Washington's Yakima River Canyon

Months back I posted a topic on setting up a new rod and reel combo for my trip out west. Well the time had finally come for my trip last week and I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

I flew out to seattle last week and upon arriving drove 2 hours to the east over the mountains into the desert. The daytime temperatures were in the upper 80s to low 90s but at night the temperatures dipped well into the low 40s and there was even frost one morning. Our first day of fishing we were on our own, we used maps to pick likely areas to wade for cutthroats and rainbows. The second day we had our guided float scheduled on the Yakima River but because of the current state of the river, we ended up wading with the guide instead. The river was in the middle of what is called the "flip flop" where outflows on upriver dams are slowed down on some branches and increased further downstream on other branches of the watershed. Upon our arrival the water was in the process of lowering from around 4000 cfs to 2000 leaving the fish moving from the edges of the bank to deeper holding patterns. The guide gave us the choice of floating or going to another spot to wade that he said was his favorite spot to fish. The fishing ended up being better than we could have hoped for and we were able to return to the same spot the next day on our own and do equally well.


The sun took forever to make it down into the depths of the canyon.


The bighorn sheep would come down from the mountains around noon each day to get a drink from the river while we fished.





The only cutthroat of the trip.


Not my biggest fish of the week, but one of the few that stuck around long enough for a picture. The evening caddis hatch produced this one and many more on dries.


We had the stream to ourselves for the majority of the trip.

Cool. Those southern and eastern Washington canyons are a pretty interesting environment, aren't they?

Glad you had fun.

Looks like a cuttbow to me. Nice pictures.

glad you took the recommendation on the rt 2
drove it once at night in a storm alone... not too fun

looks like you had a good trip

+1. Very cool stuff...

Great pics , glad you had a wonderful trip. Looks pristine.