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Summer salmon, summer steelhead

WTF chuck? Where are my steelhead reports?

Easy, easy.  I hear you.  I have been doing a lot of screwing around in recent weeks with trout and rockfish and smallmouth and other peoples awesome baja reports and you guys want, and deserve a good old fashioned salmon/steelhead report. So hear it is.

The Deschutes has more steelhead in it than we are ever likely to see again in a life time, the Klickitat, John Day, and Salmon will all be there shortly.  I am not going there.

The Puget sound rivers have so many pinks in them if they all jumped at once the river level would drop 2 feet.  I am not going there either.

I am returning to the quiet cool misty rivers of the OP, to fish for the steelhead and salmon that are already there and the trout salmon and steelhead that will be arriving in the coming weeks.

Yes, other than the Hoh and queets  the rivers are bone dry and desperately in need of rain, the Sol Duc is stuffed to the gills (so to speak) with big summer coho, the bogie is warm soup, but the Hoh and Queets are still prime, and the Octber caddis will hatch no matter what.

Eric with a nice fat summer Coho from last week, 10 pounds and jumps higher than your head

I am hoping for rain, that said, when it comes I will complain that the beautiful glacial rivers are out.  Right now your best is either stripping flies for kegged up Coho in the Sol Duc.  Or swinging old school in the Hoh or Queets.  The Hoh is putting out summer run steelhead and a mix of summer and fall salmon.

Jim Kerr

Rain Coast Guides

 

View Comments

  • Hey, so generally what makes and colors of flies would get me hooked up on a coho or two were I to head over to the Duc and give it a shot?

  • Black or purple bunny leaches are great for summer coho, size 4 or so.  I also really like small, size 8 or 10 bead head caddis pupa patterns.  Either way start early and fish the really deep pools.  Let your fly sink a long time and then retrieve it with short quick(but not jerky) pulls.  If you mess with it a bit you will find this works or Coho as well as summer steelhead and sea run cuthroat.
    Jim
    thanks Dan

  • Hi Jim,

    Thank you again for such a fantastic and memorable trip on the Sol Duc. We will not ever forget that salmon we got in the mud hole (well Erik got...). But, ultimately I caught a 200 pounder :-)

    Thanks,
    Brooke

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