Skagit River
Forum rules
Forum Post Guidelines: This Forum is rated “Family Friendly”. Civil discussions are encouraged and welcomed. Name calling, negative, harassing, or threatening comments will be removed and may result in suspension or IP Ban without notice. Please refer to the Terms of Service and Forum Guidelines post for more information. Thank you
Forum Post Guidelines: This Forum is rated “Family Friendly”. Civil discussions are encouraged and welcomed. Name calling, negative, harassing, or threatening comments will be removed and may result in suspension or IP Ban without notice. Please refer to the Terms of Service and Forum Guidelines post for more information. Thank you
Skagit River
Any reports on the Skagit river lately? I'm thinking about heading down there on Saturday. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
RE:Skagit River
fish it one last time before it closes and let us know. I've been fishing Sauk and Skagit alot this season with nothing but lots of bulltrout.greeno211 wrote:Any reports on the Skagit river lately? I'm thinking about heading down there on Saturday. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
RE:Skagit River
What have you been using? My buddy pulled a 8 pound steelhead out of the skagit about two weeks ago but thats all ive heard from it so far this year.
RE:Skagit River
big fuzzy marabou flies, 3-4" intruder type flies.
RE:Skagit River
oh okay have you tried the cascade at all this year? i was thinking about giving that a shot
RE:Skagit River
Nah, i mostly stuck with Sauk actually, fished the Skagit twice with no luck. Cascade was shut down early this year and reopened I heard? The entire S river system has been dismal this season from what I've heard.
RE:Skagit River
yeah the cascade opened up about a month ago i was there two weeks ago and saw a cpl fish but couldnt hook in to one. I heard its been slow pretty much everywhere.
RE:Skagit River
its quite sad actually, the conditions that the puget sound rivers are in. I spoke with a WDFW lady while I was out at the Hoh and with all the tribal netting, poaching, general industrialization around these rivers, the puget sound rivers are slowly becoming sterile. That's not quite a surprise to anyone but it is somewhat frustrating to see these rivers closing down while the netting continues...and even more infuriating, to see wild steelhead commercially sold to places like Pikes Place Market and many restaraunts in WA selling local wild steelhead. Many of these are natives and hatchery fish as gillnets are not selective...well that's another debate I suppose, but the rivers around here are very much in a fragile condition.
RE:Skagit River
Yeah its pretty ridiculous. I think that they need to shut down all netting in rivers especially for steelhead seeing as their are so few of them already. What river would you recommend over on the Olympic Peninsula. Ive never fished over there before and would like to give it a try. Is there any river in particular thats good for bank fishing?
RE:Skagit River
Well, I'm not too familiar with the OP rivers but with the waters being low right now, The Bogachiel and Hoh are both good for wading I'd say. Sol Duc isn't the most wade friendly from what I've heard but it can be done.
Both rivers are tapering off hatchery fish and the native's are starting to trickle in so I'd say if you can wait a couple weeks, the Hoh will be a good fishery but expect lots of people. The Hoh is open for 1 native steelhead retention unfortunately so you'll find a lot of people fishing it during March and April from what I hear. While I was out there I met a group of guys camping for a week and it had been 3 days for them with no fish except 1 bull trout.
It's beautiful out there. I hiked through some thick dense rain forest on the Hoh (looking for Yoda) and it was amazing...except for the giant spiders that I saw crawling around and walking into some thick spider webs...that wasn't too fun.
Both rivers are tapering off hatchery fish and the native's are starting to trickle in so I'd say if you can wait a couple weeks, the Hoh will be a good fishery but expect lots of people. The Hoh is open for 1 native steelhead retention unfortunately so you'll find a lot of people fishing it during March and April from what I hear. While I was out there I met a group of guys camping for a week and it had been 3 days for them with no fish except 1 bull trout.
It's beautiful out there. I hiked through some thick dense rain forest on the Hoh (looking for Yoda) and it was amazing...except for the giant spiders that I saw crawling around and walking into some thick spider webs...that wasn't too fun.
RE:Skagit River
yeah i will definitely have to give that a try thanks for the info.
RE:Skagit River
The Calawah River also has an area to fish from the bank too. I'm not sure how well it is for native fishing because I've only fished it during Mid December to early January before. You have to walk back a half mile or mile to the bank access.
RE:Skagit River
would it be good for wading?
RE:Skagit River
Well I know that for the Calawah and Bogey you don't really even need waders because you won't be wading in the waters. You'll just be fishing from the bank, not actually getting into the water, at least the areas I've been to. It's a good idea to have your waders though just in case it's all rainy because it can get slippery with the mud. The spot on the Calawah that I was talking about though is a good area to fish from the bank.
RE:Skagit River
yeah thanks for the info. Where would you recommend if i wanted to fish the spring king run on one of the columbia's tributaries?