It is hard to believe we're over half way through February.  Time flies and soon we'll be focused on our upcoming summer fisheries but right now the focus is on wild winter steelhead.  The numbers of steelhead have started to increase and hopefully we get some some pushes of high water over the next few weeks to bring in even more fish.

The next few weeks are prime time for winter runs in the coastal rivers on the North Coast.  The Sol Duc, Hoh, Bogachiel, and Calawah should all see good pushes of fish over the next few weeks.  As we talked about in the last newsletter there are less than two weeks left before all of the small creeks and tributaries close at the end of February so either go now or wait until next winter. 

   

More and more anglers are dead drifting beads and egg patterns but swinging flies on sink tips can also be effective, especially as the temperatures rise over the next few weeks and months.

We are still a couple weeks from the beginning of the chum fry migration along the saltwater beaches.  With the warm winter we have been having it might be worth it to head to the salt to see if the chum might be emerging a bit early.  There are always a few cutthroat around in the winter months so you stand a chance to connect with a sea-run cutthroat even if the chum fry are still in the gravel.

Over the next couple months making a decision on where to fish gets tougher as spring chinook start showing up, the lowland lakes start warming up, and saltwater bottomfishing gets going.  Our fly tying benches are a mess as we jump from fishery to fishery in our tying.

We've had some nice weather recently and the rivers have all been in shape.  Both Curt and Sean have been guiding and finding some steelhead on the swing. 

Curt had a trip last Monday with a some Atlantic Salmon fishermen from Finland.  

Curt floated them down the Bogachiel and they had a great day on the water swinging flies.  They really enjoyed the water they fished, saw a huge herd of elk, and liked the huge moss-covered trees along the river.

How was the fishing?  They landed this beautiful steelhead and lost another one.  What a great introduction to winter steelhead fishing on the Olympic Peninsula.

Our guides still have some openings left for the peak of the winter steelhead season.  Click Here to learn more about our guided trips.

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Everybody who sends us a question will be entered to win.  To enter send us a question at info@waterswest.com with the subject line reading "2013 Questions".  Make sure to include your name in the e-mail.

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