The famous nocturnal Hex hatch of the Midwest (and a few other lucky locations) stirs to the surface mythically large brown trout that only touch streamers for the rest of the year.
I was out in the Issaquah Alps doing some puppy training yesterday and decided to bring my bug-collecting stuff along. Mostly it was an excuse to get more practice with my new microscope and test out a new system for holding bugs I've sorted to photograph.
Previously, I've had some sensitive specimens quickly die after being sorted into their own separate containers or compartments, either because the water warms up more quickly in the compartments or the oxygen runs out. This leads to specimens that aren't in ideal shape for photos. To solve the problem, I drilled holes in an ice cube tray and gorilla glued some little squares of 250-micron Nitex mesh (drift sampling net material) to the outside. Then I stick the whole thing in a tub of aerated water with a freezer block. This allows me to separate different types of bugs into lots of compartments, while still having them aerated and cooled from a common, larger reservoir of water.
It worked great. Some typically fragile Baetids and Heptageniids stayed in good shape for a very long time, more than long enough to take photos. I didn't photograph any of the Heptageniids, though, because they were Cinygmula and Rhithrogena nymphs for which there are no species keys available.
My favorite new addition was Claassenia sabulosa, a very pretty golden stonefly nymph.
There were also a lot of Hesperoperla pacifica nymphs in the sample, but I already have good photos of those.
Friday I drove from the Seattle area out to Yakima, Washington, where a FEMA-run Covid vaccination clinic has so many extra doses and appointments that they're eagerly offering them to people who aren't yet officially eligible. (Washington is one of the last states to open the vaccine to everybody.) I'm looking forward to being able to safely travel on airplanes again and have at least a couple exciting fishing trips planned for this summer.
For now, I just wanted to catch the first fish of the year on my drive home via the Yakima Canyon.
Action on the Yakima was slow, and I'm consistently frustrated there by the difficult access to good spots from the road-side bank. But I did see one single rise, then caught the fish on a nymph.
My first trout of 2021! Not a big one, but a start.
It's a start!
I also collected quite a few nymphs as an excuse to have some fun with the new microscope I got last fall. The highlight was probably finding a specimen of Heptagenia pulla, which isn't known from Washington or neighboring states.
I've lived in Washington for three years and not yet caught a steelhead, or even really tried, in the famed rivers of the Olympic Peninsula. My wife and I had a brief window to get away for about a day and a half and did some exploring over there this week. However, with the short days, beach time, and rambunctious new puppy, I didn't get much serious fishing done. I fished some promising water on the Hoh for about an hour, seeing no fish but talking to others who had, and I spent all of about ten minutes swinging a fly through a run on the Sol Duc. I'd love to get back there for a few days of serious fishing when time allows.
