A Handy Guide to Fishing the Snoqualmie Area...

North Bend, Snoqualmie Pass
Alpine Lakes Wilderness & Cle Elum
By Dave Shorett

I have TWO copies of this slim little nugget. One of them is dog-eared and following apart. It has accompanied me on many trips, but its also been my companion late at night when I can't sleep and I start day-dreaming about where to go in the summer. My friend the Alpine Lakes Super Ninja, Vlad Karpinsky, gave me the other copy a few years ago.

If you open it to a random page in the middle of the book, you'll be treated to maps, pictures and short descriptions of Alpine Lakes and the possible of quality fishing therein. A closer look at the book yields a logical division of lands from roughly my Neighborhood, East.

Three main sections define the book, starting with North Bend. This includes the Hancock Timber region that I've written about over the years, including Calligan Lake, Hancock Lake, and others.

The second section is the true gem, Snoqualmie Pass and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. There are so many lake descriptions in this section that you get dizzy just thinking about them all.

The last section, East of Snoqualmie Pass, includes the Yakima River system and other places of interest.

Why am I telling you this? I thought long and hard about whether or not I was going to be ruining anything by promoting a guidebook to the very places that I go to get away. But you know what? The book can't give anyway any real secrets, because fishing conditions change year to year in any given lake. So even when the author says "contains small rainbows" you might get there and catch a hog; that something that has happened to me a few times, and its delightful.

So buy this book -- right now is a good time, it being the beginning of the fishing season, and you can start making your plans. Maybe we'll bump into each other on the trail!