Washington fly fishing splits cleanly in two at the crest of the Cascades. West of the mountains, the Olympic Peninsula holds some of the last strong runs of wild winter steelhead in the Lower 48, fish that enter short, steep rainforest rivers between December and March. East of the mountains, the Yakima River runs through dry basalt canyon country and fishes as a year-round wild rainbow and cutthroat trout river. Anglers who learn both sides own two different sports.
West of the mountains, the Olympic Peninsula holds some of the last strong runs of wild winter steelhead in the Lower 48, fish that enter short, steep rainforest rivers between December and March.
The peninsula rivers are the draw that travels. The Hoh, Sol Duc, Queets, and Bogachiel drain the west slope of the Olympics through old-growth cedar and spruce, running glacial green after rain and clearing fast. Wild steelhead here are protected by some of the most restrictive regulations in the country, and most anglers swing flies with two-handed rods over runs that have fished the same way for fifty years. The Hoh is the famous one, wide and powerful, but every river in the system holds the same wild fish.
The Yakima is the state's trout workhorse. It flows out of the Cascades past Cle Elum and Ellensburg, and it fishes in every month that is not blown out by runoff. Spring brings March browns and blue-winged olives. Summer means caddis at dusk and terrestrials along the banks. Fall is streamer weather and some of the largest rainbows of the year. Sea-run cutthroat in Puget Sound and its rivers, alpine lakes full of cutthroat and golden trout, and the Methow and Klickitat steelhead fisheries round out a state that could keep an angler busy for decades.
Prime time on the Yakima runs from March through June and again from September through October. Winter steelhead season on the peninsula is December through March, with the wettest, ugliest weather often producing the best fishing. Summer steelhead enter the lower Columbia tributaries from June on. Check flows before any trip: the peninsula rivers rise fast and the Yakima's irrigation releases change by the week.