On October 12th I headed over to the Methow River to meet my brother and his colleagues from Paws Up Ranch in Montana. Dragging my boat behind me a weaved my way through herds of deer on highway 20 and made it to Lightning Pines RV campground just before 8am. A good solid 4 hours on the road, but needless to say, who needs sleep when your going fishing.
Lightning Pines RV park, which is located on Burma Rd. in Methow, WA is a great place to stay. It is river front, with bathroom facilities, but very low key. All of the guides have made this their home and if you have the right combination "valuables", you might be able to befriend a couple of them.
The first day we didn't touch a fish besides the couple of taps at the end of a swing. We knew that we might have to get down and dirty to really catch some of these steelhead. Late in the afternoon, while floating along, we fished the stonefly omelet combination. My brother hooked into a fiesty but very small hatchery steelhead. It notched out at 20 inches but being mandatory catch and keep on hatchery fish, we brought it home. The float from Carlton to Gold Creek Loop Rd. was nice, easy going water for swinging. Certainly though, we were not alone out there.
Day two we floated from Gold Creek Loop Rd. to Upper Burma.
A long float with some amazing water, incredible structure, and some seriously bony rapids. Don't float this section unless you have your game face on! We fished the Orchard Hole hard. I was the third one through swinging a black mole leech with a chartreuse tail. Unfortunately, I had made a lazy, poor leader choice, putting on an old leader I had tied, a classic error that I would only do to myself....arrrgh! We had been told by the guides to go deep with big stuff so we were swing sink tips and leeches. Right at the meat of the run, I was in that spey fishing karmic zone when BAM! Less than a second, my whole leader broke at the upper loop. Whoops! That was my one shot for the week.The guides told us they were mostly bead fishing but several were picking up 3-4 fish a day, half on the swing and some even on dry lines! It sure is frustrating and addicting. Why can't I have a piece of the pie? When you are on a river every day, you can learn where those fish hold and focus your efforts. When you visit for a few days, you look for the good water and hope you encounter a grabby fish. Wouldn't you just kill to have a year off just to steelhead fish?
We ended up catching some rainbows and bull trout on beads and stoneflies, and Jim caught his first steelhead in the final hour, a 25" hatchery buck. Great trip, great river and there is nothing better than fishing with your brother and his dog Caddis.
