I am not a fly fisherman, but I did do a lot of guiding over the years. I believe that I was on the water a lot more than the average fishermen ever was, and I have seen a lot of fly fishermen catching fish on the Cowlitz. I known that the Cowlitz is not really the best river in the state for fly fishermen, but what you see their must certainly reflect what happens every where else that they fish.

On the Cowlitz, 90% of the fish that I have seen being caught by the fly fishermen are either small cutthroats or steelhead smolts, and believe me, they catch plenty of both!

The reason for that is pretty simple in my way of thinking; 90% of the fly fishermen that I have seen are always using "little tiny flies" and that's exactly what these little steelhead smolts are feeding on. So who's really doing the harm here, is it the bait guys who fish with quarter size chunks of eggs and hooks one of these little guys every now and then, or is it the guy who's whipping out that little fly that smolts so dearly love to eat?

It just seems to me that the Fly guys are always the first ones to ask for bait bans on our rivers. More and more fishermen now believe that the only reason the fly guys want these bait bans, are because it will give the fly guys a better "opportunity" to "catch fish" in the way that they (fly guys) so dearly love to do. You noticed that I am not using the word "harvest", because lots of bait fishermen are not fishing strictly for the "meat". They just love to catch fish and that's the way and method that they love to catch them by!

It's kind of like the opposing views between the bow hunters and the gun guys; they both prefer their own methods to pursue their sport!

I see a lot more smolts getting hooked by fly fishermen (on the average) on the Cowlitz than I do by the guys that are using bait (bait guys take their share too). Now is that true of every where else, I really can't say! Common sense (there I go again, using that word!) tells us, that smolts eat and feed on a heck of a lot more bugs and insects then they do on either eggs- clusters or sand shrimp. Will you catch them on those baits…you bet you will!

A hook is a hook! The more you hook those little guys, the more you are going to kill them…barb or no barb!


Cowlitzfisherman