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Seattle's urban trout fly fishing mecca from June through August.

The Cedar River is the primary tributary to Lake Washington, just southeast of downtown Seattle about 20 minutes. This little known river in the middle of this sprawling urban setting is a west side gem for fly anglers. One of the few rivers in the state with strict regulations regarding how you can fish.

Closed completely to fishing until 17 years ago to protect the steelhead and salmon spawning runs in the river, it was reopened in 2004 for 3 months, June through August. The success of the river as a trout fishery quickly caught notice of local anglers and the community has fought to keep it a catch and release fishery with single barbless hooks.

On the Cedar River there are basically 21 miles of fishable water, from the mouth in Renton to Landsburg Bridge. To say the river doesn’t get fished hard would be a lie, but at the same time, most anglers are not willing to walk too far to fish. With low water levels during the summer months, the Cedar is easily waded almost its entire length, fishing as you go. This gets you away from the easy access points and into where there are some big trout.

Because this river was closed for so long, some of the trout in this river have grown to extremely large size, over 24 inches. While there are smaller trout in this stream, there are other places less inhabited by humans to catch small fish. This should be considered a trophy trout fishery and one should not expect to be catching fish of this caliber every 5-10 minutes, more like a few a day.

These fish are all native and some also believe that some of the rainbow in the river are of steelhead descent. As hard as these fish fight, do not come with wimpy rods as some of us learned the hard way last year, come prepared for a fight!

Pricing: Full Day $545 – Half Day $445 – 3rd Angler – $100 Additional – All equipment included – Fishing License, WA Sales Tax and Gratuity not included
Season: June – August
Species: Coastal Cutthroat and Rainbow Trout
EWA Cancellation Policy
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Additional Information

Flies: See our Hatch Chart: Mayflies & Stoneflies, Caddis, Stimulators, Humpy, Adams, Royal Wulff, Royal Coachman, H & L Variant, Copper Johns, Pat’s Stone, grasshoppers, Lightning Bugs,
Ideal Flows: 30-250cfs
Clothing/Equipment Lists: Summer season
Rods and Lines: 3 – 5wt rods with floating floating line
Species: Coastal Cutthroat, Rainbow trout
Duration: Half day trip 4-5 hours fishing time, full day trip 8-9 hours fishing time
Distance from Seattle:  30 minutes