Every year I try to get out and experience the fishing on new water. I was able to fish on Coffee Pot Lake this spring for the first time, and on Monday of this week I was able to do a float on the Cle Elum River. Rollie Schmitten and I met Johnny Boitano, of the Troutwater Fly in Ellensburg, at their other shop in Cle Elum, and launched the driftboat below the dam on Lake Cle Elum. Boitano told us that the Cle Elum River doesn’t produce big numbers of rainbow and cutthroat, but what we would catch would be big. He was right. Schmitten caught one of the biggest cutthroat either of us had ever seen, and I got one of the biggest rainbow I have ever caught on our local fly fishing rivers. The float is very scenic, but is not one that you float without first going down it with someone that knows their way. There are false channels and many log jams that can cause serious problems if you don’t anticipate them and are experienced at handling a boat or raft. The fly fishing on the Cle Elum reminded Schmitten and I of floating the Yakima in the very early spring, but this is good throughout the summer.