Fly Fishing the West: Upper Klickitat River west of Goldendale, Washington

Fly Fishing the West Series

On May 14, 1804 Lewis and Clark and what has come to be known as the Corp of Discovery set out from St. Louis, Missouri headed for the Pacific Ocean. It turned out to be an epic journey uncovering the beauty and majesty of the American West. One major reason for the huge success and notoriety of the journey is the fact that Meriwether Lewis and others kept meticulous journals of their daily experiences. In this spirit of the adventure and trying my best to record these experiences, Fly Fishing the West has become a series of reports and pictures summarizing fishing trips I have made beginning in Nov. 2008. The purpose of the series is to provide some hopefully useful information to the reader for future reference, should an opportunity come to visit any of these locations. (Note—The summaries include more information that just about fishing. This lends credence to the notion attributed to Henry David Thoreau that, 'A man may fish his entire life before he realizes that, what he is trying to catch, is not fish at all...')

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Upper Klickitat River west of Goldendale, Washington

Fly Fishing the West
Vol. 18, Issue 1
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Upper Klickitat River, below Glenwood, Washington

Mike and I left Richland, WA about 6 am taking Interstate I-84 to Toppenish, WA, then heading south to Goldendale, WA. We arrived at the Klickitat River at about 8 am. It was a beautiful day, coyote seen in fields south of Toppenish. West of Goldendale Mt. Adams glistened in early morning sunlight. Driving down a steep road to the Klickitat River we saw a bald eagle on a gravel bar in the middle of the stream just above Summit Creek. We fished about 500 yds above the bridge at Summit Creek. After about an hour we moved down, still above the bridge about 300 yards to a large ‘pool’. Mike fished at the top of the pool using a streamer and I was below nymphing (on the bottom). I saw a large fish jump and then a very large what must have been a chinook turn just below the surface. I then hooked a very large fish on a size 10 orange scud fly. It moved around in the pool ignoring any tugs from the fly line. It moved to the lower end of the pool and then took off downstream, running about 40 yards. I was wading and followed it as fast as I could go. By the time I caught up with it at the lower pool, it had turned around and gone back up the original pool. This took all my fly line out well into the reel backing (~50 yds). On the run back upstream my line broke (leader was unfortunately only 5 lb. test). We then moved downstream and tried a bend in the river about ½ mile below the bridge (hiking down in where some large timbers had been discarded down the slope). No strikes. Drove down the road another ½ mile and saw another good place by two large basalt dome rocks, but we did not try. We left for home about 3 pm.

Other Miscellaneous Information/Observations:

1. The weather was pleasant, mostly sunny, 35 F but warm.
2. Leidl Creek Ramp would be a nice area to camp, right where a bridge goes over the stream. There is a roadway turn-out just south of Leidl Creek Ramp with a panoramic overlook of the river. We drove several more miles downstream into Stinson Flat Ramp. These areas look like good places to fish but require some hiking to get to river. Below Stinson Creek (Klickitat Canyon) there is no road and this part of the river must be floaded in order to gain access ( ~4-5 miles).
3. A resident Washington fishing license for 2009 was about $22.