Mother Nature really knocked one out of the park with this latest atmospheric river. Our western Washington streams are up, up and away with rivers like the Skagit and Nooksack expecting major flooding this week. Local river fishing is pretty well out of the question for the coming week so what is one to do in the meantime?
- You can go fish a lake. There's a handful of open lakes that fish through the winter months. Freezing my parts off on a stillwater in a cold driving rain is seldom really my first choice but when I need to go fishing, as many of us do, it's where you'll find me. Sometimes the fishing is surprisingly good too.
- Tie flies. A lot of folks don't really dig the nasty weather this time of year and I get it. Picture yourself in a warm nook, adjacent to a cozy fire. The Seahawks are playing on the TV and probably dominating whatever team they face. You have all manner of new tying materials sprawled over the table every which way. Maybe you're creating fancy winter steelhead flies for when the flood waters eventually recede. Maybe you're tying chironomids for the spring when the tulips are blooming and your favorite BC lake is in full swing. If you're really lucky, you're tying bonefish or permit flies and dreaming of soon basking in the comforts of someplace substantially warmer and drier than your present situation. Whatever you're tying, you're probably also thinking a lot about fishing and thinking about fishing just feels good.
- Organize your stuff. I don't know about you but when I'm fishing a lot my fishing gear often becomes a major %#&! show. It just goes where it where goes and that is usually not the place it belongs. There's something infinitely cathartic about putting things back in their spot, making sure you've got the things you need and if you don't, you can pay us a visit to restock. It's nice to have everything organized so when a buddy calls at the last minute and invites you out for the day, you're good to go and it won't take you an eternity to round up the essentials. As a bonus, you're probably thinking about fishing while you're sorting through gear, which, as already established, is pretty awesome.
- Go holiday shopping. Why not? You probably have it on your list already. You could do it now or you could be reluctantly doing it later when the rivers have finally dropped and cleared and your friends are texting you pictures of the mint bright steelhead they just swung up. We hope you need to do at least some of your holiday shopping at the Confluence. We'd love to see you as always but if you want to make it quick, you can also order stuff on our online store to ship or pick up at the shop to simplify things. Whatever's easier for you. We put together a 2025 Confluence Holiday Gift Guide and hope you may find it helpful.
- Come check out North Sound Trout Unlimited's Iron Fly on Thursday, December 11th at Larrabee Brewing.
Thanks to all who signed up for the Jerry French tying classes we had in November and early December. I suspect many of you are on your your way to filling a box with some really juicy steelhead critters after the class. Our next winter tying class will feature Jordan Young-Treadway from Treadwaters Fly. Jordan will guide you through tying some of his super productive tube fly patterns and share why he and a lot of other anglers prefer to tie their steelhead flies on tubes. Class sign up is now open on our website or you can stop by the store to sign up as well.
A hearty thanks to everyone who blessed us with another busy year at the Confluence. Our joy of joys is to hear about your exciting experiences on the water throughout the year and for many, to be able to witness your growth as anglers over the years. To us, it's certainly about fishing, but also the many friendships that form over time through our common interest. We hope that your holidays are filled with friends and family along with a healthy serving of vital time on your favorite waters doing what you love.
Rivers
The rivers are a little big right now and on their way to getting bigger as the week progresses. The USGS river flow gauges combined with NOAA's river predictions are going to be your best friends for the time being. It looks like things should begin to slowly shape up as we get into next week. Chum and coho are winding down, though we're never too surprised to find a few stragglers showing up through the end of the year. Bull trout have been around in the North Sound rivers in increasing numbers and it's not too early to consider looking for winter steelhead either, especially given the likelihood that we will not be getting a spring catch and release season locally on the Skagit and Sauk this year.
The Nooksack watershed is currently slated to be open through the end of December, with all forks and the mainstem closing January 1st for everything. During the open period, all steelhead including hatchery adipose clipped fish must be released. You can view the emergency regulation on the WDFW website. It's a broken system with a hatchery program that has been failing for a long, long time, but we suppose having a planned opener through the end of December is at least a slight improvement over the sudden emergency closure we have typically seen in past years. The Skagit will be open through the end of January.
If you're out looking for winter steelhead, there really isn't a hot pattern, other than whatever you have unwavering confidence in. This is truly a fishery where you can randomly pick a pattern out of the bin because you think it looks cool and fish it successfully. We recommend having some weighted patterns like the Signature Intruder, Reverse Marabou and Pick 'Yer Pocket for deeper or faster flows and some unweighted flies you can swing all the way to the bank on a light sink tip like the Hoh Bo Spey, GP Spey, Foxee Dog or Fish Taco. Keep a handful of bright ones like pinks and oranges along with some darker blacks, purples and blues.
For bull trout, you can either swing the usual suspects like a Sir Sticks A Lot, Dali Llama Barbell Egg Sucking Leech or nymph an egg pattern like the Glo Yarn Egg or Lead Eye Egg. Target areas below where there may have been heavy salmon spawning activity earlier in the season or look for places where multiple currents come together to funnel food. There's a reason we find a lot of bull trout below the downstream tips of islands. They are masters at putting themselves in places where currents converge and food will typically end up.
If you're a trout fanatic and all you have is a 5 weight, fishing egg patterns under an indicator can be very effective for whitefish as well. Whitefish will tend to school up this time of year and where you find one, you will often find many. This native species is often held in poor regard for being less attractive and not fighting as hard as their trout cousins. Whitefish are fun, aggressive and relatively plentiful. Chasing whitefish still beats the alternative of sitting at home and not catching fish.
Lakes
Pass Lake is finally open and we've been enjoying catching some fish there. The overall trout population seems lower than in the past, but the tradeoff is that the remaining rainbows and browns are exceptionally healthy and pretty large. I believe "slab" is the appropriate term to describe them. Lone Lake and Squalicum Lakes are year round lakes as well and Cranberry Lake in Island County just got a healthy plant of larger than average rainbows prior to Thanksgiving. Winter can be a little more daunting than the fair weather months on our local lakes, but the fishing is still decent and your average catch rate will still be significantly better than on a typical steelhead outing just about anywhere. At Pass, minnow patterns like the Baby Fat Minnow, Gold BH Rolled Muddler and Zoo Cougar have been effective near the woody shorelines. Otherwise, Blobs fished under an indicator in conjunction with a Balanced Leech are working well. The Blob/Leech combo is good elsewhere in the winter too. Trout feed heavily on daphnia during the cold months and Blobs in a variety of colors can imitate a daphnia cluster. Retriever Jigs, Hot Head Squirrel Leeches, Rowley's Holo Worm and Minkie White Boobies have also been productive flies of late.
Beaches
Not much to report on the saltwater front these days. Cutthroat fishing can be good in Hood Canal and the South Sound through the winter but our local beach cutthroat fishery doesn't really get going until later in the spring.