Snoqualmie River

The Snoqualmie drops over Snoqualmie Falls and runs north through a broad farm valley past Fall City, Carnation and Duvall to meet the Skykomish at Monroe, where the two become the Snohomish. It is the closest steelhead river to Seattle, and for years its winter fishery was built on hatchery fish from the Tokul Creek hatchery just below the falls. That program has ended. WDFW stopped the early-winter hatchery steelhead releases at Tokul Creek to protect wild fish, and the winter of 2025-26 brought back the last big return, with only a few stragglers after it. Salmon are closed on the river below the falls for the 2026-27 season.

What is left is a short winter window. Below the falls the river opens December 1, closes January 31 below the Plum access and February 15 above it, and you must release wild steelhead and wild trout. Expect few fish, and fish it for the chance at a wild winter steelhead close to home rather than for numbers. The best fly water is the stretch from the falls to Fall City, where the deep pools below Tokul Creek held most of the hatchery fish. Above the falls the forks are trout water under their own selective-gear rules, and they are not covered here.

Read the flows at the Carnation gauge. The Snoqualmie is big and often high in winter, and it is not an easy fly river when it is up. As a rough guide it fishes from about 1,200 to 3,500 CFS, gets hard to fish well above that, and past about 7,000 it is out. It drops a day or two after rain stops. Check WDFW before you go, since seasons here have changed year to year.