DOUG ROSE MAY never run out of things to do on the North Olympic Peninsula.
An avid fly fisherman, bird hunter and writer, the 61-year-old West End resident has been captivated by the area ever since he first settled here in the early 1980s.
“It’s a real special place,” said Rose, who lived in East Jefferson County during his first 25 years on the Peninsula.
“I feel much more at home here than anywhere I’ve even been.
“There’s always a bunch of things I want to do here, so I’ve never felt like I’ve caught up and I rarely go anywhere else.”
Rose’s love affair with the region comes across in each of his three highly regarded fly fishing books, all of which focus solely on the Peninsula.
Fly Fishing Guide to the Olympic Peninsula is essentially a must-read for any Peninsulite carrying around an eight weight and a box of muddler minnows.
And those who check in on his insightful blog (www.dougroseflyfishing.com) can expect a helpful tip or two with just about every visit.
Given all of the time he’s put into exploring the area — both through past literature as well as his own discoveries on foot — he has amassed more than enough to go around.
Rose once wrote outdoor columns for this fair publication in the late 1990s (you know, before the PDN started hiring dopes like yours truly to do the job).
He did the same for the weekly Port Townsend Leader prior to that as well, and has also written countless articles for outdoors magazines like Salmon, Trout, Steelheader; Northwest Fly Fishing and American Angler.
Rose will speak at a special engagement at the Port Townsend Public Library, 1220 Lawrence St., this Saturday at 5 p.m.
The focus will be on some of the less known fly fishing opportunities on the Peninsula; a subject he is obviously well-versed in.
“Some of the most productive and interesting fishing is not for steelhead anymore, especially if you like to be alone,” Rose said.
There was a time when fly fishing for steelhead was a solitary activity in these parts.
Back in the days of Peninsula fly fishing pioneers Syd Glasso and Dick Wentworth — the 1950s and ‘60s— only a tiny subset of anglers six or seven deep actually did so with much voracity.
Now there’s likely to be more trailers at a boat launch than that on a given winter day.
So it’s safe to say things have changed quite a bit in the 30 years Rose has spent wading through the area’s waters.
While Rose still relishes the opportunity to hook a steelhead on a fly, he finds himself drawn more and more to some of the under appreciated sea-run cutthroat fisheries in the area.
That includes the ones dotted along Hood Canal.
“I love estuaries, the whole Hood Canal, Admiralty Inlet, the salt marshes and little creeks with cutthroat in them,” Rose said.
“It’s probably one of my favorite things to do.”
Rose grew up hunting birds and fishing for all manner of trout in his native Michigan.
The way he describes his early pheasant hunting experiences, “we could just go out the back door and be on it literally within a few minutes.
“There was a lot of corn and swamp. That’s a good combination.”
It wasn’t until the age of 20 that Rose scored his first fly rod. That began a relationship that had more than its share of ups and downs.
“It’s not a steady progression upward I’ll tell you,” said Rose, who now lives with his wife of 17 years, Eliana, near Forks.
Still, Rose is more than just bucktails and blood knots.
He might be a fly-fishing writer and guide — his trips are for bank anglers only — but he can break out conventional gear on occasion, too.
He just prefers not to most of the time.
“I have fished all the other methods and don’t think fly fishing is inherently superior to them — it’s just quieter, less mechanical and you fish beautiful objects that you can make,” Rose said.
