Yakima River

[south fork]

Anyone have any personal experience on the Yakima River? I'll be visiting family in the area and want to spend a day or two floating the river in mid-April. Any suggestions on specific sections to float or even other rivers within an hour or two of Yakima that may fish well at that time of year? I've already googled a few searches but wondered if any of you have personally spent some time on the river. Thanks.

[newtyer]

Rocky Ford is a spring creek near by. It has some large rainbows, average around 19". Don't expect solitude here. Maybe hit it in the middle of the week.

Yakima.... Only fished it a couple of times. Float the canyon. I think this is the most productive water. Fish generally aren't large but every now and then you might find one around 18". I've also heard that below the dam the Yak isn't too bad of a small mouth fishery. But I've never tried.

If you are getting a guide you should get a guide service that takes you to all the secret spring creeks in the area. Large Bows are found and will take anything you throw at em.

Go ask a few questions at www.washingtonflyfishing.com

[Curtis Fry]

I used to live in Seattle and fished the Yak quite a bit. It's not a "great" river in my opinion, but it can be a lot of fun -- especially if you're able to float it. All in all, I too would recommend the canyon stretch accessed at Ellensburg.

Just FYI, the Yak is pretty much a big raging irrigation ditch and it empties a couple of reservoirs up higher and brings the water down into the dry valleys. During high flows, I wouldn't sometimes even bother trying to wade fish it. That's why floating it is a better option.

As for the fishing, you'll find some great insect hatches: Baetis, Skawala Stones, March Browns, Caddis and Midges. I LOVED the March Brown hatch.

If you want a good site, try Steve Worley's site: http://www.worleybuggerflyco.com

He's got good info.

Also, I highly recommend Rocky Ford. It's one of my all-time favorite streams (as it is with about 1 million other people there). It's a little spring creek with some super nice Redband strain rainbows and the fishing is really technical. Reminds me of Silver Creek in Idaho a bit. Just go in the middle of the week, and get there early.

e-mail me if you have any other questions....

[MauiJim]

I've fished the Yak a number of times, it's a great river-- there are some big 'bows in there! There have been fairly low flows recently, so by mid-April it should be fishing almost like it would be in the early summer.

I second newtyer's contribution; do a search at washingtonflyfishing.com (like here, a great forum) and you'll find a wealth of info. Better yet, post there and you'll get some great responses.

Another great resource is Red's Flyshop over there near the river; their 'Power Hour' report gives nearly daily reports with very detailed info on what they tried and what worked:
http://www.redsflyshop.com/powerhour.html

If you need even more to do, the current issue of Northwest Fly Fishing has a great article on smallmouth bass on the lower Yak.

If you have more detailed questions, shoot me a pm or email...

thanks,
Jim

[oldspringer]

A great site for info on the Yakima is WestFly - http://www.westfly.com/cgi-bin/forum/Ultimate.cgi.

Another good site, sponsored by a fly shop in Ellensberg, WA is at worleybugger@elltel.net.

Red's is also a great source.

I love the Yak (it reminds me of Utah), but I haven't been over there in over a year.

Ken