While we were in Oregon, we were told that the Yakima River was simply like the Deschutes… a mirror image, just on the Washington side of the Columbia River. What we found was “Not Exactly”. While we still felt the “high desert” climate and saw similar sights, we found the rivers to be quite different. No “Redsides” in the Yakima. A river that isn’t as wild and woolly as the Deschutes. You can fish from the boat on the Yakima, where on the Deschutes, you float from spot to spot, but have to wade to fish. So overall, for us at least, it was different.
We floated the river with Jeremy Miller of Mitchell’s Evening Hatch in Ellensburg, WA. It was a tough day on the water in terms of “catching”, but the fishing, as always, was great. We “attacked” the Yak with everything we had in the fly box. We hooked into a few good fish, landed a few, but not as many as Jeremy would have liked. It’s always true with good guides, they actually are more determined for us to catch fish than we are. What we found that day, was that we actually had a better day than other boats on the water.
When we left for the day, Jeremy left a dry/dropper rig on my rod. The next day, we went out and Barb, using my rod and Jeremy’s rig, caught a nice 16+” rainbow on a prince nymph with rubber legs that Jeremy had tied himself. Needless to say, we sent our thanks to Jeremy.
Please enjoy the interview we did with Jeremy on the banks of the Yakima River.