Dennis Dickson Fly Fishing Guide - How is fishing (Jan- April 1998)?

Dennis Dickson Fly Fishing Steelhead Guide
Fishing Reports (Jan - April 1998)
For Current Fishing Reports

Sauk River - Apr 29, 1998

Had a last minute cancellation so it was just Hal and I. Tomorrow is the last day of the season. I am bone tired from fishing every day but it will still be hard to put the Sauk away for another year. The hot weather has really turned the snow melt loose. River is very high with 18" of visibility. Somehow I knew we would have the river to ourselves. Saw a fish roll in the first pool we fished. I managed to hook this fish following Hal through the pool but it threw the hook el pronto. Fished some lovely high water lies. Hal touched a fish in Beaver flats but it didn't stick and wouldn't come back. The water is continuing to rise but fortunately very little debris. White Creek was running its gin clear and Hal fished carefully the inside edge. I guess it was my lucky day because as my orange marabou was swimming out across the old channel I took a good old-fashioned "Sauk River Yank". You know - the kind that jerks you clear to the shoulder. I love it when they do that! This big buck came out of there pretty mad. This would have been a tough fish in low water, but I didn't even have some quiet water to lead him to. I got lucky and watched a large male easily 20 lbs. swim away. I will try to get Sandy to put him in my photo gallery. Nice to start and end the season with a big fish. I wrote a satire on "what is Flyfishing." Thought you might get a kick out of it. See you on the Stilly.

Sauk River Apr 24, 1998

My grampa used to say, "be careful what you pray for". I have been moaning and groaning for the past two months for lack of rain. Well, we got it now! Could you imagine the river jumping from 1500 cfs to 6500 cfs! This isn't Forks! Anyway, I was glad to see the river up but the weather fronts has pushed the barometric pressure to zip. Not happy fish. We cut yesterday short.

Today the river stabilized a little and the weather improved. I was fishing a good friend and angling client, Hal Smith. Hal comes out and fishes a few weeks each spring. He fishes well and I hadn't seen him since the Gold River trip.

The water clarity above the Suiattle was 3 feet, but the Suiattle itself was still pushing glacial silt. This tributary kicks silt when the water temp. raises above 50 degrees. Water temp. at 10am 50 degrees. Visibility downstream was under two feet. Fortunately, the snow level has dropped to 2500 feet so the river will be fishing well in the high water lies. It has been so long since we have had any real water, I almost forgot where to look for the fish. It's like fishing a new river. We concentrated on soft edges with light lines, but didn't move any fish until the third pool. Angling pressure has dropped off dramatically, so we got to fish about everywhere we wanted. Lots of boats swooming up and down the Skagit which did not hurt my feelings any.

Hal connected with a heavy fish on a fly I dubbed years ago, the "Hal Smith Special". It's a large gaudy marabou that looks more like a spoonful of rainbow sherbet than anything. It has hot orange, bright pink, and yellow marabou. Sounds awful but sure lights up that glacier water. I would love to tell you he landed this steelhead, but it came unbuttoned. The good news is, a lot of fish have been waiting for this pulse of water so I am expecting some fine fishing these last few days on the river. Side note: Do not put away your steelhead rod just yet. The first two weeks in May on the Stilly can be great!

Sauk River - Apr 19, 1998

Thanks to: Steve Schwartz

My brother and I fished the Sauk with guide Dennis Dickson on Friday. We started out at 6:00am in foggy conditions, with Dennis' one-person pontoon rafts, which kind of reminded me of that old TV show "Rat Patrol". We were very mobile, and able to get into tight little spots and beach the rafts so we could throw flies while wading.

On our first run, Dennis was giving my brother and I some casting and line control tips. After he gave me one nice tip, on my first cast utilizing this new tip, I hooked and landed a 13lb buck. Absolutely amazing fish. Next was my brother’s turn, and after the appropriate coaching hooked and landed an 8lb hen. All of this by 7:30 am!

Well, then the sun came out, and the fish eluded us for the rest of the day. We had a blast in our rafts though, and had a great day fishing with Dennis.

Sauk River - Apr 16, 1998

Fish made a pretty good showing. Word of warning we have gone to smaller pontoon boats to snake our way through the many tailouts. More spawning redds showing now. Floated over a large dark male that must have gone 25 pounds. Love to see these genetics! Finally got my photo gallery up on site. I also wrote an article on Steelhead Reels - Good ones and bad ones, find it in Stories and Articles. I think we are going to need a raise in the river level to have any big fishing days. Talked with my buddy Dave at the Rockport Store. He says the Skagit is reeaalllyy slow. I guess I better not complain.

Good luck fishing ...

NF Stilly April 15

Fished with long time angling client Bill Jam today. The good news was we had the upper run almost all to ourselves. The bad news is the river is as low and clear, as long as I can remember it. We were fortunate to get our fly water again today. Water temp. at 9am was 43 degrees. Air temp was 41. A wind came up about 10:30 that was right out of the snow. The day was fairly uneventful until Bill got out an aggressive stocky buck to take his purple/pink marabou streamer. Fish made a pretty good showing. Word of warning, we have gone to smaller pontoon boats to snake our way through the many tailouts. More spawning redds showing now. Floated over a large dark male that must have gone 25 pounds. Love to see these genetics! Finally got my photo gallery up on site. I also wrote an article on Steelhead Reels - Good ones and bad ones Find it in Stories and Artitcles. I think we are going to need a raise in the river level to have any big fishing days. Talked with my buddy Dave at the Rockport Store. He says the Skagit is reeaalllyy slow. I guess I better not complain. Good luck fishing (Dennis)

NF Stilly April 13

Fished with a couple really nice guys today. Dan and Doug told me they had been out with a fair number of other guides for steelhead, but never with one to target specifically " steelhead on a fly". We spent the morning going through the "Dickson Flyfishing System." We put in at a private launch near Seapost and floated down to Whitman bridge. My prefered water is Oso bridge down to Cisero, but the nights rain knocked Deer Creek out (again). Just above the canyon, there is a piece of water locals call "Mermaid". Water was running fairly clear and a nice water level for this pool. As I sat on a rock to watch my anglers fish this pool, I realized I was sitting in a pool of coagulated blood. Someone had killed a fish, probably the night before. The Stilly has the most paradoxical management I have ever seen. From December 1 until April 16, the river is open to every gear type, this side of gill nets and triple hooks.The Skykomish, Skagit, and Sauk native steelhead, meanwhile, are protected under selective management, barbless hook, no bait. I have had game wardens take and shove my fly in their shirt and pull it out, to see if it would snag a thread! Now that is a barbless restriction. Not so on the Stilly. These poor wild steelhead are subjected to no barbless restrictions, there isn't even a bait restriction! Do you call this management? The local anglers that care about the Stillys wild steelhead, don't call this management "Wild fish release," we call it, "wild fish RUN." For you slobs that are killing these fish and running for the truck, keep it up and maybe you will shut down this fishery for all of us. For the Wildlife Department, a plea, would it hurt so bad to treat the Stilly fish with the same respect we do its neighboring streams? Back to Dan and Doug. They both fished through the pool with dark flies. The "sweet water" is in the upper 1/4 of the pool and this where Doug got taken down by a 15 lbs. buck. This fish slashed the surface constantly as he tore around the pool. Doug just hung on for the ride. Minutes later we photographed the large steelhead, his first on a fly. About ten minutes later while they were both working the pool, Dan says, "I think that steelhead was a fluke". About this time, we heard Doug down the pool yell, " I got another one!" (I won't tell you what Dan said). I could see his rod pumping as I ran down the bar to help out, but then it stopped. It was apparent from the line angle, the fish had wrapped around a rock. We tried the usual tricks, but it was too late, he was gone.

I wrote an article on "Steelhead Fly reels - good ones and bad ones".. Oh, and be sure to check out the new photo gallery, maybe your picture is up there.

Best of Luck, (Dennis)

Sauk River - April 9, 1998

Is anybody working today? We decided to float the upper run, seems like everyone has decided to fish from bennetville down. As it turned out, we really had an enjoyable float. This is not a novice section of river though. Many sweeps, log jams and blind channels.

The U.S. Forest Service completed a watershed analysis which demonstrated that 50% of the Sauk river steelhead spawn in a four mile stretch below Dan's Creek. It was just below the Dan Creek riffle that we bumped into our first steelhead. The 12 lbs. female came to a sparse purple/pink marabou I call the Pink Stinker. It works pretty well with sun on the water. Bill hooked the next fish in a pretty run a few pools downstream. It was a small dark male but he managed to break the leader at the shore. Camera shy, I guess. The day was cool but bright. The snow level was just above us. The willows and alders are beginning to leaf out, Grouse are mating. I love spring!

Most of the hard bottom boats are floating farther down stream. The river is running a soft powder green with a visibility about 4 feet but the volume is still down. Excellent for flyfishing. There isn't a lot of fly pools in this section of river but walk-ins are all but nonexistent, so it was just a matter of passing up the plug water and presto! Rested fish. Water temp at 10:30 am was 46 degrees but air temp ranged from 40 to nearly 50 degrees and back in a matter of minutes. Winds were coming right off the snow at times. Tim touched a fish near the mouth of the Suiattle but it didn't stick. Sauk on a sunny spring day, and a couple wild fish around, it doesn't get much better than this.

Sauk River - April 6, 1998

Fished the middle run today. Water level has held but the clarity has finally dropped from the rain. The day was dark and drizzly, and a little on the cool side. Water temp at 11:am was 46 degrees and air 45. Visibility 4 to 5 feet. Not as many anglers out as the past few days. It would be nice to get the river up where we can start fishing more traditional water instead of pockets and slots. Isn't that funny, we had our typical wet spring last year and it seemed like I was fishing high waters every day. This year we are suppose to be in El Nino and we have to carry our water to the river in a bucket, it is so dry. Go figure. Fished a couple long time clients. Always fun to see Ron and Jim.

We fished a couple pools without a touch. Switched over from marabous to a 1/0 black/purple G.P. Jim got plucked just before the hang down so he didn’t even move the fly. After a full second, he twitched the rod and this really pretty hen just buries the rod. He screams, the reel screams, and steelhead scrams. Sauk River hens are known for their arobatics and oh, did she put on a show! Jim finally won the struggle and released a pretty fish about ten pounds. I will see if I can get Sandy Lockleer, my web designer, to get her up on the site when I get the pictures back. The day went pretty uneventful except for Jim’s gentle ribbing to Ron about his fishing prowess. Ron did manage to find a fish in the heavy chop water at the top end of White Creek. This fish took a Black/purple marabou but as it rolled in the surface it threw the hook. It was over before it started. A couple of anglers fishing spey rods were fishing the native pool so we called it a day. Oh, speaking of that. I wrote an article on my web site on Spey Rods "Advantages and Disadvantages" Find it in the Stories and Articles section.

Let me know what you think.

(Dennis)

Sauk River - March 10, 1998

Fished the Sauk River today. The good news is, we are finally getting a little water, the bad news is the river started to raise and bar. pressure took a nose dive in a pouring rain. A really nice father and son couple from Wyoming. The boys waders leaked, his dad was under dressed and the rain drenched us. Only fished until 1pm. They were really cold so we bailed early. Water vis. was 3 feet, water rising, water temp at 9:30, 41degrees Air temp 46, river level very low.

Fishing should be really good when the weather settles a little. Try fishing 1/0 general Practitioners in hot orange, and purple/black. Do I ever fish steelhead with any gear other than flies? No, but growing up on the Stilly N.F.,I never really learned how.

Come see our latest big fish taken from the Sauk at www.flyfishsteelhead.com. I will be in B.C. for the rest of this week fishing the famous Gold River.

Sauk River - March 6, 1998

Fished the Sauk under brutal conditions today. Air Temp at 10 am was 37 degrees water temp 39. Not a cloud anywhere. Didn't figure we would do much until later in the day, Turned out to be the case. Fortunately, we all but had the river to ourselves. We fished the middle run. Water visibility was 8 feet. Fished traditional water but didn't move anything until we came to Rinker Creek in the afternoon. Water vis. fell to 5 feet. Landed a very bright 32" hen in the middle of the drift and lost a really nice fish just above the tail. He was into the heavy rapids and it was "See Ya!" Both of these fish came on a sparse pink marabou. Two walk-ins were fishing White Creek so, for the heck of it, we pulled in over across, and fished the south side. Believe it or not ,there is a fishing God. Frank was fishing the little boulder patch just above the tailout, when this big hen just creams his Blue/purple marabou. She shot out across, thought better of the rapids, and ran up the pool. Now Frank had managed to lose three fish in two days, but the fourth was worth it. 34" nickel bright football. A take- your- breath- away, hen fish. I was pleased, he earned it.

My camera was out of bullets from the day before. I HOPE they send me pictures.

(Dennis)

Sauk River - Feb 25, 1998

Started fishing today on the Skagit River below the confluence of the Sauk. Skagit river at 10:30 am was 41degrees. Air temperature was 39 degrees. Water clarity Sauk side was 8 feet and Skagit side was 10 feet. Morning weather was snow/rain dark and drizzly. Wanted to fish the mixer but another angler was in there and still pretty high up in the pool.We took off for Larsons. Took a nice Dolly on a black marabou but that was it. Went back to the mixer and rolled a nice fish but came unbuttoned. Bummer. Fished a couple pools above Rockport but we didn't move anything. Even the dollies seem to be gone. We decided to finsh the day on the Sauk. Water temp. was 43 degrees at 4pm. Air temp was 41 degrees. Visibility was at least 5 feet. We fished a prominent pool in the middle run. Hooked a wonderful fish that just smoked my J Ryall. Finally beached the 39.5" male native steelhead down around the corner. It doesn't get better than that, and it wasn't even raining

(Dennis)

Sauk River - Feb 22nd

Fished a father and son today. The Sauk was a moderate level with a 3 foot visibility both above and below the Suiattle. Water temperature was 42 degrees at 1pm air temp of 46. Fished the lower run below the government bridge down to a private take out a few miles above the Skagit. The pools have not changed much since last year. The fly bar above the gauge hole fished very well. We found dollies again, but not in the same numbers we have in the past couple weeks. We found them in the tailouts in the steelhead pools. # 2 purple egg sucking leeches work well in this water color. Saw two gear boats. One boat reported they landed a native steelhead on shrimp and bobber. As there seems to be some discussion whether we are in a native steelhead release management, I didn't ask if they had killed it. Other boat drew a blank. We swam a good fish on the purple bugger fly in a prominent pool a couple miles into the drift. The type 4 , 13 foot steelhead taper by SA fished well. As the rain fell all day, the river rose but color remained good.

I should tell you I not only fish dirty water I prefer it. When is a river dirty but fishable? When the debris stops floating and 18" vis. That is when the really large steelhead will lay in the soft inside edges. Here is a note; when you are fishing a pool on a low or moderate height, imagine the water level up a couple feet and see if prominent rocks are found up the bank. If this shoreline maintains a moderate cobbley slope, you have a high water lie. Trust me on this one, I make a living catching fish when the shops are telling everyone the river is "out". I will feel better after
March 1 when the river will be C&R.

(Dennis)

Skagit - Feb 18, 1998

Both the Suiattle. and the Sauk were running low and clear, not my favorite condition for chasing the early large native steelhead. They tend to move quickly into the heavier faster water until low light. We continued onto the Skagit. where we had done well last week. The water was down about a foot, running gin clear above the Sauk. The Sauk gets the early fish so we would concentrate our fishing below its confluence.

We started our fishing on a small pool Bill had hooked a fish that looked to be in the mid twenties, the week previous. Only a dolly came to the sparsely tied black marabou spey this time. We decided to move down to the mixer but a fly boy had just stepped in the water. I knew he was a local for the obvious reasons:1) double handed rod 2) a black dog, any breed will do, but it has to be black. We decided to drop down and fish some pools below Faber's. I managed to release a nice male (34") in a pool I call the farm drift. I am particularly fond of this pool because I puts some of the holding rocks in it myself. This fish took a 1/0 black G.P. Caught a few more dollies in the tailouts. The day was dark and drizzly, water temp at 1pm was 42 degrees. Snow was just above us, and the river barge boys buzzed us all day.

Dennis

Skagit - Feb 11, 1998

Fished the Skagit River today with angling client, Bill Jam. The gauge height is 17.5 water visibility above the Sauk was 12 feet, below the Sauk, 6 feet. Spent the day fishing steelhead pools below the Sauk. This tributary carries 50% of the wild steelhead run. Six steelhead were taken in the lower Sauk last
week. Reports are, they were all wild fish 15-20 pounds. Wild Dolly Varden lie in the same pools as the steelhead we fished. These are the large return spawners coming out of the Sauk tributaries. This population is building well. Important for two reasons. One; Dollies spawn in small, high mountain streams. They require stable waters with good spawning gravel. Their building populations means the Sauk drainage is recovering from the clear cut logging that has hurt this water shed some twenty years ago. Two, Dollies are finally getting their respect as a beautiful wild game fish. They do not jump much but they take the fly well and they are very strong, especially the large ones.

We caught Dollies in every drift we fished. Smallest was 17", six were over 20" and two were 25". The presentation was the grease line swing on a 13' type 4 sinktip, 6' leader tapered to 8# Maxima ultragreen.The fly is an injured smolt pattern a client apply named a couple years ago, "Cop Car". Our secret, Right?

Bill also managed to raise the largest steelhead of his life, (which is saying a lot) but it came unbuttoned. It looked to be in the mid twenties. This was on the same fly.

The snow line was just above us but the day was warm and pleasant.

Look for the fishing to improve early this year if the Wildlife department keeps the "Wild Fish Release" in effect. With the advent of no major winter flooding the Sauk and Skagit rivers are fishing well. Should be another great season.

Dennis

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