I have been fishing the Skagit River (In south West B.C., Canada) for 18 years now and I love the area. It is one of those places that is close enough to the city (Vancouver) that you can do a day trip, but it feels like you are in the middle of nowhere (And you are).
The Skagit River starts in the Mountains of Manning Park in BC, and flows west and then to the south into Ross Lake. Ross lake is primarily in the USA and is a man made lake that is caused by the Skagit river being Dammed on the US side. The Skagit then flows through Washington state and dumps into Puget sound near the town of La Connor.
The Skagit (In BC) is a beautiful small river that is PERFECT for flyfishing and holds some beautiful fish. There are 2 species of fish in the Skagit River, Rainbow Trout, and Bull Trout.
Well, enough with the details, here is what happened last week Thursday (July 22nd) when myself and one of my team members fro the 2009 National FlyFishing championships went.
We met up in the town of Chilliwack and Alistair jumped into my car and we headed out. We drove to the Skagit Vally and were on the water by 10am, and started to fish a beautiful run. I was all geared up for the Bull Trout, while Alistair was geared up for Nymphing and dry fly action with the rainbows.
I headed to the top end of the first nice run and with my first cast I had a nice (Smaller) Bull come up and take a swipe at my offering. I was not really paying attention, so I missed the fish. After this, I did not see another fish in this particular run, and neither did Alistair, so we started to move on down stream to another Beautiful run.
Alistair fishing the first run of the day
Alistair was using a wet fly (A Partridge and Orange) and ended up landing a nice 15″ Rainbow. I followed him on the run with my Bull Trout streamer so not to spook the rainbows in the run for Alistair who was hunting for them. After a few casts I got into a beautiful Skagit river Bull Trout;
First Bull of the day "ON"
A Nice 3.5 lb Bull Trout
After taking a few Pictures and releasing this beauty, I continued to fish this run and after a few more casts, I was into another beautiful Bull Trout,
A Nice 4Lb+ Bull Trout
I landed one more Bull in this Run, and them Alistair and I decided to move on down stream to another nice run that Alistair knew about. As we approached, we noticed another flyfisher was working the run, so we continued past him and went to another run/Pool further down the river.
A few years back, the river changed it’s path at this point and you cannot follow it here because it had cut a new path through some dense bush. We followed the old river bed around the corner to where the river is accessible again. In the old river bed, some flow still passes through and has created a totally different experience for fishing. Here are a few shots of the Old river bed,
Old river Bed
Alistair fishing a small run in the Old River Bed
Once we got back to the main river, we got to this really nice run/pool and because of the depth of the water, I changed over to a TypeVI sink tip fly line.
I decided to try to do some nymphing, while Alistair was trying his hand with some emergers. after a few casts, I was into a nice Skagit River Bow;
Nice Skagit River Bow
Next Cast, Next Fish;
Another Nice Rainbow, This time on a Bow River Bugger
Alistair, was concentrating on a few Rainbows that were actively feeding on the surface under a overhanging tree, and after a dozen casts, finally lured one into his offering;
Alistair fisghting a nice Bow
Alistair with his prize
After stopping and having a nice shore lunch, we decided to head back up to the run where we saw the FlyFisher on the way down. Once we got there, he was gone, so we started to work the run. We saw the flashes of Bull Trout all over the place in this 200 yard long run. My first cast, BANG, Bull Trout on!!!
A nice "BIG" Bull trout taken on a White/Red Bunny Steramer
After releasing this beauty, my very next cast produced this;
Another nice blue
Again, after releasing this fish, next cast, FISH ON!!!
Under water shot of a bull
This continued for the next 2 hours, every cast, I had a fish on, and I mean EVERY cast. Some I landed, some I lost, but I have NEVER seen anything like this before on the Skagit, the Bulls were stacked like cordwood in this run, and I had a BLAST fishing for them. After a few more fish, I got into a HUGE one, this fish fought hard and took me close to 20 minutes to get in. Just so you can get an Idea how big it was, My net opening (In pic) is 21″ and this fish overflowed the net. Alistair and I figured it was around 28″ and 8+ pounds;
8+ pound Bull Trout
After catching and releasing a few more fish, we decided to move on back towards the car as it was starting to get late (Around 7pm and we had a bit of a walk to get back to the car). We did fish on the way back, and I got 6 more, with this one being the largest;
Another nice Bull Trout around 7 pounds
The colors of these fish is impressive, here is a shot of their colors;
Beautiful spots on a Bull
Another nice Bull Trout
Close up a Bull Trout Head
My Final fish of this AWESOME day
We fished hard all day and had a wonderful time, and I can only say that I have NEVER had a day even close to this EVER on this wonderful River. At the end of the day, I landed 3 rainbows and a WHOPPING 22 Bull Trout and lost at least 10 more.
A HUGE thanks has to go out to Alistair for coming with me. Alistair got into a few fish as well, but because of him not having a sink tip with him, he did not get into many Bull Trout. He even used the same flies I did, but the key this day was having a Fast sink tip to keep the fly in the zone as the fly as the fly was striped in.
Here are a few random Pictures from the day to end the post;
Skagit Bow
Nice deep run/pool
There were some fish hanging out in front of this fallen tree
The Bull Trout Bend!!
Rick Passek “The FlyFish Fanatic”™
Steelhead Swap 2
Steelhead Swap 3
