02-03-2013, 11:15 PM
Finally made it down to Washington County for some small stream fishing along with plenty of hiking and mountain biking for good measure. After a cold snowy January even down south the water levels have come down as the lower snow has melted out. Hit 2 of our lowest elevation streams with trout to see how well they weathered last year's drought. Fewer trout over 10 inches than in most years but still some holdovers and plenty of smaller fish to repopulate the streams. I was surprised to see a light hatch of caddis on both streams in the afternoon. Don't usually see caddis for about another month down there. Nice to catch a few trout on dries even if most were taken on nymphs. Did see several groups of rainbow spawning the second day. I left them alone as the numbers of trout were quite low on the lower reaches of the Wash. I had hiked in a half hour past the wilderness boundary before starting to fish. Even then only had 1 trout in the first 90 minutes. After that fishing picked up quite a bit. Had thought of turning around early because of the slow fishing but it was so nice to be out hiking without a coat in beautiful surroundings I kept going. After being out about 4 and a half hours my solitude was interrupted by the sound of a small aircraft several thousand feet above. First sound from the outside world since I left my car. Looked at my watch and it was already going on 2:30. Turned back for the 2 hour hike back to the car. I even managed to hit pavement before the sunset on my way out. Sorry no pics. My old camera finally died and haven't decide what to replace it with.
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]. Gosh last year caddis hatch was weak. Totally ready to slay some tigers, cutty rain brown, cut bow, cutty gray browns and maybe some