Olympic Interlude

An overcast Saturday morning in the Olympic National Forest provided the perfect backdrop for my first Washington fly fishing expedition. The clouds hung low in the sky, shrouding the mountain peaks as we crossed the Hood Canal, entering the Olympic Peninsula.

My lunchtime research this past week focused on identifying a few candidates in the eastern Olympic range. The criteria was simply a small to medium sized stream with access via public hiking trails and preferably one that minimized our time on the hairier forestry roads (the tread is growing mighty thin on my current set of tires..) After going back and forth on two different options, I settled on one and downloaded the appropriate offline maps. This was my first bona fide bluelining (a term for identifying a blue squiggly line on a map and exploring it out with little to no prior info) trip in a long time and I was quite excited for it!

We arrived at the trailhead around 9am via forestry roads – nothing too crazy but enough to get the message that we’re not in Wisconsin anymore. (All roads look flat on a 2D map!)

We weren’t sure exactly how far away the stream was from the trailhead, so I opted to suit up in my boots and waders instead of carrying them in and out (and a bit heavier in water weight on the way back) Since this trip, I’ve devised a plan for backpacking in with my gear that I’ll test on a later trip, but hiking in fully suited up worked surprisingly well.

We hiked in 2 miles before the sights and sounds of flowing water was in our periphery, meeting some friendly hikers and creatures along the way. One guy was on a solo two night backpacking trip and was lost. The river he had planned to ford was impassable and he turned back, disoriented. We tried our best to help him out, but after reviewing the maps of the area when we got home, realized that we were off by 6 miles on the directions we gave him. Oops. Hopefully he made it back to Redmond by Monday morning…

Once we were at river level, we were able to fully take in the surroundings – clear water cascading between shorelines of tall Douglas firs. Along the banks, yellow and red salmonberries hung like Christmas ornaments.

Reading the stream, I was immediately transfixed by a small pool on the far bank – a quiet holding spot created naturally through a median of rocks off from the main branch. Accessing this pool proved to be a puzzle, but a manageable one with intentional movement and consideration. I learned a lot about crossing running water from discussions with a fly shop owner in Alaska last summer. Chiefly, to never underestimate the power or depth of mountain runoff and to always avoid crossing anywhere that requires you to wade past your knees. This is what he referred to as the “sweeper” zone, and your ability to withstand being swept by current decreases dramatically.

Reaching a safe vantage point downstream of the small pool, I tied on a bushy hairwing caddis pattern and began making casts to the head of the pool. Within 5 minutes I was netting my first (native!) Washington rainbow trout. I was incredibly stoked.

I continued fishing the pool, drawing a few more strikes without connection before moving upstream. This would be my only trout of the trip and I left feeling more than content and with a thirst to continue exploring the small streams in the Olympic mountain system.

Hiking the 2 miles back to the trailhead, we were afforded with a host of PNW flora and fauna that caught our attention. Giant slugs with unique spotting traversing the path, a snow white cluster of Indian pipe, and more salmonberries that we sampled along the way (tart!)