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Hoh is hot, the best river in the state now
Washington fishing map feature
By Joel Shangle
Fishing and Hunting News
FORKS, Wash — Imagine, if you can, hotwiring your cerebral cortex's ability to
process reality and logic while a steelhead measuring 40 inches in length is
ripping 12-pound-test mainline out of an Ambassadeur reel like it were a Duncan
yo-yo.
After you've returned from that little trip into Fishing Fantasia, try to bend your mind around a half-hour of run-and-gun with a steelhead running 44 inches in length and several ungodly inches in girth. The land of the giants
In an area that reads like a roll call of America's Best Steelhead Rivers, the Hoh could very well stake a claim as the best place in the Pacific Northwest to fish for 20-pound winter-runs over the next two months. The Hoh stands out just enough over the Quillayute, Sol Duc, Calawah and Queets to garner almost all of his angling attention as we approach February, and the most prolific "big fish time zone" of the year. It's not totally uncommon to go up there for four or five days straight and land eight or nine fish in the 20-pound class." Spilling out of the Olympic Mountains and Olympic National Park south of Forks and eventually emptying into the Pacific Ocean midway between LaPush and Queets, the Hoh is the moodiest of the Olympic Peninsula's big steelhead rivers. It's the first to go sideways during winter rains, and could very well spend the majority of the next two months out of shape and unfishable. But it's that same gusher flow quality that makes the Hoh such a big-fish vacuum. She blows her to smithereens — there's a lot of water coming through there, and there are always fish coming in."
Changing, rearranging After consecutive mild winters on the Peninsula, December came in like a rabid lion — double-digit rainfalls pushed every single stream in the area out of shape, and, in the case of the Hoh, changed the face of several components of its fishery. The major points of change include a couple of lower river access areas that are now different, or completely unusable. They are:
The drifts Every inch of the Hoh — from the plunking water at Nolan's Bar near the bottom, to the walk-in fly fishing access inside the National Park boundaries at the top — offers big fish potential, but the lower half (below Oxbow) is often out of shape and unfishable during the winter. The water clear first up high. The lower end is the place to be when the hatchery runs are going, and then again really late in the season. The upper river will get hot, and then gradually taper off after March or so. April is a fine time to steelhead on the Hoh, and on the Peninsula in general.
You can fish all the way up into the park, up to Mount Tom Creek, and find some phenomenal fly fishing, There's some tremendous fly water up there, all walk in. It's very flat — nothing but long gravel bars up there — but the river goes all over the place It's easy to boat, but you have to really be aware of sweepers and blockages in the river, which will happen after big waters. You'll have all these 7-, 8-foot spruce trees in the water. Best thing to do is get on the phone with Bob Gooding at Olympic Sporting Goods (360-374-6330) to get the word on some of those conditions." Except for a rapid just above Oxbow that requires a little extra care, it's an easy float where you can spend the entire day pitching Spin-N-Glos, bouncing pink worms along the bottom, fishing rags, or pulling single, barbless-hook plugs (it's selective gear only from Oxbow up).
Every road that goes toward river usually ends up there. There are several gravel bars that guys can camp on — the access to Nolan's Bar has changed down at the bottom, and the bottom end of Barlow Bar is closed now, but there are a good couple of miles of gravel bar between those two areas for guys to fish Self regulation by the Hoh tribe means that the Hoh isn't netted nearly as heavily as other Peninsula rivers. Through February, the schedule is usually Monday noon to Wednesday noon, switching to a Monday-to-Tuesday schedule in March.
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Copyright © 2007 Last Modified 8-21-07
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