Yakima River Fishing Guides and Conditions, Washington

About the Yakima River

The Yakima is the state’s trout river, and for anglers on the dry side of the Cascades it is the whole season. It runs from Keechelus and Cle Elum lakes down through Thorp and Ellensburg, then into the basalt-walled Yakima Canyon between Ellensburg and Selah, and finally into irrigated farmland. The canyon and the upper river above Ellensburg are the guided water, managed as selective gear, catch and release, and open all year.

The fish are wild rainbows in the twelve to sixteen inch class with a real population of larger fish, plus westslope cutthroat that show up more often in the upper river. The Yakima has a genuine hatch calendar: skwalas in March, March browns in spring, caddis through summer evenings, and one of the best fall hatches anywhere in the October caddis and blue-winged olive period. Summer means hoppers along the grass banks and rattlesnakes on the same banks.

Flow here is an irrigation story, and it is backwards from most rivers. Releases from the upper reservoirs are increased through the summer to deliver water downstream, so the Yakima runs high in July and August and drops sharply in early fall when the irrigation season ends. That drop, called the flip-flop, changes the river within days and marks the start of the best fishing of the year. Guides read Umtanum in the low thousands of cfs as heavy summer water and a few hundred as fall and winter wading flows.

Ellensburg and Cle Elum are the base towns, and both are within a couple of hours of Seattle, which explains the weekend boat traffic in the canyon.

Access

Cle Elum and South Cle Elum: upper river access and boat launches.
Thorp Highway and Irene Rinehart Riverfront Park: valley accesses above Ellensburg.
Ringer Loop: the standard canyon put-in on Highway 821.
Umtanum Recreation Area: canyon access at the gauge, with a footbridge and campground.
Big Pines and Lmuma Creek: BLM canyon campgrounds with boat and bank access.
Roza Dam: the bottom of the canyon float; take out above the dam.

Seasons

Year-round catch and release on the upper river and canyon; check current selective gear rules.
March through May: skwalas and March browns, moderate flows, the first good dry fly fishing.
June through August: high irrigation flows, hopper season along the banks, best early and late.
September through November: the flip-flop drops the river, October caddis and fall olives, the best month of the year.