Olympic Peninsula August 2025 – Day 4

May 27, 2026
Adventure, Coldwater, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Hiking, Outdoors, Scouting, Travel, Wade Fishing
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For our last day of fishing we opted to gain some elevation and head into the mountains. The target wasn’t going to be coastal cutthroat today, but rather coastal rainbow trout. We were unlikely to run into any big steelhead, but were told there would be resident fish in this stream. I don’t know that I’ve ever caught rainbow trout in their native range, I’ve caught them pretty much everywhere else that I’ve fished for trout, so today was the day.

The river we fished had a trail that ran alongside it which made access pretty easy – we just parked at the trailhead and hiked as far as we were willing and then got in and started fishing. The river was crystal clear and the water was super cold – much colder than the last few days of fishing. It also had more volume than I was expecting, which was actually pretty nice, but made crossing it a little dicey in spots. It was a wide enough stream where Blake could stick to one side and I to another and we could kind of work it together as we moved upstream – really an ideal width.

It didn’t take long to start catching fish and the first fish I caught was not actually a coastal rainbow, but another species entirely. As I’ve learned from Gary Marston, it was a southern subspecies of Dolly Varden. Not what we came for, but a delightful bycatch! My first Dolly and really my first char of any kind from the Pacific. Pretty sweet to find them here as well. I followed it up with a tiny rainbow and then the small one you see photographed above.

The stream had a lot of elevation gain in this section so there was quite a bit of fast water with intermittent pools and long runs. It was very productive water – a lot of fun to fish. The rainbows were gorgeous – and yes, they did remind me of the wild rainbows we have in North Georgia. These rainbows had more black pepper sprinkles on them though.

We fished dry dropper rigs and ended up catching a few more Dolly Varden on nymphs as we made our way upstream, but rainbow trout were definitely the predominate species on both flies. It was a great river to end our trip on – such a beautiful place to fish.

The Olympics were a great destination to go bluelining. I may have to make it back up to do some steelhead or salmon fishing in the future. Not enough time to do it all, and we barely scratched the surface of the Olympic Peninsula. We were able to catch a few different species on our trip and I got to see another part of our great country that I hadn’t before. I’m slowly checking off states and species in the Western Native Trout Challenge. The WNTC has taken me to some awesome places that I likely would not have visited, or at least fished, had it not been a thing. I’m glad we gave the Wyoming Cutt Slam a shot so many year’s ago, it’s been a lot of fun participating in the many other slams and challenges we’ve come across as states and organizations realize how much fun these programs are, and how important they are to the education and conservation of native fish species across the country.

Olympic Peninsula August 2025 – Day 3

May 21, 2026
Adventure, Beer, Bucket List, Coldwater, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Food and Drink, Freshwater, Hiking, Outdoors, Scouting, Travel, Wade Fishing
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Lake Crescent

A visit to the Olympic peninsula wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Olympic National Park. Of particular interest to me in the Park, was a form of coastal cutthroat trout that was found only in Lake Crescent and it’s tributaries and distributary. Lake Crescent has an interesting history having been formed by a massive ancient landslide. The coastal cutthroat that found themselves in this new lake were cut off from the surrounding watersheds as the outflow of the lake also sported a sizable waterfall which prevented upstream migration. The trout evolved on their own here and though they haven’t been classified as their own species, research suggests they are a distinct form, sporting the highest number of vertebrae and gill rakers among all coastal cutthroat. The history, the fish, all of this was reason enough for me to want to check out the area while we were on the Olympic peninsula.

The ferns, the moss, the big trees – I really enjoyed the hike in to this creek. My photos were taken so that you wouldn’t see the other Park patrons, but trust me, they were there. We hiked far enough to where we figured we were beyond where most people would venture and hit the creek there.

I happened to pop into the creek just upstream of a sharp bend where a large amount of woody debris was stacked up. This was purely by accident, but it worked out in my favor, as everything I know about trout tells me that there were some tucked under this timber pile. It didn’t take long to entice a couple of willing trout out from their hidey hole.

I got a great fight from the second fish, he was probably the largest trout I’d caught on the trip so far. It was a great way to start the day.

We caught a few fish here and there, but the fishing wasn’t stellar, which is usually how it works when you catch fish in the first spot you try. It’s some sort of fisherman’s law that in the moment we refuse to believe in, but as the day progresses you remember. God has a great way of keeping you humble like that. Still, it was an absolutely beautiful creek to have spent a day on. When we met back up with the trail that ran along the creek we were ready to head out.

On our way back to camp we stopped in at Waters West fly shop in Port Angeles and got a little more local intel on the fishing – the guy working the front desk was super nice and helpful, it sounded like another angler in the shop at the time had himself a day on another river not far from where we were at. It was another positive fly shop experience, definitely check them out if you’re up that way. We then headed over to Barhop Brewing where, both, the pizza and the beer were awesome. I had left us enough time to try once more for a sea-run cutthroat at some beach access on our way back, but we decided the better option was more beer back at the camp.

Olympic Peninsula August 2025 – Day 2

May 19, 2026
Adventure, Coldwater, Exploring, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Multimedia, Outdoors, Saltwater, Scouting, Travel, Video, Wade Fishing
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We headed out the next morning to a more remote location in the Olympic National Forest for another shot at coastal cutthroat trout. It was pretty cool to experience an early morning walk through a foggy temperate forest as we made our way upstream to where we wanted to start fishing. The stream was small, not as tight as the one from the day prior, but it still had that North Georgia feel to it. I hate to keep making comparisons of the Olympic peninsula to the southern Appalachians, but there were a lot of similarities to me – at least in the part of the peninsula we had been fishing. Both probably receive a similar amount of annual rainfall.

Throwing a trude style dry fly I was able to pick up a few small trout pretty early on. Much like yesterday, my first couple of fish didn’t really look that different from a lot of wild rainbows I’ve caught in the past. The one you see above was my third and it had a distinctive orange slash under it’s throat – this one I knew was a coastal cutthroat.

The creek we were on was full of timber – which is awesome for native trout. I’ve actually worked on some aerial photography projects for work in the last few years where folks are assessing the amount of timber they have in their rivers from the imagery we are providing them. It was pretty cool to see that in action – albeit in a different watershed entirely, but the same state at least.

The creek was a pretty cool, some spots were too narrow to really fish effectively due to the overgrowth, other spots were wider and we could fish those pretty well. There wasn’t a ton of room for a backcast on any stretch, but a backcast is generally unnecessary on small streams like this. The moss that covered everything was awesome – really gave it that Dagobah feel, lol. There are tons of interesting things you come across when you fish new environments – the little bubble ring that rotated in perpetuity was certainly one of them.

Coastal cutthroat were caught – mission accomplished – and the scenery was top notch. We were catching enough fish to keep us fishing, but I wouldn’t say the fishing was light’s out. Eventually we made it to a section of stream where the devil’s club kind of took over and was going to make wading through or walking around quite the adventure, so we opted to head back to the car and break for lunch. We had lunch at a cool little burger joint, Fat Smitty’s, in Discovery Bay – it may have been cash only – I don’t remember exactly, but the burger and shake hit the spot after a morning on the water.

After the burger I felt like we should probably give the sea-run version of coastal cutthroat a try, that’s one thing that makes coastal cutthroat so unique, their ability to occupy multiple habitat types, so we headed towards a beach access. Theoretically, this also put salmon in play for us – which was an exciting thought. This was actually a year where pink salmon were in Puget Sound and the Hood Canal, so there was an outside chance we run into one. Apparently they are only in every other year. I picked a beach where I knew the tide would be moving – it was more of a pass than open water. When we arrived the water was moving alright – it was probably moving a little too fast for us to fish it effectively. There was lots of debris being pulled through the area, especially sea grass, so it wasn’t the easiest place to fish. We gave it the ole college try though and thankfully I was able to avoid the skunk and caught a few a Pacific staghorn sculpin – at least that’s what I think they are, I could be wrong. No luck on the cutthroat or salmon front however.

No luck at this spot and no confidence that we even knew how to pick a good beach, so we called it a day and headed back to camp. I would be remiss if we had not given it a shot, but I also knew that PNW beach fishing wasn’t really what we went up there for. It was cool to give it a try though and I liked being able to make the comparison to the beach fishing we have on the Gulf coast for our version of sea trout. Just like the streams, different, but the same…..if that makes any sense.