Cooper River

After reading a little bit about it in one of my books, I ended up cruising over to the Cooper River yesterday, near Cle Elum. Apparently, the river has 'bows, cutts, browns, brookies, and bulls, so you can catch a ton of different species. Considering I knew very little about this river, I had little expectations, but was part of my mission to explore more of our Cascade streams. Getting there is pretty easy; just follow the signs to Cooper Lake and you'll make your way to the bridge that crosses the river. There were a ton of recreationalists out, but I didn't see anyone fishing. I saw a couple of promising holes immediately downstream, so I started wading to them. BTW, the river is clearly not easy wading. The river is not deep, nor particularly swift, but there are tons of moss-covered boulders that are trying to make you slip into the river. At the first hole, which wasn't that big, I dabbled my fly around the seams. After about the 3rd cast, to my amazement, a 12" brown took the offering -- beautiful, healthy fish. My first brown in a cascade stream! I continued downstream to find other good water, slowly making my way over the moss-covered boulders. My first cast immediately brought a hit, but I missed. It was a decent sized fish, as I could see him rise from the depths, but it hit extremely fast. You blink, you miss. After missing the same fish a couple times, he didn't want to play anymore -- damn! But I was able to pick out an 8" bow (or two) from that run. I continued down to another run and proceeded to miss some more fast hits. I ended up hooking into a couple decent sized ones, but they popped off the hook while running downstream. I ended up with another 10" bow after a bit. I started to explore some more of the river, but the extreme wading started to get the best of me. I'll have to explore some better access points on my next return -- supposedly there is a trail that follows almost the entire length of the river, but I don't know how close it parallels the river. So, on my way back upriver, I decided to give one of the nice holes a second shot, after letting it rest for a while. I casted immediately towards the spot that I missed the fish a couple times previously. BLAM! I got him this time -- a pretty 13" 'bow. He gave a spectacular aerial show for his size. A few casts later, a hit on my fly was barely perceptible, but I set the hook. The fish went crazy, going all directions under water, but no jumps. Must be a brown. Indeed, another gorgeous brown in the 14" class. Nice! After landing another 8" 'bow, I was happy, and decided to leave on a high note. Oh, but wait, that's only half the day's adventure! After getting a bite to eat in Cle Elum, I felt re-energized again and decided to give the North Fork of the Teanaway a try again, since I was relatively close. It was much cooler than my last trip, so I thought the fishing might be better this time. After catching some dinkers in a fairly familiar spot to us, I decided to fish a bend that I didn't spend time on the last trip. I threw my dry out there in the slow part of the seam, and, immediately, a large form rose from the depths and slapped at the fly -- missed him! Damn! I was hoping I didn't put him off, so I tossed it again into the same spot. The fly drifted from the seam to a dead-spot and slowly went downstream. C'mon fish! It seemed like an eternity watching the fly. SMASH! The fish took the fly with authority this time! After a nice bend in the rod and a couple solid runs up and downstream, I landed a fat, 14+ westslope cutt, perfectly proportioned. The colors matched the ones we caught on the St. Joe, and was about the average size that we caught on our inaugural trip there. What a feeling to catch a fish that size on small water! Another fish exposed his location under some cover in a deep slot not to far away, so I tossed the fly there and he took the offering without hesitation. Another westslope, a beautiful 11". Ah, so nice. I ended up catching a handful of other dinks in the couple hours I was there. Sorry for the novel, but, man, what a day. 'Till next time, Josh