Thinking about rising trout...

A lot of anglers are thinking about trout right now -- and I'm one of them. I'm headed over to the Yakima River near Ellensburg on Wednesday. I'm hoping for overcast weather -- and big hatches of blue wing olive and March brown mayflies.

This is one of the best times of the year to fish the Yakima, which is probably the state's best wild trout stream. Friends tell me they are catching a lot of big, wild trout. Catch-and-release and rules that restrict anglers to lures and flies with single barbless hooks have made the Yakima into a fantastic fishery for rainbow and cutthroat trout.

Glory recently sent me an e-mail asking when most of our local lakes will open for fishing. There are a few lakes open right now, such as Offut Lake and Black Lake, but most of our lakes open on the last Saturday in April. That's April 29 this year.

If you're stuck at work until the weekend, check out the trout videos at this website: http://flyfisherman.com/westerncanada/djreddeer/

Those shots of feeding trout got my heart rattling around in my chest a little bit, and that's why I'm going to the Yakima. I need to walk the river, wallow in the sharp scents of wet sagebrush and trouty water, see a few rising fish -- and maybe land and release a couple of them.