishing as it applies to steelhead.

Seeing Beyond the Indicator

Indicate Sign, suggestion, symptom, a signal, hint, warning, clue, pointing to something,something exists or is true

When discussing steelhead nymphing the first thing most people visualize is a bobber.

A lot of people stop looking right there.

When I learned about nymphing, I learned about a very different thing.

When I was a kid what most people I knew meant by nymphing was a nymph, or any sub surface fly, fished on a dead drift.

Because we added no weight or strike indicator you had to fish a very short line to get a good drift. Fishing close also helped you detect bites because often all you had to go on was the most subtle pause in the leader.

That definition has remained true to me until this day, any sub-surface dead drift presentation is “nymphing”.

In my rig the indicators primary purpose is to not to signal a bite.

The indicator may or may not show a bite, what it will do is let you know where your fly is; is it ahead, behind, to the right or left of the indicator? It will tell you if your line is dragging your fly or if your fly is pulling your line. This information hints at what the currents are doing beneath the surface, its like a X-ray of the river, but you have to learn to read it.

Even for die hard spey casters, a little nymphing, from time to time, can help blow off steam

Like wise the primary purpose of the weight is not to make the fly sink. Yep weight makes stuff sink faster, but more importantly it creates a place on the leader to anchor the mend.

A lot of people assume nymphing is about fishing deep, on the Peninsula, even in the coldest water this is rarely the case. The purpose of the nymph rig, no matter how it’s designed is to fish the fly with a controlled dead drift. Adding a ton of weight makes controlling the rig harder, and destroys the indicators (if your using one) ability to tell you all its secrets.

Winter fish hold in all kinds of water, my goal in putting together a winter rig is versatility. I want one set up that will allow me to fish any water, fast of slow, between1 and 5 feet deep.

It boils down to presentation, presentation,presentation. Indicator, weight,or no, are you really getting a true dead drift? I nymph a little southwest summer steelhead stream quite a bit and it has demonstrated more to me about dead drift presentations than anywhere else I know.

The fish come in chrome bright, are easy to spot, and not at all shy. They will let you walk right up and cast at them, but they are dead set on having the fly just the way they want. On a daily basis we will anchor next to a fish and begin casting, often the fly will pass within a foot of the fish more than a dozen times with no reaction what so ever.

And then, the perfect cast, and you can call it, he’s gonna‘ eat THAT ONE!

The lesson to be learned is all the preceding casts looked pretty good, but often only perfect will do.

Spey casters walk by it, drift boats row over it, what is it? The best nymph water on the Peninsula.

Obviously “perfect” presentations come from practice and experience, but there is another element that I think is every bit as important. Take your time and think the whole presentation through before you make the cast. Remember, goal one is to get the right drift, not to land the fish, that’s a bunch of steps ahead.

Preparing to make a good cast and thinking through your drift becomes automatic over time, but its one of those great basic lessons that’s always worth re-visiting.

Perfect, whether nymphing or swinging hinges on picking a place in the river you want your fly and mentally designing a cast and mend to fit that exact spot. The plan for the presentation needs to be completed before the cast is made.

Nymphing for steelhead is not about a specific rig or fly,it’s about a style of presentation. Presentation is about awareness and control.

Remember, don’t let the leader, the line or the strike indicator move the fly. Only the river moves the fly. You control the line,indicator, leader, and weight so that they move with the river, allow the river to move the fly.

One of the great things about steelheading is that sooner or later all presentations meld into one. A cast that starts with a dead drift becomes a swing and ends up being stripped. Each aspect will produce fish over time if you think it through.

Jim Kerr

Raincoast guides

Lot's O Rain

2010-01-04T00:57:00Z

The rivers are all up, but falling fast. Thursday should be fine. The early portion of the January run was looking awesome before things went out. This high water should only make things better. I am not booked Thursday or Friday, let me know if you want to give it a try.

Marty, gettin' grabbed on the spey rod, and stoked on the second fish of the morning

This fish of Marty's turned out to be a 8 pound hatchery hen, chrome bright. She came to a #6 wooly worm fished on a clear intermediate tip.
There should still be good numbers of hatchery fish and a real nice mix of big natives in the river when the water comes down. I heard of two steelhead pushing twenty pounds this week and we battled a super hot buck in the upper teens. Good things to come with a little luck.

Jim Kerr
Rain Coast Guides

Natives, and others

2009-12-31T16:53:00Z

Great reports in the news have lead to some crowding, but the reports are not unfounded. There are quite a few fish showing up, still, and already.
In the last week we have found fish in all the Forks area rivers, natives and hatchery fish alike.

Marty with a chrome native steelhead

We have also managed to dodge the crowds and get plenty of water to ourselves. Hopefully this early run means good things to come.

Jim Kerr
Raincoast Guides

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T03:44:00Z

Lauren and I went out for a quick Christmas eve grocery run. We needed to restock the smoker after handing out a bunch of "Christmas salmon". We got lucky and found some much larger than average hatchery steelhead.
We will be visiting friends and family, picking oysters, and hunting for the next few days.

Be back to the river on Monday.
Enjoy your Holidays.

Lauren (My Bride to be), with a big hatchery steelhead

Jim Kerr
Raincoast Guides

Better fly fishing

2009-12-16T14:41:00Z

Sometimes when I think about what I have learned about catching steelhead on flies it occurs to me that everything I have ever heard or read about the subject is wrong.

That of course is neither true nor fair, the problem is the subject covers too much ground.

I mean if Heraclitus is right and you can’t even step in the same river twice, how can you expect to catch a steelhead in two different rivers in the same way?

Good fly-fishing is like fine cabinetry, strict attention to detail and unending reserves of patience combine to create a quiet and functional art form. Only of course in fly-fishing the physical results are totally transitory, much the same way that underwater cabinetry would be.

In an attempt to occasionally offer some useful general fly fishing information on the blog I thought I might do a little piece on the key to making steelhead, and all fish, eat our hooks, that being presentation. Then I realized that the key to presentation was mending, and that that really had to come first.

This will be easy.

Mending is sometimes described as throwing fly line upstream of your fly to create slack. The problem is water is not so simple. It rarely moves in one direction at a time, more often mixing and rolling and spinning around its self as it rumbles down hill.

Mending is about learning to see and predict these mixed currents and then doing something smart in response. Like all fly fishing it is a mixture of seeing and feeling that comes mostly through experience, quitting your job, or better yet getting fired, is probably the quickest way to speed the process.

In the simplest terms, mending the line, and letting the river fish the fly

Mending is the constant “now” moment of fly-fishing.Interpreting every seam and mixed current, anticipating what is to come and working as many steps ahead as we can while watching the fly intently.
It is by nature done preemptively, the line must be mended before it begins to drag, best if possible to actually mend the line before it hits the water. You want to mend as little as possible, but never too little.
I was a little tempted to start a conversation on presentation with casting, because that’s how you get the fly over there, but casting and mending are really two parts of the same thing. Its line control,in the air on the water, it makes no difference. Understanding what cast to make, where and when to make it, and how to mend it when it gets there,revolves around your understanding of the way that water moves and the behavior of the fish that live in it.

On tough days you have to just keep doing the right thing

In the process of coming to some understanding of the subject, I can think of no key moment when everything became clear. For me its been more of a gently rising tide of understanding. At this point my objective revolves around having a goal for the fly, setting it in motion, and then doing everything in my power to stay out of its way. In the simplest terms, mending the line, and letting the river fish the fly.

October dry fly water on the Peninsula

Here is something that has helped me visualize and better understand line control.
When dry fly fishing for steelhead I tend to fish small flies. I like a sparsely dressed grease liner as well as anything. It’s not a great floater and over the years I have spent countless hours playing a mental game as I swing it. I believe, despite all odds, that I can keep this fly on the surface as it swings through any type of water. Generally I run a long leader, 18ft. or more, so the fly traces surface currents independent of the line, I am constantly steering and changing pressure to keep the bug on top, and if it sinks, to re-float it without disturbing its natural progress.
The dry fly is great for this because you can both see and feel the effect of the current and your mends. In the end, every inch of every river is a little different, and so requires a slightly different presentation. The pieces of the puzzle seem to snap the loudest when a fish comes to a fly that was fished with a specific intent, those successes keep me fishing in the moment.

Jim Kerr
Raincoast Guides

A week of Winter fishing

2009-12-15T16:32:00Z

Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks. The last few days we have seen everything. Miles of perfect water where we struggled to find fish, nasty dirty water where they bit great, sight casting to schools of ultra picky chromers and everything in between.
We saw good schools of chrome steel head well below the hatchery moving upriver yesterday and managed to hook more than half a dozen*. I would say we have two to three weeks of great hatchery steel head fishing left.

This Hatchery steel head buck was slid up the bank on a day when the mercury topped out at 12. This photo was taken only moments later

Snow storm on the Hoh, high water didn't stop us from finding a handful on the lower end.

Best grip-n-grin ever

I wish we could have caught one here

Chrome Hatchery steel head on its way to the smoker

I have days open between now and X-mas, now is the time to give yourself the gift of fishing.
* O.K. the guide may have hooked one or more of these fish in the interest of "demonstration"

Jim Kerr
Raincoast Guides

Perfect Winter Steelhead

2009-12-11T01:51:00Z

Tuesday was slow, we hooked three nice fish, they all got off. Wednesday was much better, although colder. The fish were bright and hard and the hatchery fish we kept froze almost instantly.
I should of taken more pictures, but it was cold, and I found that the only thing that kept me focused was pushing full speed ahead to try to find another fish.
This afternoon it finally warmed up, and my mood improved, I got to thinking how cool it had been, the last few days, freezing solid and hooking those awesome fish in the cold green water.

Tom, with a soon to be frozen solid hatchery hen steelhead

Tom and Jim, thanks for putting up with a slightly more manic than usual fishing guide, and some really cold weather. It was worth it, I will remember the last two days for a long time.
I still have to post about the workshop, I will soon, maybe monday. Right now I have Wednesday open, if anyone is up for a try.
Jim Kerr
Raincoast Guides

Low clear cold water

2009-12-07T16:47:00Z

Its a little harder to get out of bed on these cold days, but the fishing more than makes up for it. In three days of nymphing we hooked nearly 30 chrome bright hatchery winter run steehead this week. ( We managed to swing a few to.) There is no real trick to it. Just park the boat next to a school of fish and wait for a few to bite. It doesn't happen all at once, the bite comes in flurries, when its off we take breaks by the heater, and sip coffee. These days are short, but the fish somehow make them worth while,we have been finding a few fish in the morning, followed by a strong bite around 3:00 pm.

Me and John with of of 10 plus fish we hooked Friday

The fish seem to be most aggressive to flies if you can find them in fast water that is less than four feet deep.
We did the first workshop of the season on Saturday, I will have some pictures and a post about that soon.
Jim Kerr
Raincoast Guides