St Croix 8 1/2' 5 weight $100, Redington GD 5/6 about $100, and SA WF line idk maybe $50? Don't have to spend much $ to catch fish... except all those hooks adorning the branches from deep nymphing.
I got this a long time ago between the golf course and the trailer park. Haven't seen many big ones since then with all the people I see throwing bait on the Cedar now though. I caught it on a size 18 red copper john - thought it was a sockeye initially. I taped it out at 23.75", but it wasn't a great measurement (the fish wouldn't stay still) so it could be off by an inch either way.
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I got this a long time ago between the golf course and the trailer park. Haven't seen many big ones since then with all the people I see throwing bait on the Cedar now though. I caught it on a size 18 red copper john - thought it was a sockeye initially. I taped it out at 23.75", but it wasn't a great measurement (the fish wouldn't stay still) so it could be off by an inch either way.
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All impressive fish. I can believe that a 14" fish is resident, but I've always held the belief that the big fish are semi-steelhead that live in the lake and swim up to spawn.
I did wonder if it was summer steel. I don't know how to tell. If you look at the other pic (Cedar Trout 3) I posted of it (as a thumbnail only), it looks very resident rainbow like...the gold hue in the other 2 picks is the sun reflecting off it.
I got a couple in a row male and female eighteen and nineteen inches a few minutes apart from a walking speed run above the golf course a bit. I was thinking summer run after I got calmed down a bit.
I did not fish it at all (haven't for a good many years), but having a great time living vicariously through you and seatlee's triumphs...those are some memorable fish to be sure.
I didn't fish it at all this year, been having a good time with smaller fish in the sky basin on my little toy of a 2-weight... just thought it would be fun to see pics, hear the stories, and get a sense of whether the big fish are still in there.
My buddy and I put a decent amount of time in on the cedar this year and couldn't break it's code....but neither of us are really nymphers, so I'm sure we were doing everything wrong. We picked up a couple 8" fish, but nothing bigger than that. Pretty frustrating. As I say every year, we'll figure it out next year.
Still time Steve...
Heres my best from last year, I had quite a few that were similar this year, but they were all before the water dropped. Hairy wading = good fishing
My biggest was a little over 21" a couple years ago, and I got him on a golden stone. Biggest this year was a hog I lost that was definitely over the 21". Biggest to hand this year was this guy right at 18" on a pink beaded SJW.
Alas...I still chase the elusive 22"....but they are still around, and I think more of them than people realize. This time of year, the bigger fellas really hunker down in those fast deep pools and you just have to drop in on them really fast with really heavy nymphs. You can't neglect little "fishy" pocket water and overhangs though....that is where the Cedar will surprise and reward you, and they get skipped a lot I think.
I think the coolest one though has been one 15" bow that I have caught three different times on three different days, in the exact same little hole......with the exact same fly! The first time I put on a yellow stimey to fish to some risers in a little cut bank with a stump for cover and he opened up a hole in the water when he took the fly. About a week later I was in the same spot and pulled my nymphs off because I saw a little guy jumping at the head of the little pocket. I put on a the same stimey and a para-adams dropper and got the little guy on the para dropper. The next cast in the exact spot of the pocket, a hole opened up again and I got the same fish. He had a messed up fin, so I was positive it was him.....totally amazed me. I walked through there about 8 days later with a guy I had just met on the river and was telling him about that fish, and then two minutes later I had the same fish in hand and we were both laughing. I have never seen anything like that.
That's encouraging to me to see with all the pressure and poachers on the Cedar, that he was staying healthy and alive......surprising that he didn't move over about a 4 week period though.
I think it is as good as it has been in the past 5-6 years. It will never be quite like the first couple years after it opened, but I consider the stretches I fish to be consistently outstanding.
Here's the first fish I caught this year on the see-dur, had to find my camera. I stopped taking pics of them cause they rarely hold still for a water shot and I usually fish alone so no third person shots, I landed quite a few that were just as fat. I think the waters too slow to effectively strip streamers by now, I took a break from salmon to try a few days ago with no success, but I did have a lot of fish on crawdad patterns earlier in the summer
The question of whether some of the larger fish in that system are ocean or lake run is interesting. My guess is that many of them do move around a bit in search of more food. Jim's and Seattletee's fish pictured look a bit like steelhead simply because the heads are smallish relative to the bodies when compared to most rainbows that spend their whole lives in moving water.
The Cedar River residents share genetics with the summer run steelhead, WDFW has confirmed this. Most agree that residents have a small percentage that go anadromous, and anadromous have a small percentage that stay resident. It all makes sense from a proliferation and survival standpoint. No way of really knowing if these big guys are anadromous or resident, could be either one.
WDFW opened the Cedar because the speculation was the resident rainbow population had caused the steelhead returns to curve back down - a curve that went up when it was closed for over a decade. During this time studies showed the resident rainbow population had rebounded. So, via poaching and fish handling they hoped the C&R fishery would "trim down". That's my understanding, anyway... it seems to have worked with re to the resident population. I have not seen recent numbers on returns and how this fishery affected the curve for steelhead.
I caught this fish my first time ever fishing the Cedar - just after the opening, sad thing is I haven't got a chance to fish there since...
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