Every year a window opens that fans of fly fishing streams wait for. The small tributaries throughout the region have finally dropped into easy wading levels. Rainbow, cutthroat, brown trout, and brook trout are eager to take flies floated through their feeding lanes. This is when I dust off my 3 weight rod, leave the waders at home and splash through cool water to cast to these small fish. The Icicle is just a few miles from my home in Leavenworth, so I have spent many hot summer evenings cooling off while catching the small rainbow that inhabit the stream. The upper Entiat is very wadable by now in the summer and offers good numbers of cutthroat and brookies along with the rainbow. I also like to fish the Methow, where some really big cutthroat are available. The Yakima River attracts big crowds this time of year. The Naches River can also be very good right now for rainbow trout. One of my favorites in the summer and fall is the Kettle River up north, for both rainbow and brown trout, and to the east is the Coeur d’Alene River for cutthroat. There are other streams in the region, but these are my favorites.
Small rainbow like this one are abundant in the Icicle River near Leavenworth.