Klickitat

This fast running scenic river is one of the better summer-run steelhead rivers in Washington.  It is a glacial river with its headwaters on Mt. Adams.  Because of its glacial beginning, it can be very difficult to fly fish during the summer.  Warm air temps on the mountain can result in the river going out quickly.  In fact, you can fish low on the river early morning ahead of the dirty water and go back up river late afternoon and fish behind the dirty water.  The river opens for steelhead June 1 and closes the end of November.  There are fish in the river throughout the summer, but the best fly fishing is from September through the closure at the end of November.  This is the time of year when the river is the most stable in clarity and flow.  In addition to steelhead, we have hooked into King Salmon in the fall and it is not unusal to see Kings in the 30+ pound range.  We also hook a lot of nice rainbows during the fall.  It is a great wild river in an awesome wild setting.  In my opinion, the upper section is second only to the Grande Ronde in terms of its wild and remote location.  I have been fooling around on this river since the early 1980's, and it is one of our favorites. 


Klickitat Flow: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/uv/?station=14113000