Let me tell you a bit about Stehekin. It’s in the heart of the North Cascades Mountains in Washington State at the head of beautiful Lake Chelan. Stehekin is a remote community of about 50-80 year-round residents that jumps to around 120 in the summer months. Stehekin is in the recreational area of the North Cascades National Park. When you travel 12 miles up our one lane road, you’ll enter into the National Park.

Stehekin is unique for many reasons including its unsurpassed beauty, mountain peaks, people, wildlife, great fishing and above all, there are no roads in and no roads out. The only way to get to Stehekin is by boat, floatplane or landplane. There is a small state airstrip here.

I grew up in Stehekin and learned to fish on the 55-mile long Lake Chelan, The Stehekin River and it’s cold clear tributaries. I built my first fly fishing rod when I was 15 years old and have literally been hooked on fishing ever since. I love to hike and fish and Stehekin has an abundance of both. Here we have over 100 miles of hiking trails and a multitude of clear mountain lakes and streams which flow into Lake Chelan and fishing is great!

Lake Chelan is open year-round for fishing. There’s plenty of fish to catch in the summer and lake fishing is fun! This is a deep and cold. Spring is a great time to come here to Stehekin and there’s an abundance of Rainbow and Mackinaw trout. Kokanee Salmon fishing starts picking up in July and August as the fish start their yearly run into our beautiful rivers heading upstream to spawn. We also have wonderful fresh water Ling Cod that we fish all year long.

The Stehekin River is as exciting as fly-fishing gets. We start with catch and release in March and our season goes through the end of October for the lower 10 miles of the river. This water holds some big fish in the 20 pound range. Last summer a whopping 32” Rainbow Trout was caught in the lower Stehekin River! The upper Stehekin River ahs lots of fish ranging in size from around 8-12 inches with the occasional fish of 16 inches or more. There have been days when our arms feel like falling from all the fish we catch.

There are numerous creeks and streams that are a lot of fun to fish for trout and several small pristine lakes that have great trout fishing as well. One of my personal favorites is Coon Lake. After a short hike there we’ll put our float tubes on and fish for brook trout.

No matter how you like to fish you will love fishing here. Stehekin has a very well rounded fishery and anyone can catch fish here!