Sequim Bay and a Thank You

July 13, 2026
Adventure, Bucket List, Camping, Coldwater, Conservation, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Outdoors, Scouting, Travel
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I wanted to take a moment to highlight our base of operations for our Washington trip. Sequim Bay State Park was a neat little spot, right off Hwy 101, not far from the city of Sequim. Not the most remote spot we’ve ever stayed at as we typically take advantage of our National Forest system campgrounds, but it was hard to pass on the location here for venturing to points west and southeast. It’s located in the rain shadow on the Olympic peninsula, which is kind of ideal if you don’t like all your stuff getting wet while camping.

When I booked it I was a little worried it would be loud with highway noise since it is right off the road, but it really was not at all – very quiet and peaceful. It was nice to wake up early in the morning and just walk around. The Pacific northwest is so vastly different than the Gulf south so there was a lot to take in. There’s a little trail that runs down to Sequim Bay, which was cool to go check out during low tide periods.

I also wanted to thank and shoutout Gary Marston of Native Trout Fly Fishing. A lot of my interest in seeking out the unique species of native trout stems from two folks primarily. One being Gary, and the other was Dr. Robert J. Behnke, who wrote the definitive book on American trout species, “Trout and Salmon of North America”. If you fly fish in the US and don’t own this book, do yourself a favor and go buy it now. It is a beautiful coffee table style book. It is so wonderfully researched and put together that I wish there was a book like it for other families of fish I care about, like the black basses. It was published in 2002, right as I was coming out of high school and getting interested in fly fishing. I learned a ton from that book and it showed me that there was a whole lot more than just rainbow, brown, and brook trout. It also showed me there was a passionate group of anglers and researchers devoted to our native trout, because I wasn’t alone in being inspired by the book.

Gary’s website for me, picked up where Dr. Behnke’s book left off, and carried that knowledge I gained from the book and pushed it even further, as he was pretty much doing what I had wanted to and was chasing down all the trout found in Dr. Behnke’s book and documenting them. His road trips were the stuff of legend in my eyes and I always looked to reading about them. I love the dedication to documenting these species by drainage and documenting phenotypes of extinct species, like the Alvord trout. It’s fascinating stuff. When I knew we were headed to Washington state, I reached out to Gary, and he was a huge help in the planning of this trip. He gave a lot of tips and advice and pointed us in the right direction when I was putting everything together.

Since I brought it up, I have to add a third influence of mine in terms of my interest in native trout, and this ties back into Dr. Behnke’s book. Joseph Tomelleri’s art work is absolutely essential to the book, and without it, I don’t know that the desire to seek these fish out is triggered in me. His fish jump off the pages, the work is exceptional. His attention to detail is unmatched in my mind. It’s just absolutely stunning artwork. Go check it out for yourself at Americanfishes.com. He does more than just trout and salmon too – he shows love to the bass and sunfish too!

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.