Satsop River, E. Fork – Olympic Peninsula

February 17, 2009 back to Fishing Journal

A quick trip home, a flight, two conference calls, and a visit to Cabela’s later, I rounded out the fourth of four straight days fishing on different rivers by hitting the East Fork of the Satsop River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The fellows at the Lacey Cabela’s were kind enough to steer me away from the Chehalis River and to the Satsop R. with some hope that I might trip across a steelhead. Temperatures were in the low 50’s and the sunshine was glorious.

Water

The bridge at Schafer State Park marked the top of water open for winter fishing. Not only were there no other fishermen to be found, there weren’t even many cars passing by. It appeared that the area had been hit by severe flooding within the past year. Parking was difficult to find and camping areas of the park were not only closed, they were largely non-existent. Remnants were apparent, but flooding had taken a serious toll on the park below the bridge. The water was beautifully clear and cold.

The river was apparently low, but still had plenty of water. I had to be careful wading in the unfamiliar water with slippery, rounded rocks. It looked like what I’ve read to be good steelhead river, though I never did see any trout moving in the water. Late in the day, there was sign of a little surface activity, but the light was low and I might have mistaken a water effect, rather than a hatch.

Fishing

After crossing the river and burrowing a bit through underbrush torn and tangled from flooding, I managed to get below a great looking hole across from a couple of houses. The hole positively screamed of steelhead. Evidence of egg bait sacks and scraps of heavy line suggested that others had tried to catch them here before me.

Alas, none of the silvery beauties showed up. As sun faded into early dusk, a husky from the nearby houses came to inspect happenings. He watched for 15-20 minutes, eventually finding something more interesting and wandering off.

After trying all of the patterns suggested by the Cabela’s flyfishing guy, I switched to a small hare’s ear pattern as the light faded toward dark. In short order, I managed to get a few hits at the bottom of a deep corner hole and above a shallow ripple. A couple were missed, but eventually I hooked a small rainbow all of about 8” or so. The little fellow was a scrapper for his size. After several days of fishing beautiful waters, it was a relief to finally catch something – anything!

A few more casts and the travel rod was ready to be packed up again for some later trip elsewhere in the country – hopefully soon!