Bits of the Summer of 2018

[cpiercem]

Summer of 2018
My summer of trout bum exploration started on about the 23rd of June and ended the 5th of October, at least for the main block of time. I am sure that I will get out a bit more this year, but that was basically the most continuous block of extended camping. This year I was in Idaho and Wyoming. I know that I won’t get even a tenth of where I explored documented, but I will give it a shot as I get time. That is my good intention at least.


I mostly fish very small streams, so unfortunately I won’t be naming any of them. Sorry about that, but if you take a map of eastern half of Idaho and western half of Wyoming and look at the smaller waters you’ll be in the ballpark and will have plenty to explore. I’ve found that it really doesn’t matter. Most of the blue lines on the map are good if you get away from the more popular areas, and even the popular areas are good. That comes at a bit of a cost in convenience. The places or stretches of stream I like best are usually harder to get to or are unnoticed for one reason or another. There are many more that I would like to explore, but age is curtailing my enjoyment of too long of a hike!

Here is a picture of my home away from home on one of the many creeks:

One problem with June in the mountains is the mosquitoes. They are real party poopers. Be sure to take your favorite bug solution or repeller with you. After the mosquito season is done there are the biting flies, annoying flies, and the wasps. Fun can be had all summer long!

But a good reason to be in the mountains in June is that the streams have plenty of water, if not too much. Plus they frequently have post spawn cutts and rainbows that are just hanging out looking for some good snacks.

The water on this little creek was bank full and a bit colored but not too much of either. I considered it just right!

The fish liked it too.

The cutthroats are just beautiful this time of year. Their colors vary from pinks to oranges. I wish the camera would capture more of it.

One problem with trying to take a picture one handed with a little snap and shoot is that you don’t get much of the fish in. It is also very limiting on variety of shots. Oh well, it does serve to record for me the fish and usually the fly that I used. Then I take a picture of the pool and some of the sky. That way I have a bit of a record of what the weather was like, what the flow of the creek was, and what general type of fly I was using.


Another perk of spring in the mountain is all of the wildflowers and baby wildlife.

If you can zoom in on this picture if shows a group of elk calves reluctant to cross to their mommas.

And finally they are all back together on the next hill.

I enjoyed watching the calves play and chase as well as them all calling back and forth to each other.

 

[Joey Bagels]

Off to a great start. I’ll be checking back for future installments. Good stuff.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cpiercem]

I revisited this area a couple of times at the end of September. It was interesting to me to see the changes the dry summer had brought. Fall is still beautiful in this area, but it has one major drawback: not much water this year. This is as low as I have ever seen this stream.

The stream was very very low and clear. The fish were spooky and experts at hiding. I tried all kinds of ninja skills, and I still spooked more than I caught. The fish probably had a good laugh though watching an old lady crawling through the brush!

I did catch some, more of the small ones, but several of the larger. I was glad to see how many age classes were in the stream. It looks like there are good reinforcements in there waiting to take over the prime pools.

I wasn’t in this area very long, which was a good thing for my knees. Even with foam knee pads I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to walk back to my truck at the end of the day!

 

[Ard]

Nice stuff Cindy, I liked the patch of Paintbrush flowers, haven't seen any of that for years.

 

[AxisMike]

Cindy:

Enjoyed the pictures. Thanks for sharing.

 

[conkso]

Please post more! I really like your descriptions, writing and the photos.

I spent about four weeks bumming around SW Montana before I had to head back to San Diego. I'm now totally messed up.

I'm coming back next summer for four weeks and my plan is to chase down the small waters of the type you were fishing.

Two of my best memories from this summer came from catching fish on smaller streams/rivers. I still have no idea how a rainbow trout can magically appear from nothing but gin clear water.

Please keep posting! And drop more hints about where I should point my truck next summer... I want some of what you got there!

 

[cpiercem]

And drop more hints about where I should point my truck next summer... I want some of what you got there!

I know that it is frustrating to not know where a fishing post is from. Sometimes my curiosity drives me nuts if I don't at least know the general area.

I will say a couple of things though on where not to fish.

Don't fish South Piney Creek in the Wyoming Range of mountains. It truly has no fish in this part of Wyoming! I fished it for a couple of days. Then I talked to a ranch manager in the area. He confirmed that there aren't any fish or so few that they aren't seen. He also said that the game and fish department was going to do some surveys to find out what was going on. It has been bad since the Fontanel Fire some years ago.

Also upper LaBarge Creek has some issues, but does have fish. Some years ago they poisoned it to clear it out for reestablishing Colorado Cutts. Since then they have had some trouble with the cutts getting established. But they do stock it several times a year. I have fished it off and on for several years. Sometimes it has lots of small fish, sometimes a few larger, sometimes it is hard to find any fish. It just isn't very consistent. What is really bad is the road into there from La Barge. The road is good where the county maintains it, but from there up to the national forest line it can be terrible, or even washed out. Unless that has changed it is best to come in from some other direction if you want to fish it.

 

[conkso]

Thanks for the, "where not to go information".... but now I think you're just throwing me all kinds of misinformation to throw me off track. You're living in my head rent-free moving around the furniture!

Honestly, thanks for that info. - I really like the idea of fishing smaller waters. I pulled a pretty fat cutty out from under a bank on a creek outside of Missoula (that's vague enough right?), I'd been hiking up the river, saw a grassy bank and thought, "what the heck, I'll throw a grasshopper at that." and sure enough a lurker came up and grabbed it.

I'm fairly new to fly fishing so it was just the coolest thing to happen my whole summer trip. Needless to say, I'm hooked. In fact, I'm already dreaming about NEXT summer when I'll be back in the region for about a month - and I just got back from Yellowstone two weeks ago!

That may not seem like much, but remember, I drive there all the way from San Diego!

 

[cpiercem]

Thanks for the, "where not to go information".... but now I think you're just throwing me all kinds of misinformation to throw me off track. You're living in my head rent-free moving around the furniture!

Honestly, thanks for that info. - I really like the idea of fishing smaller waters. I pulled a pretty fat cutty out from under a bank on a creek outside of Missoula (that's vague enough right?), I'd been hiking up the river, saw a grassy bank and thought, "what the heck, I'll throw a grasshopper at that." and sure enough a lurker came up and grabbed it.

I'm fairly new to fly fishing so it was just the coolest thing to happen my whole summer trip. Needless to say, I'm hooked. In fact, I'm already dreaming about NEXT summer when I'll be back in the region for about a month - and I just got back from Yellowstone two weeks ago!

That may not seem like much, but remember, I drive there all the way from San Diego!

No, I'm not throwing you misinformation.

The best advice I can give you is that Google Earth is your friend. I search for stream sections that are a bit off the beaten path, that maybe harder to get to because of a hike in or willows or a canyon. Some of the ones I have explored have been fairly small.

I like to find meadow areas where the stream winds back and forth and may have some beaver ponds. Like this one that is a small tributary of the first stream in this thread. I hiked in a half of a mile to this first meadow section. I probably only fished a half mile of the meadow. There was plenty more that I didn’t get to.

It is really step across small small stream. It looks even smaller where it joins the main stream. Without Google Earth I wouldn't have suspected that there were good pools a half mile in.

There is frequently more and deeper water in a meadow section where beavers and erosion have made deep pools.
You can see how small this one is here where there isn’t a deep pool on this little stretch but a nice undercut bank.

Which held fish. Not huge fish, but very nice fish for such a small stream.

The beaver ponds can also be productive. Although I generally prefer to fish the water just above and below a beaver pond rather than the pond itself.

The fish on this tributary were smaller than the ones in the main stem of the creek, but they were a whole lot of fun!

 

[scotty macfly]

Cindy, those are all nice areas, and the fish you caught are just amazing for the size of water they are in. Thank you very much for sharing your trip, it was a wonderful read and photo's.

 

[dennyk]

Very well done Cindy, thank you for sharing your bits of summer! :thumbsup:

Denny

 

[cpiercem]

This is another meadow that I fished on this stream. I was here in September.

I hiked in on a cow trail for about three fourths of a mile over the foothills. Frequently the trails on the hills above the creek bottoms are easier to navigate than down by the stream.

Speaking of which I want to say that I am so thankful for cows! I can’t tell you how many times I use cow trails to get up into remote areas and especially to get through willows in the river bottoms.


This meadow didn’t have much gradient and the stream was low and slow. I fish for about 20 minutes spooking every fish I saw. The fish inspected each fly minutely.


There were grasshoppers everywhere and the fish were gorging on them, yet I couldn’t get them to take an imitation. I think I tried every variety of hopper you can imagine when I remembered a hopper I had tied last year. It was smaller, had the right colors, and used red floss for the back legs. I tied it on and at the next hole I sat and watch the fish taking one hopper after another. I timed my cast for just after he took the last hopper. Low and behold he came back and slammed my humble offering. Then he was racing for the willow roots. All I could do was hang on and try to turn him. At last I managed to land him. The fish grow fast and exceptionally fat on hoppers!

Fish like this one are part of the reason I love remote meadows. You never know what you will get.

 

[scotty macfly]

This is another meadow that I fished on this stream. I was here in September.

I hiked in on a cow trail for about three fourths of a mile over the foothills. Frequently the trails on the hills above the creek bottoms are easier to navigate than down by the stream.

Speaking of which I want to say that I am so thankful for cows! I can’t tell you how many times I use cow trails to get up into remote areas and especially to get through willows in the river bottoms.


This meadow didn’t have much gradient and the stream was low and slow. I fish for about 20 minutes spooking every fish I saw. The fish inspected each fly minutely.


There were grasshoppers everywhere and the fish were gorging on them, yet I couldn’t get them to take an imitation. I think I tried every variety of hopper you can imagine when I remembered a hopper I had tied last year. It was smaller, had the right colors, and used red floss for the back legs. I tied it on and at the next hole I sat and watch the fish taking one hopper after another. I timed my cast for just after he took the last hopper. Low and behold he came back and slammed my humble offering. Then he was racing for the willow roots. All I could do was hang on and try to turn him. At last I managed to land him. The fish grow fast and exceptionally fat on hoppers!

Fish like this one are part of the reason I love remote meadows. You never know what you will get.

Stop it, you're killing me!

That is a nice fish right there. Well done.

 

[cpiercem]

This little meadow stream isn’t remote. All of its good meadow section is within 100yds of a road. It is overlooked because it’s small and narrow, but when I walked up to it, I found that it was surprisingly deep with undercut banks. I didn’t see anyone else fish it in the three days I was in this area. It was easy casting, but I really needed to walk softly and stay low as there were few bushes along its banks,and the fish were skittish.

Such a gorgeous fun little stream! It had several larger fish in it that I spooked and a couple that I broke off, but at least I got to see them. The ones I did catch were smaller but just as beautiful.

 

[dillon]

Quote: "I know that it is frustrating to not know where a fishing post is from. Sometimes my curiosity drives me nuts if I don't at least know the general area."


Thanks for sharing images of your adventures. It just goes to show what research, planning, and exploration can yield and thats half the fun. On our annual extended road trip S&S and I always explore for new waters to fish. Sometimes we score and sometimes not, regardless, it's always worth the adventure.

 

[conkso]

Thanks so much for the tips! Once school is out in early June (I'm a high school teacher) I'm heading out that way (doing a ten day, Baja mangrove fly trip first) and I will seek out some of those types of set ups. This is exactly the type of fly fishing that I enjoy!

I'm assuming those streams run through National Forest?

 

[conkso]

This little meadow stream isn’t remote. All of its good meadow section is within 100yds of a road. It is overlooked because it’s small and narrow, but when I walked up to it, I found that it was surprisingly deep with undercut banks. I didn’t see anyone else fish it in the three days I was in this area. It was easy casting, but I really needed to walk softly and stay low as there were few bushes along its banks,and the fish were skittish.

Such a gorgeous fun little stream! It had several larger fish in it that I spooked and a couple that I broke off, but at least I got to see them. The ones I did catch were smaller but just as beautiful.

Those fish are beautiful - I never stopped being amazed with what might be pulled out of a tiny bit of water!!!!

Ok - so now I'm really whipped up to a froth on this. So lemme know if this is the correct general plan:

1. Find dirt road (preferably in national forest/blm land for access) in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho.
2. Look for "small" streams that run into or next to the dirt road... especially for those with meadow sections.
3. Sit in California for 8 months dreaming about fishing those spots.... go crazy.

I'm so fired up for this!

 

[cpiercem]

Thanks so much for the tips! Once school is out in early June (I'm a high school teacher) I'm heading out that way (doing a ten day, Baja mangrove fly trip first) and I will seek out some of those types of set ups. This is exactly the type of fly fishing that I enjoy!

I'm assuming those streams run through National Forest?

Yes, everything I have shown is in National Forest. Remember: Google Earth is your friend! Pick an area and look at the streams with Google Earth. Even if you don't find big big fish, you will have fun!

 

[cpiercem]

Just across the mainstream from the little meandering meadow stream I had been fishing was another stream coming in. I hadn’t had a chance to look at these in Google Earth before I moved into this area so I just exploring. The canyon across the river looked pretty good. It wasn’t real steep and looked like it went back a long ways.
This is looking across the river at the canyon.

Promising enough for a good day of fishing exploration.
Yep, looking good! (Another of my beloved “cow trails”) I didn’t see a single footprint other than mine in here.

And a pretty stream.

First fish was on the small but feisty side. I think it was the smallest I caught all day.

The rest of the fish weren’t that much bigger, but they were sure fun. Here is a couple of typical ones.

I can’t describe how amazing this little stream was. It had everything: iridescent cutthroats, beautiful surroundings, clear water, eager fish, and flowers everywhere. There was a carpet on the banks of Dutch clover and the smell was amazing. The bees were almost too fat to fly out. Their buzzing was a constant drone.

I sat down on this little side bank to tie on a new fly.

With all that Dutch clover in there I swept my hiking stick through the grass before I sat down. Unfortunately a bee must have had his head buried in a flower, and he didn’t get the message to leave. Of course he objected to being sat on, and I promptly jumped back up and almost face-planted in the creek. Neither one of us was happy about the situation, but I think he won the round. Nylon wading pants are no barrier to bees. I sat in the creek in an effort to reduce the swelling. I don’t think it helped a bit. After lunch I limped my way back out.

Altogether it was a wonderful little stream to explore, and I enjoyed the day. That is… I enjoyed it in retrospect after the swelling went down. (I swear my backside itched for a month! )
Whatever you do... DON’T sit in the flowers!

My family promptly renamed the area Bee Bottom Canyon!

 

[mcnerney]

My family promptly renamed the area Bee Bottom Canyon!

Awesome report and that last part was too funny!