If Hungry Cuttys, large healthy Bull Trout and wild salmon get your blood pumping, sit down, get a cup of coffee and enjoy....
The trip started out with a long ride down smooth grey pavement, surrounded by civilization "progress" as they like to call it. The idea of fishing did not completely set in until we turned onto a dirt road that has me coming back year after year. The dirt road was not nearly as bumpy as I have remembered on last outings. This gave me pause as we all know, bumpy dirt roads keep many fair-weathered fly fishers away from some of my favorite fishing holes. My math, more bumps = more fish.... simple but true.
As we approached the camping grounds for our first night, we stopped along the side of the road to collect wood for a fire. The temps were dropping, and my camp mate / fishing buddy promised me a delicious dinner. I was in charge of building a camp fire suitable for such a meal. I was impressed with my wood collecting, that was until we reached camp and found piles pine logs cut and already split. It seems the forest service guys had been busy getting ready for our arrival.
Custom Bamboo Rod Builder Dave Dozer...
Major decesions were in the near future. Should we set up camp in daylight and get a short time to fish the river that we have traveled hours to fish, or would we fish until dark and then cook and set camp up by the light of my insect covered headlights. All true fisherman know the answer to this....
Our first trip to the river was a worthwhile one. My second cast to a tiny patch of slow moving water... Fat cutty on the line. As I am bringing the fish to the net, I move away from the best casting location of the hole. This creek is not huge, so most holes are a one fisherman scenerio at a time. Jake throws his fly tight to the far bank, bang, another fish. Technicaly a double, but my fish was released before his was brought to the hand. We had many more fish that night, enough to have us dreaming of the coming day.
First full day of fishing:
The morning started with black coffee. Not just black, but that thick tar like product that comes from too much coffee and too little water. After we inhaled a couple packets of oatmeal and raisins, we were ready to hit the trail.
Our plan was to beeline it to a specific portion of river. It was hard to pass by such amazing pools, but we had a plan. The image of the pool below is where I had my first tussle with a Salmon on my Bamboo Rod. There were many large hungry cutty's under the logs. I pulled a few small fish out of the water closest to me, as my casting began to reach further into better water, (bigger fish), that is when a monster of a salmon, surfaced and in slow motion I watched this fish grab my fly and slowly pull my line deep into the pool. Not sure what I was more concerned with, hooking a salmon outside of the season or breaking my new 4 wt rod. I oriented the rod so the line was straight at the salmon, I was amazed by the weight / force I had to put on that fish in order to snap the 5x tippet. We left that hole after the salmon broke free.
The rest of the day was spent hiking down into great looking water. Picking a spot to drop the fly, making the cast and holding on. This is why I love freestones in Idaho. Every Place you think a fish should reside, one does. The only un-known is the size of the fish.
I finally Ask Jake if he wants to throw a few flies with my new Bamboo.... He jumps at the chance. After a couple of cast are made and Jake adjust to slowing down his cast.... bang, a large cutty rises to his fly. After a few short runs, the fish is ready to net, or so I thought. I am more concerned with my new rod breaking under the weight of this cutthroat. I know that Bamboo rods are tough, but I also know that a large fish reeled in tight to the end of the a rod and fighting in fast moving current can be a disasterous situation no matter the rod type. Having my attention on the rod and not the fish, made landing him in the net all that more challenging. After a few messy attempts of netting the fish, and being submerged in water up to my chest, I finally had him in the net. Not only a large Cutty, but the largest of the trip so far. Not cool, showing a guy up, while borrowing his rod...
Custom Bamboo Rod Builder Dave Dozer...
While casting to rising trout, my calves get bumped by something, something big... I look down to see a pair of mating Salmon making their way up-stream. Not much beats casting to wild trout, only to have wild salmon swimming in the same water. Something about the presence of a fish that has swam 600 plus miles to get to her spawning grounds being in your midst. Only a couple of fishing holes later, one of these massive beast make a subtle rise to take my large dry fly a "Maddom X". Problem was, I was fishing with my 4wt Cain rod again... No way was I going to land a fish of this size with this rod. Just as fast as the fish inhaled my fly, she spit it back out.
The image above is where I had one of the large salmon take my dry fly while casting to cutthroat trout. I also pulled one of a few Bull trout from this very hole. This image does not cleary depict just how shallow the water is at portions of this run. Just as we are climbing the banks to leave this hole, I see a large Salmon slithering on its belly through about 3" of water. That means that 6-8" of fish was exposed. The fish traveled about 20-25' like this before dropping into the deep pool beyond. Very neat to be able to experience such a thing up close and personal.
Living where I do in Boise ID, I am blessed with having so much amazing water relatively close by. Yes, I have the chance to chase very large Browns and Rainbows, as well as steelhead during the season, but, I personally think chasing native fish in their natural surroundings does not get any better.
