Marty's Drift June 2004

Yakima River

Earlier this year ClackaCraft was contacted about helping to sponsor a DVD featuring Jim Teeny. Jim is one of fly fishing’s legends and the innovator of many unique fly fishing products such as the Teeny Nymph series of fly patterns and the Teeny Nymph Fly Lines (jimteeny.com 503-667-6602). Jim was producing a basic nymph fishing DVD that will be included for free with each Teeny Nymph fly line sold. It was decided that the Yakima River would be a good place to film the DVD.

The Yakima is Washington State’s Blue Ribbon trout stream. Years ago planting hatchery trout was discontinued in favor of a completely wild population of rainbow trout. The river has responded well and now has a healthy stock of fish.

Red’s Fly Shop is located in the heart of the Yakima River Canyon (redsflyshop.com 509-929-1802). Because Red’s offers cabins and has ClackaCraft drift boats, the film crew decided to base operations from Red’s. Jim would ride with Steve Joyce, Red’s manager, and I would row the camera boat.

We filmed on a Sunday and Monday. The weather was pleasant, with only an occasional strong wind gust. Fishing films always look as though the hosts are enjoying non-stop fishing. I’ve been involved in five or six of these film sessions over the past five years and I’m here to tell you they are not as they appear. A tremendous amount of time is spent setting up shots, shooting them from different angles and re-shooting. There is some pressure on the camera boat oarsman to keep the cameraman in the best possible position for the shot that he is trying to get. Sometimes holding a position is tough to accomplish, due to the fact that the fishing boat and the camera boat are often in different river currents.

The focus of the DVD was to demonstrate Jim’s nymph fishing techniques. It wasn’t long before Jim was hooked up with some nice Yakima River rainbow trout. Jim was using one his sink-tip lines and several different Teeny Nymph patterns. The Teeny Nymph is one of those fly patterns that seem able to catch fish of any species in any location.

While the sound and camera crew focused on Jim’s fishing, I had ample opportunity to watch what was going on around us. High up the slope of the canyon a band of bighorn sheep grazed in the central Washington sunlight. Mergansers and mallards paddled under the overhanging shrubbery. Overhead, coasting on the thermals, a golden eagle circled. Thousands of swallows darted in and out of their nests that clung to the shear rock cliffs along the river.

With the filming project finished, I was able to spend the entire day Tuesday fishing. Randal Sumner of Blue Skies Fly Fishing Guide Service (blueskiesfishing.com 509-469-2541) had invited me to do a float with him, so we met at about 9:30 and headed for the put-in.

The weather report we heard Tuesday morning predicted afternoon wind gusts of 80 miles per hour. That’s not the kind of weather you want to face while floating. We decided on one of the shorter Yakima floats in case the weather forecasters turned out to be correct. We pulled away from the put-in with two rods rigged. One rod was set up with two dry flies--an Elk Hair Caddis with a Caddis Emerger as a dropper. The other rod was rigged with a strike indicator and bead-head nymphs. As I rigged the nymph outfit, Randal admonished me to be sure to tie the dropper with only seven or eight inches of leader. Longer leader dropper was not allowed.

It didn’t take long to see the wisdom of Randal’s advice. Within just three or four casts I had hooked a nice Yakima River rainbow. The technique we used was pretty standard for nymph fishing. As we floated, I cast slightly upstream and allowed the nymphs to drift with the boat. When we anchored, we cast upstream and retrieved line until the indicator was even with us, then began to feed line to get a longer drift. The action with the nymphs was very steady throughout the morning. Occasionally we spotted a fish rising to the caddis that dipped to the water from the streamside brush. By mid-afternoon there was a lot more dry fly action, and we began to hook fish on the Elk Hair Caddis and Caddis emerger.

Randal noticed that many of the caddis were egg layers so we tied on more appropriate dry fly imitations and the takes we got increased. Just above the end of our drift was a broad riffle area. Randal anchored at the top of the riffle and we watched for a minute. Throughout the entire riffle there were fish rising. Broad rainbow shoulders broke the surface, taking down one caddis after another. We took turns casting, handing the rod back and forth after one or the other of us hooked a fish. The action went on and on. If fish stopped rising in one spot, they began in another. For well over an hour there was always a target to cast to.

Blessedly the 80-mile per hour wind gusts never materialized. We landed at the take-out without enduring any Yakima River weather savagery. The same could not be said about the trout, however. In that regard we had encountered many savage hits and runs. It had been an excellent day of trout fishing.

Give Marty a call at: (503) 655-9532

You can also call Idaho Falls at (800) 394-1345.