Greetings from the Grande Ronde 2004:

The 2nd Ennis Fly Fishing Festival was very successful, but over.  We helped put away the tents then packed our little trailer and headed west on I-90.  Destination: Vasa Park, located on the shores of once-bucolic Lake Sammamish.  We spent several days in the Seattle area, and were repeatedly drenched as we hit the local beaches and a few up on Whidbey Island.  We were looking for schools of migrating Coho, which cruise the Puget Sound beaches in the fall, waiting to move up the rivers. It is amazing to fish for these Silvers up on the surface with poppers.  They are so fast and explosive.  They follow your fly in like a torpedo and often the take is at the end of the retrieve, just a few feet away from you.  This trip we had only a few follows, and no takes.  The rain kept the salmon on the move.  But if it was sending the salmon up river, we thought it might bring steelhead up the Grande Ronde - so we headed for it.

It’s great to be here, in the southeast corner of Washington, at Boggan’s Oasis, where the Vail’s treat us like royalty – well, at least as well as they treat the guides – to big breakfasts and dinners of the meat/potatoes/apple pie variety.  These Grande Ronde fish are en route to spring spawning, having been born here and after spending their teen and adult periods in the Pacific Ocean.  They’ve journeyed 400 miles up the Columbia and Snake, including eight dams, to get here.  And, would you believe?  They’re trucked over the dams!  Yep, there’s no swimming over what the Corps of Engineers creates. 

Our Grande Ronde fishing started 3 years ago with a phone call to John Farrar.  We invited him out to Montana for some fall fishing.  He responded that in fact we should join him for steelheading on the Grande Ronde.  Never having steelheaded we said “sure”.  John is the dean of the Ronde guides.  In fact, he is booked from the Monday after his arrival, Sept 24^th through the first week of November – seven days a week! 

John and Kory Keath arrived at dusk Saturday night with Airstream and Clackacraft in tow.  We helped them set up in the failing light and made plans for a day of fishing.  The next morning found us on the Bear’s Den drift.  (It’s not so disturbing that a bear lives there, what shivers my timbers is that we camped for a night there last year with Craig Koeppler – fortunately with no bear sightings.)  The fishing was quiet and John was helping Kory and Cezanne with Spey casting.  So, I announced my intent to cross the river and fish from the bear’s side.  While John has fished more Grande Ronde Octobers than any man alive, he casually and diplomatically mentioned that clients of his have experienced success in the pool above the Bear’s Den drift.  Ever bullheaded, I headed across the river, but didn’t get to see if the big cinnamon was home, the water was just too deep/swift for me to cross.  Hummm, maybe I should listen to the expert.

The pool is glassy smooth, which belies its swift current and there are swirls which suggest huge boulders just under the surface – great spots for steelhead to hold.  Upstream, the pool begins at the tail of a steep chute of whitewater, where I started, with a cliff wall right behind me.  All was quiet, barring the water sounds and small rock slides from (hopefully small) animals above me.  As my companions (human and canine) were out of sight a quarter mile downstream, all this heightened my senses.  What am I going to do if I get a big steelhead on, above-waist deep in the middle of this pool?  Is unassisted release in the cards?  What if I was a total success and nobody believed my tale?  The quiet water was ideal for spooking fish.  I’d better keep my distance with fairly long casts.  And, they’d better drop soundlessly to the water to present my tiny size 8 “undertaker” fly to an unsuspecting “chromer”.  Of course, long and quiet casts are completely out of character for me.

But, I was swinging my trusty new Bob Meiser 7/8 wt 10’6” two hander strung with a cool 10wt 30’ intermediate sinking head and 100’ of intermediate sinking .025” running line.  While the casting gods smiled, I zipped 70’ delicate casts just upstream of the boulder swirls and Mein Gott!  A huge jerk!  Then nothing.  It felt like my fly was hooked on the boulder.  Not the biggest surprise, as just the day before a steelie had successfully substituted itself with a large river rock, leaving me stumped.  Determined not to be deceived I maintained tension while daintily wading/moonwalking toward the rock.  Then suddenly, not 25 feet to my right, a huge glimmeringly silver steelhead jumped completely free of the surface and landed with the splash of a bowling ball.  Damn!  That must mean there’s no fish on my hook.  It’s the rock for sure.  But what if I’m hooked to a fish just behind the rock – wouldn’t that feel like this?  Could it be pure coincidence that I’d be hooked to one of these rare fish while a huge one jumps right next to me?  Tension has been maintained.  Dare I give it (fish or rock) a little slack and see what happens?  Okay, here goes.  Easy, easy… and suddenly my rod’s doubled over and line is just flying out.  Hummm, must’ve been more than one fish in this pool.  There is a serious lack of control which I hadn’t yet experienced on Grande Ronde fish, as the fish jumped, ran, violently jerked for about ten minutes.  Now to address those questions which heightened my anxiety entering the pool:  Can I grab this fish?  With ten foot flexible rod and twelve foot leader, could Yao Min solo-tail the largest of Grande Ronde steelhead before exhausting the fish potentially to death?  A wild fish must be released with enough vigor to recover and successfully spawn, while hatchery steelhead are going to be executed by the State and may as well dined upon. 

My fish made a couple more long, knuckle-busting runs with line pouring off the reel at such a rate I was sure to lose pressure and my hookup with the violent shaking which was going on.  Somehow, I was slowly being dragged to the tail of the pool, too.  If this is a hatchery fish maybe I can work it over to the shallow side of the pool, drag it up on the rocks and dispatch it.  Soon, my steelhead was close enough that on the next jump the adipose fin was visible – meaning a wild one which must be released in the water… and fairly soon.  Looking downstream, below the next riffle I thought I could see Kory, so I yelled and waved.  Of course, she thought I was just being sociable.  So, while the fish ran, rolled and generally kept things completely out of control I waded towards the riffle.  Looking down into the Bear Den stretch of river, it appeared that Cezanne, Kory and John were seated on the bank chatting.  “Help!  Help!”  And finally help arrived.  Cezanne tailed the fish, John took the photos and Kory gave me a high five.  The dogs were impressed with the biggest Grande Ronde steelhead they or I’d ever seen.