- EWA Spey Day | January 31st | 9am - 3pm | Fall City | FREE

Well if you live around here you get it, we haven't seen rain or other forms of precipitation for a couple weeks.  This means different things to different fisheries both in the short and long term.  Right now, the Olympics look as though should in mid to late November...not much snow.  This is a bill we will pay for in the summer with no snow pack for both the Cascade and Olympic river systems.

Steelhead - Water has been low, cold and clear the past couple weeks which usually makes fish be a bit shy, hunkering down and slow to move.  This doesn't mean fish aren't being caught, they are.  In fact it has been pretty good so far this early season which we hope will continue to hold true through March. 

We tend to use smaller flies, drab colors like blacks, blues and purples on longer leaders.  Multi-density heads and weightless flies create a a more sensitive and controlled swing while using lighter tips.  Great time of year and water conditions to be employing these.  On the "S" Rivers of Puget Sound, we have some news to pay attention to.  
Skykomish System - Closes at the end of January, normal for awhile and includes Snoqualie.
Skagit System - Closes at the end of January due to insufficient funding for fish monitoring, this includes the Sauk.
Olympic Peninsula - Fishing available on nearly all watersheds, most closing on March 31st.
No bait on any system.
No WILD steelhead retention.
Queets - Closed for the 2026 season.  
Cowlitz - Open, fish are around, water is a tad high at the moment but if you are a confident wader, there are absolutely runs to swing right now.

Puget Sound - This is the time of year we are counting days until the arrival of Chum Fry into the saltwater.  However, don't wait until then to be out here, fishing has been really good actually with aggressive fish doing their thing...trouncing baitfish patterns and V-waking their way at surface flies like the Sound Searcher.  We would expect to see the fry show up in about a month or so from now but the seasonality of each allows for some fluctuation so just be out there often.

Yakima River - Pretty high at this time of the year, 1600cfs is sort of surprising considering the lack of rain and snow the past couple weeks.  As listed above, we have our recommendations for walk and wade vs float water levels.  They are subjective in many ways but at the level they are at now, much of what would easily be accessible on foot isn't.  Floating right now on the other hand is perfect.  Streamers, nymphs are always good options this time of year.  Stonefly nymphs, Lightning bugs, Copper Johns and so on are good options.  Our two favorites right now would be to employ your trout spey and swing some soft hackles across deeper, slow movingn pockets and buckets or in the tailout.  If you don't understand what "The Tug is the Drug" means, it means you haven't done this yet.  Electrifying when a trout takes a rising fly as it sweeps across a run.  Want to give it a try, come chat with us, it is what we do.  Skwala's will show soon as well in blanket numbers we're sure so be ready with some smaller, darker stonefly dry flies.

As ALWAYS, we are here for you and we care about your experience on the water so...
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See all of you soon,

EWA Staff

Photo Mitch Randall