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Although looking out the window right now things are windy and rainy, the rest of this week it looking like some great weather to get out of the house. The Yakima is still in great shape to fish, and it’s definitely worth wade fishing before things start bumping up to Summer water levels. We will also be seeing the smaller creeks opening up the Saturday before memorial day which will give you a great option to wade when the Yak is running high. Until then, spend some time on the Yak because the fishing has been great!
It’s still mainly going to be a nymph and streamer game on the Yakima right now. For nymphs, throw a big pats stone in black, coffee black or brown as your top fly. By big, we’re talking size 6’s and 4’s to imitate the salmon fly nymphs that are active right now, but 8’s and 10’s will still fish consistently. For your dropper, pheasant tails, lightning bugs, prince nymphs, copper johns and hare’s ears will all work from sizes 12-16.
For streamers, sculpzilla’s are gonna be hard to beat. With water levels fluctuating a bit sculpins are gonna be moving around trying to find places to hide, and the big trout will munch on them. Swing them in riffles and tailouts, or throw them under an indicator and dredge them with a stonefly nymph.
Keep an eye out for caddis and the occasional march brown, especially if you’re fishing around Ellensburg. They’ll be out and about with this beautiful weather that we have coming up! Look for pods of fish slurping at the surface rather than using them as a searching pattern. Purple haze’s, elk hair caddis, EC caddis and x-caddis our some of our favorite flies when we see fish slurping this time of year.
As far as options besides the Yakima, there’s always the local lakes and ponds around Ellensburg! The dumb stocked trout are very willing to eat a woolly bugger, as well as there’s some great opportunities to go after some large bass that are very willing to eat streamers and poppers.
If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call at (509)674-2144.