Methow River B&B
These accommodations are exclusively available to the clients of Brazda’s Fly Fishing, a B&B with a view of the Methow on Burma Rd not two minutes from where I stay in my RV. It will be very convenient and cost effective for any of you to stay here. I can simply pick you up in the morning and go have a wonderful day on the Methow River or Wenatchee River chasing the wily steelhead and then bring you back in the evening. Lodging and guided fishing will be 310$ per person based on double occupancy this includes the state sales tax. Take a look at the home and its location, what could better?
The B and B will accommodate up to 6 anglers and there gear, couples are very much welcome, single anglers are slightly different priced.
Your wonderful host will be Phil and Tiloura Lund and of coarse you can expect me and or one of the guides to hang out at the BBQ on party nights. Phil is an accomplished Spey angler and is picking up his fishing guide career after thirty years of operating a home building construction company. Phil guided fishermen on the OP for ten years in the 1970’s and is looking forward to stepping back in time and enjoying that passion once again. He is available for Spey casting lessons right from the house.
Other services (besides breakfast) which are complimentary:
1) Drying waders inside & out on the red room floor, heated concrete, ( this was very well received last year)
2) Refrigeration of fish
3) Minor wader repair
4) Fly line repair
5) Drying wet clothes
6) Late check out (items stored in red room or living room)
7) Breakfast @ any hour.
Wether you are fishing or not give me a call and I will book this lodging for you as guests of mine, 253-307-3210 or e-mail Jeff@Brazdasflyfishing.com
This is a fantastic opportunity for us all.
Thank you, Jeff Brazda
WDFW NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/
August 11, 2010
Contacts: Pat Frazier (WDFW), 360-906-6711
John North (ODFW), 971-673-6029
Alternative commercial fishing gears
to be tested on lower Columbia River
OLYMPIA – Starting this week, fishery managers from Washington and Oregon will test the feasibility of five types of alternative commercial fishing gears on the lower Columbia River.
Expanding on a pilot project conducted last year, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) will work with commercial salmon fishers to test purse seines, beach seines and trap nets.
In addition, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) will work with a team of commercial fishers to test commercial troll gear and tangle nets during fall chinook and coho salmon runs.
Additional types of fishing gear will be evaluated in the future.
This year’s test fishing, funded primarily by NOAA Fisheries and an Oregon legislative appropriation, will be conducted from mid-August through October at various sites downstream of Bonneville Dam. Tests will include five purse seines, five beach seines, two trap nets, two trollers and three different types of tangle nets.
“Our shared goal is to identify and develop commercial fishing gear capable of catching large numbers of hatchery salmon, while also allowing for the safe release of wild fish,” said Pat Frazier, regional WDFW fish manager. “These tests are a critical step toward achieving that goal.”
Gears that achieve that goal could be approved for future use on the lower Columbia River, where gillnets are now the primary gear used in commercial fisheries. While gillnets are highly effective at catching salmon, alternative gears may increase the ability to release wild fish in good condition, Frazier said.
“Because many wild salmon and steelhead populations are listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, impact limits on these fish often curtail fisheries even when large numbers of hatchery-reared fish are available for harvest,” said John North, ODFW Columbia River Fisheries manager.
Development of viable fishing gear that can selectively remove hatchery fish would not only benefit commercial fisheries, but may also contribute to the recovery of wild salmon stocks on the Columbia River by reducing interactions with hatchery fish, North said.
In that regard, the results of last year’s pilot project were promising, said Frazier, who oversaw gear tests conducted by WDFW. Working with a purse seine, beach seine and trap net, WDFW project members caught and sorted 884 salmon, of which only one died during handling.
“The immediate survival rate was very good, but we need to conduct further tests to determine if these, or other gear types, are viable on a commercial scale,” Frazier said. “We also need to test them in different areas and under different conditions. That will be a major focus of this year’s tests.”
This is a great start to having Selective harvest and sustainability in commercial fisheries, a big issue for the survival of Washington steelhead and Salmon runs!
Oncorhynchus mykiss,
The highly sought after game fish of North Western United states, the popularity of catching steelhead has risen to the for front in western angling, how you catch them will always be controversial. I have been using a Spey rod since 1990 and it dramatically increased my SENSE of catch ability, I say sense because it actually did not catch me more BUT I could fish it more, then came the higher catch rate, I definitely like to catch them more on the Spey rod than any other method!.
Now since I started nymphing steelhead on the fly rod I found that catching them in high percentages was better for the psyche and later found that my clients liked it MUCH better as well. Imagine that, paying to go steelheading and expecting to catch them, what a concept; it actually may have pissed off some of the guides and anglers that did not catch so many steelhead.
To this day I see many steelheaders’s that use the Spey as a tool to cast to the other side of the river or to throw300 grain heads and not as a tool to fish the water they stand in. The Spey rod has born a revival in swing fishing for steelhead like no other tool since High Speed Hi-D from Sci. Anglers.
What is not remembered or learned so much in the first few years or 10, of using the 14 ft tool is how to fish the swing, our fly fishing forefathers learned how to fish the swing out of necessity, but in the slow days for steelhead fly fishing 1970-1986 (the drift fishing era) it had been forgotten. Now armed with the POWER of the Spey, the shoot first maybe land a dumb one later approach, runs rampant! I know of very, very few anglers ( I do know a lot of anglers) that actually can go into a river with a good run of steelhead in it and catch one entirely on skill and technique. I do however know that by combining yesterdays approach to swing angling with today’s swing tool an angler can be pretty dam good at catching swung fish as a daily routine.
Teaching the old school methods take time, much more time than teaching new methods, old school methods are acquired from time with the line under tension wile swinging the fly, having a rod the caster is used to handling helps dramatically.
Fortunately for the other 95% of the self taught week- end anglers there desired subject will at times go berserk and attack shit just out of meanness.
This is one of the reasons steelhead are the coolest fish in fresh water. One of the best swing anglers I know Vern Olsen once told me he’s fishing for the ones that eat it with HATRED and he has found a lot of them.
Now since being a fishing guide I could not be happy taking MONEY for a job that was so often left unrewarded, I approached steelhead fishing from a new angle. Back when the upper Hoh River on the Olympic Peninsula finally went to catch and release and No Bait is when I decided I would take this love of steelhead to the next level. I started guiding clients for steelhead and we did not always use the swing. I discovered that even though all I had ever done was fly fish for steelhead on the swing, I did not get the feeling that clients where satisfied with a couple grabs or a few Dolly on an average day. I really know that I wasn’t, I simply felt I owed them more, they needed to see the fish, feel the fish on the line at a much higher percentage of the time, they needed to handle this great fish and get that feeling of total content, that the world is great again and life is good. I wanted them to see and feel as I did about the steelhead, that there beauty and power was respectable and obtainable.
The first day I tried nymphing for steelhead I did not really know how to even nymph for Trout let alone steelhead. I did know I felt dirty about it what I did not know was how great it was to be dirty! My convictions told me it was disrespectful to the fish, come to find out those where other peoples inherited convictions through the mystic of publications.
My upbringing as a very young steelheader was either bait or swing the fly, bait when we went plunking due to dirty water then swinging when we could. Pure bait during the competitive years,(82-88) buddy fishing, taught me where the steelhead lived and when. Swinging the fly with my grandfather taught me exactly that, how to swing old school. Swinging the fly religiously again after I felt I had caught my share drift fishing ’88- 96.
Now I was venturing into new waters so to speak and it was a complete turn around in success from just swinging all those hours for the grab or a really good day four steelhead.
So there I am sitting in the upper Hoh with an 8wt and a dry line, twist on lead and orange yarn on a hook, I have just landed my 8th steelhead and am all by myself and within sight of the boat launch. I cannot remember the last time I had done that even with bait, I was ecstatic about steelhead again, fact is more than ever. I still stuck with the swinging thing; I was making custom lines for Spey rods all the wile nymphing whenever I felt like; no one was watching or catching more than the one a day. I soon found myself nymphing a lot going to zipper lip rivers and streams with my old bait buddies and crushing them, the same ones that thought I was crazy for fly fishing steelhead at all. I soon fell out of the loop and went rogue, I was on my own no support team. All the while fencing the Spey angling tradition, hell I was selling a hundred lines a year on the side, custom sink tips and Spey Lines. Rio came out with some great lines and finally made a GOOD loop on them so it gave me an out, I could get off the extra work train of looping lines at night and just go catching.
I started guiding a lot more and really learned how to nymph trout on the Yakima while guiding it. So here I am over twelve years later and catching steelhead like it was 1985 while tossing sand shrimp. I have pretty much developed my style of angling that generally keeps me and my clients happy. The big runs have returned to nearly all the rivers, the stream etiquette is the best of any state. I am using the nymph rod just as another tool in the big game of it all even though many still feel it is a sin. (Guide hint) What some anglers don’t adhere to is the use of a tool that will get them the end results more often even if it to catch a swung fly steelhead every day.
So at year 2010 I am more compelled to not fish the nymph rod when I go angling myself, this has been creeping up on me, this feeling of had caught enough on one type or another just as in 1989 when the bait rod started its cobweb collection. My Spey rods have all been broken numerous times from cliental abuse and I feel that I owe them some love and affection this is my year the year I come full circle again in my never ending pursuit of the Steelhead it’s time to bring back old school swinging!
Olympic Peninsula 2010 (Video)
Over the last 30 plus years I have been chasing steelhead in Washington state, the last 15 years have been bordering on psychotic tendency, my wife of 24 years will attest to that. About every seven years the natural cycle makes an up curve and generally peaks every 10-12 years. These peak years to a fishing guide is nothing short of a gift from GOD. This past season has seen a spike of monstrous proportions, one like I have not seen since 1985/86 in Puget Sound. I spent a few weeks on the OP that year but found ten fish days the norm on my then home water the Green and Puyallup and my measly wages and 63 VW was not in for the constant haul to the holy grounds.
Spending well over 100 days a year on steelhead water coupled with the best run in any lifetime has padded my steelhead numbers to epic levels. I feel blessed to have experienced such a season and am preparing for the norm come next October when I return to the river of my ancestors, my beloved Methow. We should all be thankful for this return of our majestic steelhead as there is one rule that a die hard angler should always heed ‘ NEVER TAKE STEELHEAD FOR GRANTED”
I say this as we should all realize what we have when we have it, I know that there are dozens of anglers out there who caught fish at first try this last year and now may think that steelhead are not so hard to catch. We forget the trials and tribulations of the down years, we forget to pay amish to those that are working hard to recover the lost salmon and steelhead runs, the conservation clubs, CCA, Wild Steelhead coalition, various river trusts and these are but a few, they all still need the help and financial support from anglers.
As I gear up for my next four months guiding trout in SW Montana I relive every new push of steehead into the rivers of my season, they gave me so much to live for, they left there prodigy in the gravels of my world hoping the same as I to return again in an endless cycle of life.
This an article I wrote back in 2006 when an influx of increased comercial pressure was evidant on the Quiliute and Hoh systems, there has been a slow turn in the direction of awareness towards this issue and I felt that it needed to be reiterated now as the wild winter steelhead we all love are begining there run for the spawning grounds. The letter was not too well recieved by any political parties and mostly ignored but that will not stop me from fighting for what I feel is right.
No Wild Steelhead on the menu
This will be a campaign for the survival of wild steelhead in the Pacific Northwest.
We are totally committed to the future runs of wild steelhead. With the increasing pressure of commercial netting the steelhead may go the same way of the salmon, near extinction. There are too many steelhead runs on the endangered species list already it must stop now.
Without huge funding, lawyers, politicians, or the help of Washington dept. of wildlife, we the anglers of these great fish must change the PUBLICS view of the steelhead. We must inform the public of the recent over harvest performed by tribal comercial fishermen.
The entire image of angling in the North West is based largely on the famed Steelhead trout. We all have had some romantic dream of battles with the greatest game fish in our region. Those dreams will all be illusions if something is not done to prevent the slaughter of wild steelhead. Throughout the United States the Olympic Peninsula is considered the last stronghold of the giant wild winter run Steelhead. The steelhead has been a cornerstone of the angling world much like the striped bass of the upper east coast, Redfish on the Gulf coast, and Billfish worldwide. These fish have been brought back from near extinction and are thriving today. It is now time to bring back the Wild Steelhead runs to there former glory days when Forks Washington was the steelhead capitol of the world. These fisheries were all saved by grassroots participation, starting with public opinion of these fish as a food source locally and eventually a buy out of commercial anglers.
Now classified as a salmon by the Wildlife Department, Steelhead have been thrown into the pot as a food fish not as a game fish, this opened the door for the tribes to sell them abroad. Coupled with self-policing and poor reporting ethics of commercial buyers the steelhead market is wide open to fraudulent activity.
As sport anglers we have taken big strides to save the steelhead runs by virtually eliminating any sport kill fishing, we have clubs and groups that volunteer extensively on habitat projects. We simply pay the lions share for the survival of the steelhead and we get blamed for there downfall. All the wile the tribes are claiming forgone opportunity and fishing more days and taking a higher and higher percentage of the run. The tribal biologists say there are more fish than our wildlife biologists say there is, and unless we go to court with the tribe again the wildlife dept. just steps aside and lets the tribe do what they want.
With tribal commercial gill netting of the rivers up to 5.5 days a week and the price for wild steelhead at nearly 2.00$ a pound ( four times more $ than previous years) the tribes have more than doubled there fishing vessles. These are just a few of the actions that concern many others and myself. We don’t wish to impose that the tribes should not fish just that they need better regulation. Regulation that provides for a quality fishery NOT an under escapement commercial fishing get them all now and do something else when they are gone philosophy.
There is but one bright light in this equation and that is freedom of speech. With that we can change anything. We must change the opinion of all possible consumers of Wild Steelhead. They need to be informed that there are not enough steelhead in the North West to accommodate a non selective unsustained commercial fishery. They need to be informed that a gill net fishery in a river can and will wipe that species from existence. We need to let those restaurant owners know that we will not dine in their establishments with steelhead on the menu. We must find and protest against the purchasers of wild steelhead. We must also find out if they market the fish under other names, ie: silver trout. Eventually a total buyout of the tribal gill netting is all that will save the anidramous fish of the Pacific Northwest.
Finally I would like to invite anyone with truthful information about this subject to tell others and us so we can someday stop all killing of wild steelhead. Please feel free to correct us on any of this information. This is based on first hand visual, personal and historic information obtained abroad.
Thank you for your support.
Brazdas fly fishing.com
