Bogachiel River Brat Festivus 7

  Forks, Washington Guide
Mike Zavadlov with a chrome Bogachiel River winter steelhead

I've been watching all the coastal steelhead reports lately like a cat staring at a bird. Reports of hammer-time steelhead action were pouring in with regularity. By last weekend my tail was switching back and forth in anticipation of batting some steelhead around on the Bogachiel River, but a gully washer roared in from the Pacific on Sunday night and toasted the coastal rivers for at least a few days. The waiting would continue for this cat.

The phone finally rang on Wednesday night and it was Forks area steelhead guide Bill Myer from Anglers Guide Service (206-697-2055) with a water report. "Tomorrow's going to be purrrrrr-fect," the words rolled slowly out of Bill's mouth. Or maybe that was me slipping off into a hynotic state of steelhead narcosis. Bill mentioned that his next door neighbor, Mike Zavadlov of Mike Z's Guide Service (360-640-8109), would be joinging us for the day. Did they have a premonition or what?

I left our home in Gig Harbor at 4:30 a.m. for the three hour drive to the Dazzled-By-Twilight town of Forks. There are certain things that I will drive for three hours in the pre-dawn darkness for. This was one of them. 

When I rolled into the launch at 7:30 a.m. Bill and Mike were busy loading up Bill's Hyde driftboat with all the necessary items for the day. I was pleasently suprised to see Mike setting a couple of center pin rods into the boat. Ray Gombiski wrote a great blog on Center Pinning on the TheOutdoorLine.com a few weeks back and it would be nice to see these two ultra-experienced guides using them here on the Bogey.

Since it was their day off I opted to row for the day and it was a good chance for me to jump back in the rowers seat again. Fishing out of, and rowing, a driftboat is one of my all time favorite things to do.

I started out quickly by plucking a nice hen out of a small pocket on a jig and then lost a second fish ten minutes later driftfishing with a yarnie just above that same spot. Boy, was I off to a hot start. My bite da-dyed shortly after my second hookup and I'd be cold for at last three more hours.

Mike was in the back seat of the boat, which is considered second water and typically gets less action than the front most of the time. It wasn't long before he was putting on a clinic though, hooking fish in damn near every spot we stopped in. I'd just get the anchor set and Mike would be hard into another chromey hatchery brat.

Here's some video from one of Mike's many steelhead: 

Mike Z's Center Pin Steelhead Video

Mike finally cooled down after hooking something like seven or eight steelhead and then layed into a really nice fish. It took him 25 long minutes to wrangle the fish in on the 11'4" center pin rod and when he did we were surprised to see that it was a plump hatchery brat of around 13 pounds. Bonk!

Here's some video from Bill's big center pin steelhead: 

Bill Myer Center Pin Steelhead Video

Bill describes the yarnie setup he's using in this video:

Center Pin Fishing For Steelhead with a Yarnie

I managed to hook up with two more hatchery brats using a small piece of eggs under a float on the way down to the ramp. There's really not that much need for first water here, as at least a dozen boats had already worked over both spots where I hooked my fish.

Two more videos of my two steelhead: 

Endsley's Bogachiel River Steelhead

Bogachiel Brat-Festivus 

By the crack of noon we had landed our limit of nine steelhead and lost many more. What a blast with two of the finest gentleman you ever want to meet. All indications are that the great fishing is going to continue on the Bogachiel into early January. I'd get ahold of either Bill or Mike right away to book a trip before their calendars fill up. It's not too often that we see steelhead fishing like this and when it's as good as it is right now you'd best not wait to get in on the action.