Disappointment

Colder weather in late September can usually be counted on for a couple of things, beautiful foliage in the hills and fun fishing at the "Bathtubs" for large, hard fighting rainbows.

Fall Aspens and Maples.

Finding big fish on this stretch of spring creek is a matter of timing. They move up out of the reservoir, and average about 25 inches and 5 lbs.... when they are in. As we had a new baby last week I haven't been out lately and was hoping for one of those "magical" days. One of those days where the alignment of the stars is just right, and the fishing is memorable. Again it is all a matter of timing, too early no big fish. Too late in the season..... well it gets awful cold and snowy in that high country, quickly.

The two buddies who were supposed to fish with me bailed out at the last minute. Maybe just as well for them. The hardwoods on the drive up the butte have changed color and the leaves were a site to behold. I took it as a good portent, and there were no other cars at the trailhead.

View for the hike in.

The hike in is short and I went to the top hole to scout things out. The very top hole is crystal clear water with a beautiful cobble bed. Perfect for bugs and spawning. The fish in this first hole are super spooky, though I have landed a couple from time to time including a large cut several years back who I was able to coax to the top for a large hopper. There were a couple of decent sized trout immediately visible and I saw a couple of kokanee move through the hole. The kokanee were in pretty bad shape, they have been in the river for a while now.

Nice trout sitting on the bottom in 5 feet of water.

I went down to the first bend, rigged up with a pir of zebra midges and started casting. I quickly tied into a fish but his fighting style told the story which was only confirmed by bringing him to the net. Whitefish. The next two fish were trout. The first about 16 inches, this one was a jumper and performed some amazing acrobatics. Respectable but not what I was there for. The next was larger. I fought him for about 45 seconds before he spit me, and I thought the day would turn out ok........ but I was fooled. The rest of the day (well next 2 hours anyway) earned me nothing but whitefish and 13-15 inch rainbows. I kept fishing on the hope that I would eventually find one of the large trout that I knew might be in there. Fishing on faith...... I have done quite well on this stretch in the past at about the same time of year, but I guess the big fish just haven't moved up yet. This years plentiful water had all of the major hatches about 2-3 weeks late so perhaps the run up from the reservoir is delayed.


Smaller rainbows.

I was waiting to take pictures, holding off for larger trout that never materialized. And so I finally took some shots of the smaller fish, missing out on shooting some of the larger, but not huge by any means, fish that I had landed earlier.

As I hiked back to my car I couldn't help thinking that I should have gone and fished hoppers on one of the two hopper creeks I have been thinking of hitting, but hadn't been able to as they were too far away and out of cell range, factors unconducive to fishing when ones wife is very pregnant. Well as little Joshua is now here and both mother and boy are doing great..... I will get back up to hog hunting soon, and this time, hopefully the fish will be there too.

Grumpy Frumpies, Storm Clouds and Kokanee

Kokanee swimming in Big Elk Creek
If you don't see any red..... keep moving

The disappointment I felt when my custom order of Grumpy Frumpies so ugly that "Cheech" (world renown fly tier and inventor of said fly) mentioned in his blog that they reminded him of something that a cat had puked up, was greatly tempered by the thunder storms and and rain showers that dumped from yesterday (Sunday) mid afternoon through the evening. The storms caused me to look at the weather forecast for Labor day, cold and rainy. The revised high for tonight (Labor Day) 30 balmy degrees, fahrenheit. It didn't break 60 today, happy Labor Day!

Cat Puke Grumpy Frumpy my Custom Colors tied by Cheech

Knowing that it was going to rain and be cold diminishes ones enthusiasm for tossing hoppers to cutthroats, but the period of better weather in the morning was perfect for chasing a few kokanee at Big Elk Creek. So Chad, Mike and I climbed into the Rodeo and headed for the semi-high country.

We were the only ones on the creek in the morning which was nice considering that it was a holiday. And we quickly tied into some nice fish. I pulled one out of the shallow within the first few minutes and Mike quickly followed with a big male.

Mike's Kokanee
Now that is RED

As we fished up the creek we quickly realized that we had forgotten to bring any heavy sinkers. Heavy sinkers are key when bumping big flies on the noses of single minded kokanee when one is making 8 foot drifts. If you can't get the fly down fast enough, you can't get the fish in the deep holes. We still did pretty good targeting the fish holding in riffles and shallows. At one point I ran back to the rig and found a couple of bolts and nuts and pushed the nuts onto the head of an adult salmon fly pattern, my custom hex bead salmon fly. This fly got down quickly, too quickly and was promptly snagged up and lost.

I found one deep hole under a nasty bunch of fly eating willows that must of had a couple of hundred fish holding in it. You would have thought that we were in Alaska. But good luck on picking up a fish from this hole. It was deep and fast and completely covered on both sides by willows. There was no way to get any kind of drift.

As it was fairly cold I wore a bright red wool sweater. I figured the kokanee would just think I was a big fish. Interesting to note, that almost all the fish caught today were males where last Wednesday they were almost all females.

Me with a little kokanee
Notice the sweater and waders. Quite a bit different from the wet wading of last week

Chad caught the big fish of the day. He was claiming it was 16 inches till we taped it out at 20 inches. He is the only fisherman I know who subtracts inches and pounds instead of adding them.

Chad with the big kokanee of the day. And thems good eatin

As I will probably only be able to get out one more time before my wife goes into labor (and being out on the river when she goes into labor would probably not be a good thing), I need to decide if I am going to chase kokanee again or hope the weather improves for some hoppers and cutthroats.

Kokanee

are in Big Elk Creek. Like bright bolts of electric magenta speeding up and down the creek and holding behind the rocks. They would run right over your feet, between your legs and down the river when spooked, and you had to work pretty hard to spook them.

This photo was borrowed from off the intertube thingy.
I need to fish with my camera more often, though one of the guys I fished with may have a shot or two from this evening
and this photo may soon be replaced.

My son (2 & 1/2 years old), a couple of buddies and one of the buddie's wife came along. My little boy was all for fishing for about the first 20 minutes. Then he was more interested in playing. This included examining sticks, chasing a small snake, and throwing rocks. Thankfully the kokanee are fairly hard to spook, meaning you almost have to poke them to get them to move, almost. A well placed fist sized rock propelled by a two year old can get them to vacate their lie.

Daddy's Fishing Buddy

He (my son) did mention that he likes to eat fish and the adjectives that he used to describe the kokanee were "good" as in tasting and "yummy." He is really starting to understand the way of things. As I kept one medium sized koke, he questioned me about when I was going to "cut" (clean) the fish. Of course this was all in Portuguese which he is fairly fluent in. He also does a good job switching between English and Portuguese depending upon what he notes going on in the conversation around him.

He is learning to cast and waves my rod while chanting "foward" and "backwards." Sometimes he actually gets it to cast, and in July he hooked a whitefish on the SF from a pod of risers that were hitting mayflies. I think my 9' 5wt may be a little big and plan on getting him a 6' 2 or 3wt next spring.

My best fishing (when not entertaining) was on an adult salmon fly pattern weighted down heavily and high sticked to the fish holding behind rocks. For some reason they liked the salmon fly better than the white rabbit zonker that I tried before putting on the big rubber legged dry fly.

Beautiful area. I may have to go back. Now my debate for Labor Day is what creek to fish.....? One of two nice area creeks for cutthroats on hoppers or dead sticking large weighted flies to fairly decent sized kokanee. Maybe I will do both; kokanee in the morning and hoppers in the afternoon. I will try to get more/different photos up as soon as I have them.

Willow Creek

Took my 2.5 year old into Krepps Hollow on Willow Creek above Ririe Reservoir a couple of weeks ago and got some tiny little trout. Willow Creek is a meandering not very big Creek above the reservoir that has some beautiful bottoms and cottonwood flats, but with very limited access.

Well that trip got me thinking that the water quality (at least temperatures) must be better right below the dam (Ririe Reservoir). The dam is a big eathwork construction of the same vein as Palisades dam, and the Teton dam and has at least generally about 100 cfs coming out of it. So I snuck out for a quick scout into the creek after lunch.

There is no easy access to the bottom of the dam. With our terrorism paranoia the road across the dam is closed. I parked about 1/4 mile away and bushwhacked and scrambled down the talus piles to the bottom of the dam. Hiking back up made me remember that I am no longer as young as I used to be. The whole time up and down the canyon I was being cautious about rattlers as it was a warm day and there were lots of nice rocks and shade for a snake to hide in.

The creek is small, gin clear and mostly glass smooth below the dam. Resembles a spring creek more than a freestone. As I was approaching the creek I saw a decent trout rise to a hopper on some of the slick water. I cast to him a few times and couldn't get him to move. I saw another riser in a riffle about 30 feet above me. Snuck up a bit and cast to him. Whack, he took my hopper on the first cast. He was a fast running and hopping trout, probably a rainbow but I'm not sure as he spit me out after about 30 seconds. Decent size and pulled hard.

Moved up closer to the spillway but didn't get anything so I moved down to a deep bend about 50 yards below the dam. As this was an impromptu adventure and I was in jeans and sneakers, I didn't want to wade and so was standing on the bank about 10 feet above the water making rollcasts at a rising fish with willows and scrubs right at my back. There was a small rising fish in this hole as I moved in, but I couldn't evoke a strike but I did move a big bruiser up from the bottom who followed the hopper for about 10 feet before refusing.

I may have to go back into this creek when I have a little more time..... and possibly a float tube. It is slow moving meandering creek, and looking at the maps at terraserver it looks like I could make a nice couple of mile float form the dam to a bridge down a ways. Looks like it could be fun, but with the spring creek like conditions could prove to be very tough fishing.

Big Fish Small Creek

I decided to finally put a fly fishing blog together detailing and documenting some of my outings. It is a work in progress and the format will be transitory until I get it nailed down.



It is hard to beat the fly fishing opportunities that the Gem State offers. Spent a few hours this afternoon on an alpine creek in South East Idaho. The creek is 12-15 feet wide in most places but still offers cutthroat of surprising size. In other similar creeks close to this the cuts average around 10 inches and a 12-13 inch fish is large. In the creek I spent the afternoon in a 12 inch trout is average, a 14-15 inch fish good, and 17 inch fish is a large fish.

I used to fish this creek fairly regularly, but it has been almost ten years since I last tromped up this trail. I had heard a few years back that a low water year had killed the fishery and since then I just never made time to return, instead fishing other small local creeks. My loss, the fishing is fantastic and this will return to the number 1 position in my list of fun creeks to toss hoppers on to wild native cutthroats in the late summer/early fall.

The creek is a little remote and requires about a 20 minute drive on washboard covered dirt roads to get to the trailhead. There are wild raspberries hidden in the shady spots around the willows. The north facing slopes are carpeted with deep and dark growths of white pine mixed with the odd clump of aspen and the south facing slopes are covered sparsely with juniper which transitions into lodge-pole and douglas at higher elevations.

A thick growth of willows surrounds the creek and the meadows are full of wildflowers and sage. As you walk the trail up the canyon clouds of large hoppers with light cream yellow bellies take flight.



The cutthroats were hungry and a well slapped hopper pattern produced hits on almost every drift. In one deep spot under an overhanging willow, the first drift produced two fat fish knocking each other askew. The second drift resulted in the larger of the fighting pair and the third drift produced the other brawler.



These fish give you 2-3 tries max, rising and nibbling on your fly before they refuse to rise. So if you miss in the first two strikes, well you are best advised to move onto the next hole. They have a habit of grabbing hoppers by the legs and slowly rolling them under, a mannerism that is tough on rubber legs. and as the wriggly legged flies outfish the no legged flies it is best to have a good supply of hoppers in you arsenal.



Three hours of fishing produced almost 20 fish. The majority in the 12-13 inch range but 4 or 5 went 15 inches or better. All but one were hooked on a hopper pattern. The exception was hiding in a deep and tricky lie at the base of a tree. He came up 3 or 4 times and looked at my hopper but I could never quite get him to bite so I tied a wet fly on the bend of the hoppers hook and drifted through a few more times till he took the wet fly.

As the creek is remote but still gets a fair amount of pressure it will remain nameless. Those who are familiar with the area already know where it is, and those who don't well they can try to wheedle it out of me.