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July 12, 1998
Thanks to: Tyson Kopfer
A friend of mine and I fished the Methow river this last
Sunday. In case you're not familiar with this river, it is
a large stream draining out of the east slopes of the
Cascades. It enters the the Columbia river at the town
of Pateros, a several miles north of Lake Chelan. It is
most noted for it's steelhead run, though in recent years
this has been in serious decline. The river is swift but not too deep in most places. It is
popular with rafters/kayakers, especially when the water
is high. The river has a minimum size of 12" and a maximum
of 20", with a catch limit of two (I think!?). My friend
and I are into C & R, we didn't exactly check up on this
section of the regulations. Most of the river is restricted
to lures/flys also, I believe. Check the regs, though.
The two of us had a great time!! The fishing was quite
good, though we had a hard time finding good pocket water.
We hit it just right on one stretch, however, and we each
landed at least a dozen fish. The fish weren't very big--
lots of 7 & 8 inchers--though we each landed a couple 9/10"
that really know how to use the current to their advantage!
My friend also landed a very healthy 12" fish that looked
like a picture-perfect wild rainbow!
We were each using nymphs, and they seemed to work VERY
well; my partner used a dry for a while also--a caddis, I
think--and while it worked, it wasn't as successful as the
nymphs. AS the water continues to drop with the summer heat
I suspect that this too will change. Another popular fly on
this stream is the muddler minnow, as it specifically
targets bigger fish.
The two of us drove up the highway that follows the river
stopped wherever it looked good. Sometimes it is hard to
get immeadiate access (steep banks, highway farther away
from the stream, having to cross private property, etc.),
but there are lots of places to get access even so. We
waded the whole time, sticking close to the bank. While
many sections of the river are shallow, the current is VERY
swift and that combined with waist-deep water is often too
much to handle, so wading further out into the river isn't
an option.
On another note, the river is known for steelhead, as I
already mentioned, and consequently there are lots of steal-
head smolt present. If you're going to fish the stream,
make sure that you're as careful as possible with small
fish, as the steelhead run needs all the help it can get!
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