They’re not steelhead, for sure, but the two-month winter whitefish season in the Yakima Basin offers a fun, trout-like fishery, and can be a nice combo package with such winter classics as elk viewing at the state’s Oak Creek Wildlife area.
The season opened Sunday and runs through Jan. 31 on the lower Cle Elum, the Naches up to the mouth of the Tieton, and the Yakima from Sunnyside Dam up to a closed area just below Roza Dam, then on upstream to Easton Dam.
The whitefish limit is 15 per person, and anglers can’t use hooks larger than size 14 (barbed allowed with bait), measuring no more than 3⁄16-inch from point to shank.
John Easterbrooks, fishery manager at the state’s Yakima Office, said the most popular lure by far is a whitefish fly tipped with a maggot, grub or piece of worm. Use light spin gear and work your bait slowly on or near the bottom, through the deeper holes.
Yakima Basin whitefish run 10 to 16 inches, Easterbrooks said, and most end up in the smoker. Larger fish are taken in the Columbia, averaging 1 to 2 pounds. The state record of 5 pounds-plus was caught in the Hanford Reach, near the Vernita Bridge.
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