Anglers Guide Service

The Hoh drains the glaciers of Mount Olympus and runs cold and green through the Olympic rain forest, and Anglers Guide Service fishes it out of Forks on full-day boat trips. The company’s own Hoh page calls it one of the most dynamic and awe-inspiring rivers on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, and the water is worked from a 25-foot Alumaweld Super Vee Pro that carries as many as six anglers. Trips target salmon and the river’s winter steelhead. Rates are quoted per boat rather than per rod – $400 for a single angler, rising by party size to $1,650 for six, taxes included. A 50 percent deposit holds a date and is fully refundable with 30 days’ notice, or when conditions make the river unsafe to fish.

Anglers Guide Service floats the Bogachiel, a river whose name it translates as gets riley after rain and which it calls the bunny hill of the Olympic Peninsula’s rivers – approachable, versatile and forgiving. The upper floatable water runs small rock gardens between long classic runs on a moderate gradient that suits fly and hardware alike, and it holds the larger wild fish; as the river nears its confluence with the Sol Duc the gradient flattens and it forms long slow-moving pools that hold fish consistently at lower flows. The river is best known for a strong return of hatchery-origin steelhead and also produces some of the largest wild steelhead on the peninsula. Methods are fly, jigs, plugs and floats.