The new year is always a fitting time for reflection. A time to look back on our accomplishments of the previous 12 months. The friends you shared the water with, the marvelous places you experienced, the great fish that came to hand and especially the better ones that didn't. It's a also a great time to look ahead, make plans for the coming season, set up goals, fill fly boxes and trace fingers along the thin blue lines on a map in anticipation of finally figuring out what's waiting for you up there.
2024 ended with a bang after enjoying one of the best salmon seasons on our local rivers we've had in a long, long time. It's only natural to look to the future and hope that numbers continue along this trend. We're coming up on another pink salmon year and though it's yet many months away, it's a warming thought to envision what that usually looks like when the rivers are absolutely full of fish. Of course, there's a lot to appreciate between now and then, from winter steelhead to plump high desert rainbows to sultry June evenings filled with brawling bluegill and the giggles of grown adults. It's impossible to get bored around here with the seasons continually changing.
For me, there's always a little bit of self-imposed pressure surrounding the first day on the water of the new year. Despite the fact that it's winter and the cold months are seldom going to be the most generous when it comes to giving up a few fish, I have my preconceived ideas about what the day should be and how it somehow sets the tone for the rest of the year. I usually like to spend it with some of my best fishing friends, knowing that the on-the-water antics and good-natured competitiveness that accompanies our friendship will be a constant companion throughout the year. Given that the weather conditions often border on miserable I like to see just how long I can take it and push myself to stay out there as long as possible, if for only to prove to myself that despite getting older, I'm not going soft. Consider it my New Year's polar bear plunge in waders. Of course, I also like to catch a few fish, preferably some nice ones.
So a few days into the new year, I found myself and a couple of my closest friends kicking out into the frigid waters of Lone Lake in our float tubes. I got the first fish in about 15 minutes, it took a black and red Balanced Leech about 7' under an indicator just out from the shoreline. It was a thick-bodied, hook-jawed rainbow whose dark hued sides perfectly matched the overcast skies. The next fish didn't come till several hours later as we found a spot with trout eating bloodworms near the bottom in deeper water in the middle of the lake. We'd threaten repeatedly to call it a day, as in spite of the dry and windless weather, we were all pretty well numb from the knees down. But slowly kicking shoreward the indicator would invariably take a subtle dip and we'd be into another fat leaping rainbow before the encroaching darkness called us off the lake. On the drive home I caught the last few minutes of the Seahawks game on the radio. It was a close game against the Rams but the Hawks managed a win, reinforcing a long-held tenet that I've carried with me over 4 decades of flailing a fly rod: Always try to end on a high note. Sometimes if you're lucky, that note is a memorable fish. Sometimes it's an exceptional cast that surprised even you and made you wonder why you couldn't make that happen the rest of the day. Sometimes it's just stopping yourself to watch the sun set for a few minutes and reminding yourself that that's the real reason you're out there in the first place. Always end on a high note...and maybe try to start with one too.
Thanks to each and every one of you for making a 2024 another fun and successful year for the Confluence. We're now 12 years and running and looking forward to many more. Thanks for the holiday wishes and gifts as well. We appreciate them so much! In the meantime, we hope you've experienced a first special day on the water and, if not yet, get a chance to be out there before too long.
Rivers
The last few weeks of December saw some early wild winter steelhead showing up in the Skagit and we certainly hope these were the harbingers of a good return this season. There've been a few hatchery fish around as well, from the Stilly to the Sky and of course out west on the Olympic Peninsula. Unfortunately, the entire Nooksack system closed on January 1st due to poor hatchery returns. It's a predictably predictable dilemma that repeats itself just about every year. If only Australian motivational speaker Susan Powter could have a conversation with WDFW. "Stop the insanity!" On a brighter note, early indications point towards a spring C&R season for wild steelhead on the Skagit and Sauk, though we will not get an official announcement until likely late January. We'll well stocked on winter steelhead flies. Pick up a selection or your favorites, or at the very least, our favorites and put in some time on the water. Steelhead on swung flies seldom come easy and if they did, probably wouldn't be as special as they are. Jerry's Intruders, Stu's Ostrich Intruders, Hoh Bo Speys, Dirty Hoh's, Fish Tacos and Tandem Tube Leeches are some of our confidence patterns in a variety of bright and dark colors.
If steelhead aren't your cup of tea, there are still plenty of bull trout around in the Skagit and Sauk as well to fish for through the end of January. Salmon are all but done spawning in much of the river, so flesh patterns like the flesh/tan Dali Llama or baitfish patterns like Sculpzillas, white Dali Llamas, white Zonkers and Sir Sticks A Lot are good patterns to fish this time of year. Bulls are now a bit more spread throughout the upper and lower river sections.
Lakes
There are a few area lakes that are both open year round and fish pretty well through the winter months. Those lakes are Pass, Lone and Cranberry, all near or on Whidbey Island. Typical winter stillwater food sources are leeches, zooplankton and bloodworms (chironomid larvae). It's kind of nice from the standpoint of simplifying fly selection and once you dial in the location and depth trout are feeding at, you can enjoy some decent catching. The program can change throughout the winter, but over the last few weeks, the pattern has primarily been to fish a bloodworm within a foot or less of the bottom on a floating line, long leader and slip indicator set up. We are generally finding most fish in 14-20' of water depending on the lake. We've caught a few on Blobs and Balanced Leeches suspended as a dropper about 18" above the bloodworm, but mostly on the bloodworm patterns. If nothing else, fishing a second fly, particularly the brightly colored Blobs above the bloodworm can draw a trout's attention from some distance away and help them locate the fly they really want.
Beaches
Not much happening off the North Sound beaches this time of year. The local salt scene tends to pick up around March most years.