Brazda's Fly Fishing

Jim Brandt with the first steelhead on self made Bamboo 8wt.

Jim and Mike steelhead day of days #3

Time does fly when fishing has been good, I get into the day to day roll of guiding and feel as if I am never looking up. The weather is on another change to partial snow and rain mix with 50 mid day temps, I knew this when I walked outside this morning, before I even looked it up. This will be great for the hardened steelheader’s but tough on the boy anglers. The leaves have turned into there beautiful orange and yellow hews much sooner down here on the Yakima than upon the Methow where green and brown still prevailed when I left Friday night.
The rains are raising the rivers again and that will shuffle the deck and spread out the fish already in the system, new ones are sure to arrive. The salmon will be hard on the spawn with the shortening days and the lower light of cloud cover. The first of the Coho I seen arriving Friday will already be finding there zones, rustling in with the steelhead and cautiously avoiding the Chinook.
I will be happy to find the rivers nearly blank from anglers and full of fish upon my return from a short week-end off. These respites always renew my already eager enthusiasm to find the next pod of biters. The next few weeks will be the best in my world, I may get a day off to fish, the Chinook will finish there spawn and the steelhead will be very curious biters again, sampling my swung presentations, some with HATRED on the minds, as one good friend and client once said.
The rivers angling inhabitants are of a slightly different breed in November, they are of the seasoned sort. Old tattered leaky waders and heavy wool sweaters with sticks from the Kispiox or Dean still stuck into the fabric. Anglers down to there oldest left over spey rods cause they have broken three this season and the return time will not be waited on.
Upon the banks we hear stories from around the pacific coast on how the steelhead runs are doing and what new or old flies worked again this season often told over a dented old silver flask of scotch.
For me this is the best fishing in my world of guiding, colors abound, life and death in every run, steelhead eager to bite a good presentation. We can catch them ANY way we want, skated dries, deep nymphing, swung wets you name it. I am living my childhood over and over again every fall, I have birds on the horizon, salmon on there beds and steelhead in every run.

This season has been exceptionally crazy. The pressure has been pretty bad on Fridays and Saturdays but other than that it is only the added guide pressure from some of the other services in the state, you can notice them by there lack of grey hair or facial hair for that matter. Well since I have been guiding on the Methow for steelhead since it’s reopening in 2002, this season has had the highest guide use yet I would say four times as much. The best thing is that most everyone is sticking to the code, “not fishing others water, not rowing out in front of other anglers all that stuff that let’s the other anglers know you care about their day too,treating others as you want them to treat your present fishing water. The steelhead are in every run and riffle, they will bite at some point in the day. The deck is getting shuffled daily and new fish move in and out of your favorite holes, all the good stuff you notice when on the water daily.
This season stands apart by the Trespassers and there propensity to try and fool everyone by parking a ways away nonchalantly walking down the road and diving through the signs when they THINK no one is looking. I swear some of them act as if they are CIA spies or homeland security just popping up in all black standing silent in the run. THINKING no one knows what they just did. The bad thing about it is it gives a bad taste to the locals about anglers, and I would rather not have them pissed at us, since I like to ASK for permission.
Somehow mysteriously last week a lot of spots normally flooded with the lowly trespasser where open to angle, the parked rigs on the road are gone, new signs in place and I would bet some hefty fines given out, hallelujah!! Finally the law is working on my side, a first for me. The story behind the story is just ask permission, do some leg work, find the owners they are usually very nice and will grant you the day’s permission to trespass.
I floated the lower river (Methow) today with my wife to take a look at how many steelhead where waiting for me down there. I acquired a private launch with some kind conversation, mutual friends and old relatives in the valley.
Upon floating into a great looking run I see a man on top of a very large rock chucking a spin pole, when I snuck down close and loudly asked how the fishing was he nearly fell to his death in fright from said rock into the water frothing around like a drowning cat, he chokingly gains his composure and reels in. When I saw the thing at the end of his rod I was in total amazement, two Hildebrandt spinners stuck together and a plastic kids toy shrimp attached with what appeared to be dental floss, dawning a 4/0 hook that was clearly barbed. I asked the rhetorical question did you catch any on that thing there? He was not in the talkative mood, and as I kindly said the river was closed down here he stumbled off like a teenager caught looking at porn by his mom.
The next group used the no speak da English on me and kept on fishing, I could see the gut piles in the water and the well used trail up and down the bank, they had very good gear for not knowing English. This time I called the law, one of the first times I ever did this, the poaching hotline, they the WDFW referred me to 911 or the state patrol, so I called them, they asked where I was and then to stay on the line. When the lady came back she said and I quote; “there was an incorrect posting of the opening in that stretch that is actually going to open next Wednesday” and that they were not giving citations for the infraction! WTF so I said great I will go get my rod, “ah no you can’t do that sir” she say’s. So as it would appear I can not fish when others can because I do know English?
No sir that’s not it there was a conflict of posted opening dates by WDFW and it is closed but no citations are being given out.
Drifting on sighting more steelhead than I have ever seen before in a lifetime of angling them, I come to the lower three holes, there stands the best of them all, Tom Miller as I was to find out, Colville Indian. I asked him if he knew the river was closed he said NOT FOR ME , while I was laughing out loud, I knew right away he was tribal. My wife and I stopped and chatted with him for a while he proceeded to hook and break off three steelhead in fifteen minutes; it took five minutes to re-tie each time. He was a very nice man we had a great talk about life in the valley and how the river would be as crowded as hell next Wednesday and that his season would be over with all the white men now fishing his hole. I think I will go stop in and see him again someday, just to get a little view of the world from his angle. I could not help but feel connected to this native Tom Miller, he seemed like a great man with the desire for a simple life.

I am pretty excited and fearful of what I might see when it finally does open up down there, it’s been a few years since the last opening, and it was pretty amazing then in a psychotic sort of a way, like a strange horror film or a freeway accident you just have to look.