I spent another few days on the Yakima this past week: one day DIY floating with Steve Sintay and the second day floating with the club via McGinn’s diligent oversight and cat herding.

I drove over on Monday with my fishing rig (1993 Mitsubishi Delica van and 2023 NRS Slipstream 96 raft) and spent two nights camping at the Big Pines BLM campground in the lower canyon (about 5-miles downstream from Red’s).  I did not fish on Monday as it was too windy to even think by the time I got into the canyon at 6pm.

Snow on Steven's Pass

Big Pines BLM Campground

I met Steve at Red’s on Tuesday morning.  We stocked up with sandwiches and flies before playing the vehicle coordination game.  We floated from Umtanum to Big Pines and launched from Umtanum around 10:30am.  Steve was up front while I rowed and it was a really slow morning with the river up a bit and off-color.  The wind didn’t help things, but at least the sun was out.

Steve working the water

The only fish we managed to coax from their tight-mouthed sulking was this rainbow hiding under some trees at McPherson, about midway between Red’s and Lmuma.  I was fishing two nymphs under an indicator and he took the bottom Duracell.

The day's only fish

We enjoyed dinner in Ellensburg that evening and hit the water with Red’s the next morning (Wednesday).  I don’t have any pictures from that day, but Ken has posted quite a few.  We floated from Ringer down to Lmuma (a leisurely 6-1/2 hrs, give or take)  It was another day of tough fishing, but both Steve and I managed to get a couple of rainbows as well as a few whitefish.  The weather was gorgeous--sunny and warm with only a few occasional gusts of that notorious Yakima wind!