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Cottonwoods & Cle Elum report

741 views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  Batt B 
#1 ·
The cottonwoods between Easton and Cle Elum look sick- anyone know why?
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Sorry about the stereoscope effect/lack of focus. The leaves are browned and scarce. You can see these sick trees easily along the upper Yak from I90.

Fortunately the channel-altering log jams put into the Cle Elum during the last few years have re-animated a lot of wadeable side channels. here's an old bridge abutment that led to an overgrown road
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I didn't know these alterations were in there, and was planning on fishing the Yak, given the idea of fishing the Cle Elum during irrigation run off with dangerously high flows seemed like a huge waste of time. I changed my mind when I saw water like this:
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Some of the holes/runs held fish, though they were few and far between

I was broken off on the best fish of the day on a dry sally, a disappointing mid-tippet failure

Bug action was pretty solid, lots of stoneflies in all the wadeable side channels, some emerging, though not many risers. I target the only one I saw. If you see three inches of tippet and a yellow sally sticking in the craw of a solid Cle Elum fish, that's my fly and I'd like it back...

Came across some weird stuff, like this Dharma initiative outpost with a sulphorous spring coming out of it.

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There were other random large bore pipes crossing the river bed at various locations along with fresh bear scat and abundant river otters and osprey. It's cool fishing around there, you get the sense you're working your way through the mine/logging/river history of the area, with the latter reclaiming it's dominance. I'm definitely heading back when the irrigation flow slows, there's lots of interesting water, lots of creepy stuff to stumble upon....
 
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