Brazda's Fly Fishing

Brazda’s fly fishing bringing you the best of private Basin Lakes:

Issak’s Ranch Lakes

Premier private lake fishing in eastern Washington

Fly fish for rainbow and brown trout in the 22 to 30 plus inch range. With spring run off on our trout streams the lake fishing is at its best April thru June.

We can accommodate up to ten anglers on the lakes, you will have both the upper and lower lake to choose from during your fishing. That’s over 100 acres of private water. The upper lake is best for sinking lines and buggers where the lower lake being the shallower of the two, fishes well with an intermediate line or dry line. Bugger fishing starts off in April followed by Chironomids late April early May and then Damsels and Calabatis in mid May into June. With good conditions experienced lake anglers could expect to hook an excess of 30 fish in a day. Some gear can be furnished with prior request. Lodging is available at Banks Lake.

Available dates; Sunday May 16

Daily rod fee’s: 225 per angler plus tax.

Sign up by calling 253-307-3210 or e-mail Jeff@Brazdasflyfishing.com

Calawah River Forks Washington;
A smaller sister to the Sol-Duc, this river has the ability of producing the largest, hardest fighting steelhead on the Peninsula. With spectacular rapids, gin clear water and spooky steelies the Calawah demands the most from every angler. There are three sections to this gem, two divided by 101, and the ever-present bait and kill area boundary. The upper by intimidating rapids and an early closing of February 28th. A good percentage of my guiding is spent on two of the three sections. The lower river, below 101, calls for a long float and some class 111 water, ending in the Bogachial at Wilson boat ramp. With beautiful tail outs, long runs, and the entrance of the Bogy. This section swings best of the three but must be done with speed as there are so many good runs that an angler will find himself floating in the dark down the Bogachiel. With the middle being so short, I often do a double float, taking out and finishing on another river or swinging it all and ending the day with a push out whenever wanted. When the upper is open, it makes for a very fun and challenging float including sections like hells half mile, note: not just an intimidating name. All in all, the Calawah river will test you in every way and a must do by the ADVANCED rower and angler.

As I drove around today looking at the rivers to see how soon they may be fishable I was inspired to add this gem to my steelhead waters catalog knowing that I will soon be embracing it’s waters in the quest for it’s giant steelhead. It along with the upper Sol-Duc are probably the most stable of all Washington Rivers and have provided the refuge used for thousands of years to the wild steelhead we seek out today.

I had the opertunity to fish with a young man today on the Hoh river, Nathan Ereth is the son of  Rick Ereth a very good friend of mine and one of my mentors in the field of steelhead fishing. Rick has taught me more than I remember about Salmon and Steelhead, I have many great memories of our time togeather fishing all of western Washington. Rick is currently a LIFER in the WDFW management team out of Montesano. Nathan and I had spoke many times in the last few seasons about fishing, steelhead and management policy or lack there of. He is hot in the footsteps of his father attending Evergreen College and has one more year to go for a degree. Nathan is a young man that will be forging the future management of our beloved Steelhead or whatever the next hot topic may be of his choosing.

The last I had seen Nathan he was in his gangly years, living with his dad and well basically running amuck. He has allways had a passion for fishing and if I remember right he caught his first steelhead on the Dickey river at the age of four or so, beat most of us to that feat by at least 10 years. His uncle had mentioned his angling prowess a few months back and I was pleasently suprised to find a fantastic angler ready for anything the rivers could bring. I refrained from coaching too much as these kids are sponges these days and we don’t want to make it too easy. As the day progressed the fish took over the NOT making it easy routine but Nathan never lost focus or intencity for that next bite. We fished Spruce creek to Minnie Petersons, the sun was out and the river on the low side, we chose this run to stay out of the Gill Net zone down river,(don’t want to open that can of worms with an Ereth) and to see how the runs would fish that low. As I had seen before the Disco Ball effect was in play and the angling was rather tough by recent standard, we did have a bite or two in shady spots but nothing heavy happened till low sun angle.

Nathan, again hitting a good slot hammerd into a nice 12 pound buck that battled well above his size, the fish was his first on a fly rod and he faught it as if he had handle the fly pole many times before. We had another good bite in the tail out then stuck a decent hen in the next run landing two for two in a short day very good for the first time fly fishing an eight weight and my JUNK. Now if I can get him to roll away form the tree just a little farther:)!

Warm weather and daily showers have us all confused, great fishing with the warm water temps and a fairly good run of steelhead, will it continue?

I have been fishing every day and every day we are looking for that next delluge to bring the high flows and cold weather of any normal February but it just stays like spring, I only hope its not some sick trick by mother nature and she will unleash here wrath come March when the big push of clients and steelhead are coming. Just a few pics to let us look back on when its gone!

Some very good fishing on the OP right now, been fishing different rivers and stretches every day with pretty much the same results good angling has good catching. Even with the tribe netting non stop to fill there DAYS quote for the season there are enough fish getting through to have some fun,,,,,it’s not too often you will hear me say that!

Still running into the daily monster and sometimes wining the battle.

won this battle

Net Marked

Got to this one after it escaped certain death by gill net, it was one hot puppy, probably why it was able to free itself.

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