I find February is frequently a challenging month to report on when it comes to stoking people's interest to go chase some fish. The lakes are often frozen, or only just shy of frozen, rivers run low and sometimes the consistency of a Pina Colada Slushee and the prospects of finding a fish or two seem about as improbable as the Chiefs getting utterly destroyed in Super Bowl LIX. But hey, you just never know.
The good news is that February is the shortest month the year, it's not a leap year this year and we're already nearly half way through it. I could talk about the trip to Belize I just returned from, about bonefish and tarpon, Atlantic triggerfish, jungle lagoons, endless reef side flats. I could talk about massive permit that showed themselves most days but continually reminded you that they were permit and that eating your fly was the furthest thing from their minds, but we'll leave that report for another day soon when I can do it justice.
In the meantime, we have a few more days of ideal fly tying weather before a gradual warm up entices us to once again flock to the river or venture out on the lake without the need for a tip up and ice shanty. If you're looking for things to do, the Fly Fishing Show is in Bellevue this weekend. The Fly Fishing Film Tour is next month at the Lincoln Theatre and we have tickets available for sale at the Confluence. You can come on down and see us at the shop as well. March will be upon us soon and between the spring steelhead season on the Skagit and early chironomid hatches kicking off on our local year round stillwaters we are always ready to help you get set up for your next adventure.
Rivers
A portion of the Skagit and Sauk Rivers are open through April 15th for catch and release steelheading. If the numbers of early wild steelhead we were finding in January before the river below the Dalles Bridge in Concrete closed, we should be in for a decent season this year. We have some rain coming towards the end of this week which should hopefully ameliorate the low, cold and clear conditions that have prevailed for the last month. Match your flies to the water conditions. When the river is low and clear, smaller profiled flies like Hoh Bo Speys, Reverse Marabou Speys, GP Speys or Foxee Dogs are always a good bet. Even Prom Dresses can work well under these conditions, just ask your buddy who fishes spoons most of the time. As the river comes up and gets some color, larger patterns like Stu's Ostrich Intruder, Signature Intruders, Tandem Tubes, and String Leeches begin to come into play.
Looking ahead to March, we expect more of the same in terms of swinging flies for steelhead, but if you have trout on the brain, March can be a good month on the Yakima River. Nymphing with Twenty Inchers, Hot Ribbed Hare's Ears, Lightning Bugs and other small mayfly nymph patterns can be really effective. Some days you may even find some dry fly success with Skwala Stones, CDC Midge Adults and Baetis Sparkle Duns.
Lakes
The fishing has been as hard as the water on Pass and Lone over the last several weeks, with the launch areas encrusted in ice during our latest cold snap. As the weather and the water warms Mini Leeches, Balanced Leeches, Bloodworms and Blobs will continue to be your most successful patterns. Once water temps reach the mid-40's, we should see chironomids hatching in March. Small Chromies, Ice Cream Cones in red or black and Olive/Green Black Wire Ribbed chironomids are typically some of the effective early patterns. If you're feverishly tying flies to fill your lake boxes, you should definitely check out the new AquaTalon Chironomid Ambush hook. It's an excellent choice for your chironomid patterns.
Beaches
While March often proves to be a little early in the North Sound to find chum fry amassed along the beaches, we do typically begin to see some sea run bull trout trout hanging around the east side Whidbey beaches and it's always worth prospecting with a larger herring or surf smelt imitating fly like the Psychedelic Herring, Just Keep Swimming or Stinger Clouser.