Idaho -- The River of No Return Wilderness

essentials

With only night-time traces of the Salmon Mountains outlined to our Northwest, Scott and I raced up Hwy 93 into the mountains of Central Idaho enroute to a great adventure.  Fisherman have their special spots, places that make their heart sing, and Scott was making good on a promise made years ago along the banks of the Rapidan River to show me this one high up in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.   After a good sleep in Mackay, ID our first day's destination was Camas Creek a 2-hour drive into the rugged Salmon Mountains. 

The Salmon Mtns beckon

Camas Creek and all its tribs covers a watershed more expansive than Rhode Island, so I'm not giving away all Scott's secrets. We passed collapsed silver mines and rusting mining rigs as we motored, a sunny day made pleasantly cloudy by smoke from a forest fire to the Northwest.   We came to the end of the forest road (literally) and parked with a scree-slope descending into Camas Creek in front of us.

Let the adventure begin

this bend is an old friend and memory maker

At 44 degrees it was 15 degrees cooler here than it had been in the Mackay and throughout this adventure we observed a 14-16 degree difference in the mountains. Scott had last visited this special place with his brother Mark years ago and memories returned as we followed the horse-trod miners' path along the creek.  Holes, bends and runs prompted stories, "Mark hooked a big Bull trout in that deep bend".  We walked another 45-minutes downstream past old mining haunts till we trusted our waders and slid into the 54 degree mountain water. 

Scott in the first pool -- great success

Scott's first cutty of the adventure

This is 4wt water and Scott and I both swung Orvis 8'6" rods.  Scott began with tandem  droppers under an indicator and I started with a single dropper under a size 8 simulator.  I had small rainbows smacking my indicator on my second cast, but before long it was obvious that Scott had picked the right set-up as he caught 3 cutthroat in a 30' bend-pool before I brought a single fish to hand!   He called me down, I re-rigged and with lots of satisfaction brought my first orange gilled cutty to hand.  A quick picture later I slipped him back in the icy-clear water and we started making our way up the creek. 

Matt's first Cutty

There were trout aplenty, but this trip was as much about making and rekindling memories as it was trout brought to hand, we were careful to appreciate each catch for the jeweled memory it was.  

For a few of Matt's catches see here.

Matt works a deadfall pool

Scott prepares for a lovely bend pool

Scott, employing a split shot between his nymphs, had particularly good fortune plumbing the depths of deeper holes and taming cuttys, rainbows, mountain whitefish and one massive bull trout.  Taming is a bit misleading as after a 10-min fight the 20+" bull trout shrugged his shoulders and spit the size 18 nymph that was attaching his to Scott's TLS.   A few choice words (a scream) later and with the monster back in the depths Scott had a smile on his face, but no fish in his hand.    The video can be seen here.  

One of the amazing things we noted on Camas Creek were the king salmon dead or dying as their life-cycle concluded in the mountains.  These monster kings had left the Pacific, entered the Columbia River --> Snake River --> Salmon River --> Middle Fork of the Salmon River and finally reached their spawning grounds in Camas Creek more than 600 miles from the Pacific Ocean!   Amazing fish.  I hooked up with one (fair hook) for about 10 seconds before it noticed that it was hooked and quickly broke me off with a slash of its body.     

We lunched on sandwiches from a world away in Salt Lake City, they were the best tasting, soggy sammys as we readied for the next set of pools and runs.   I ended the day with 24 cuttys and bows BTH, Scott probably had double that.  With the trout returned to their cobble strewn haunts we left w/o fish but with memories to last a lifetime.

Classic beauty with orange cutthroat markings

Scott -- Prize catch -- & the Steve Young Hat!

These Cutts are native to the stream!

Scott respects this Cutty and keeps his release in the water

Matt works a run

Matt's taste for cutthroats clearly will not go away before hitting this Middle Fork of the Salmon tributary again. 

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So long Camas Greek... till next time.

On the dusty slog in we'd past many small blue lines and decided to rig 2-wts and hit one of them (Silver Creek) with dries on the way out.  We found small aggressive rainbows aplenty and left satisfied after a half dozen hook-ups.

Silver Creek Rainbow

As a note to ourselves we should NOT have stayed at the Challis Lounge and Motel.  We pride ourselves on being a bit rough hewn but the Challis Lounge stretched acceptability. Let's just say it looked better with the lights out!   Next tour through we'll try the Village Inn which gave every indication of being the better-kept-cousin and kept its Moose Drool Brown Ale frosty. God bless Moose Drool.

Our plan for day two was to hit Challis Creek in the morning then swing east 60 miles through a mountain pass and hit Big Creek to end the day.   It's good to have a plan and it was working just fine until we came upon a road-closed sign as we inched up a narrowing valley towards the headwaters of Challis Creek.

 Another mile beyond this sign the mountain had slid down in a storm and the road was gone, not impassable, gone.  We headed back to town, discussed out options and decided to take a more roundabout way to the headwaters of Challis Creek.   Here we are geared and ready with the reservoir in the back ground and then looking down into Challis Creek.

Superfine photo

The bottom-release damn keeps Challis Creek at a constant level and temp

We bushwhacked down the left side of the creek (left side of this picture) for a quarter of a mile and fished back up to the spillway.   Next time we may take the closed road which runs down the other side of the Creek, go down a bit further and fish back up.  This is lovely fishing w spectacular cliff and mountain backdrops.    Bring your lightest rod and enjoy the feisty brookies and bows hiding in the narrow, grass-lined flows.  I'd spend and entire day here if I had the time.

Deep and dark mature male brookie

A mini-panorama photo tries to (poorly) to capture the grandeur of the scene

Matt works a picturesque run

This brookie took a size 14 Mr. Rapidan parachute

This native rainbow brought a smile to Scott's face

Our adventure on Challis Creek ended about 100m below the spillway when we were greeted by a skittish black dog, his owner and his lady fishing down toward us.   With up-stream walked through we tip-toed through rattler country and headed back to the car to discuss our options.   It was later in the day than we planned so we opted not to make the long drive to Big Creek, but rather to stay in these mountains and explore new water on Yankee Fork, a promising blue line that had been recommended by a guide at Bent Rod Outfitters. 45-minutes later and deeper into the wilderness we coasted down a mountain pass into the headwaters of Yankee Fork and decided to try our luck (err..expertise).  

Scott on Yankee Fork

The water was gorgeous, but wasn't teeming with Cutts as its remotenesness led us to believe.   I caught a bow and Scott a bull trout, but thinking that it would be better downstream we took off after spending only 20-min (mistake).

Matt's YF Bow

Scott's YF Bull

We were disappointed as we moved downstream on the Yankee Fork. We didn't catch a trout for 15-miles of river and we tried 3-4 likely spots.   Our best bet is that a black silt we found on the stream bottom (ash from a forest fire?) had changed the streams ecology and the trout had split.  We got a kick driving through the boom now bust mining towns of Custer and Bonanza but as we really wanted trout not a pf Pale Rider we kept moving to find fish.   We finally found trout south of Bonanza as Yankee Fork widened substantially getting ready to join Salmon River. We fully committed to this lower section for our last 90-min of river time.   We each hooked up a couple times and I got into a large "Scott ...GET THE FLIPPIN NET" rainbow that I lost after a minute. 

  

Tired but happy we wet our throats with one last cutthroat and got ready for the long drive back to Salt Lake City.   The drive out along the Salmon River (random hot springs leaching out of the ground) and through Ketchum, ID (Sun Valley) was gorgeous, but progressively less interesting as we made out way south. Thankfully a streamed Red Sox game kept us awake enough :-)   A great time had that we'll revisit again to to quell our raging cases of fishing pox.

Idaho's Sawtooth mountains guided us south

Smallie Rodeo on the South Fork

drink in the beauty of special places

Hen with a Leopard-spotted smallie

Wind burned faces, weary backs, gouged shins, swollen, lacerated hands and bleeding finger tips couldn't take the smiles off our sun creased faces as we huddled over lasagna and Legend Brown Ale and recounted the highlights of day one of our bronzeback adventure on the South Fork of the Shenandoah. 

This is Paul's Massive smallie cauffht on day 2 -- Handsomefish

Hen the start of day 1 

small flows produced many small smallies

A fave a productive flow for Hen

Henry and I look forward to our fishing trips together and this was no exception.   Planning began about a month ago for this two-day trip when an attempt at the C&O Canal fell through, but truth be told I'd much rather be fighting smallies than working through cramps in my arse. I was eager to get back on the South Fork as last trip I'd cleaned up in terms of BTH numbers but had hooked played an lost the biggest bronzeback that had ever speed-dated me.  

Our adventure began with an evening of meat lust celebrating Conor's 22 Birthday at Fugo De Chao in DC then a meat swollen sleep and an early departure.   Weather here in DC had been record-hot, fours days above 100 in a row, so we counted our lucky bass that it was a partly cloudy and forecast to only get into the middle 80's (perfect).   

Hen at the top of 2nd rapid

Hen contemplating his kit at the bottom of 2nd rapid

This was a two car adventure so we dropped one at the Alma, VA takeout and headed for the NewPort put-in to begin our adventure.    Fortified with gallons of water, sandwiches and Gatorade we slipped into warm South Fork.   Fishing with Henry is always a joy, his big enveloping smile is contagious and was etched on his mug quickly as he pulled his first smallie of the morning in the put-in rapids.  

bass were holing just on the shoulders of each of these outflows

pick-a-spot-any-spot

Now smallies aren't particularly finicky when they're feeding and you can make many right choices to entice them.   I know it's heresy, but I've taken to throwing a 2" silver-smoke-sparkle tube with a 1/32oz jig head on a 1.25" hook.  This rig is a killer.   Golden retrievers work pretty well as do other varietal bugger-streamers but if you're looking for the jog of a hook-up there's nothing I've found that rivals the action of these small tubes.    

happy amid turbulent water

The catch-rate was standard to slow for the first two hours and then started to pick up between the second and third rapids.    Henry in particular picked up the pace in the narrows flows, chutes and pools along the right hand side.   The active bass seemed to be in these secondary flows outside the main channel.    I followed suit and was soon catching small smallies at an unprecedented rate,  Then to keep our hopes up a big smallie snatched Henry's offering and a memorable deep water fight was on, a 16" smallie that reaffirms your faith in a greater power.

  

The catch rate continued to increase and then at about 1730 as the sun began to rake the river at a lower angle it happened, a hatch of size 26 black (non-biting) flies so thick if formed a film of flies on the water. The bronzebacks turned from 'on' to 'crazy' for the next 2 hours and in that short time we caught another 150 bass including many in the 10"-14" inch range which when caught down-stream and fought up stream are a gift from mother nature.  At 1945 we licked our wounds, high-five'd and navigated the final rapid having caught 350 smallies.

Paul joined us at 0730 at the Newport Put-in on day two and after introductions and a few highlights from Day one we slipped into the water again determined to bypass the first rapid and lake portion and not start until the second rapid.   Henry and I were much more relaxed the glow of the first day still warming our memories and I confess my knees and back feeling every bit of my age.  The catch rate was steady but not fantastic.   We all had stretches where we caught bass out froom each other noses and then went 10 minutes without a hook-up.   Paul then caught the monster of the two day adventure hooking a handsome, gnarled old smallie in a innocuous run.   The fish was so heavy and stayed so deep that Paul was at first convinced that he was a cat fish but as Paul fought him in and I approached with the suddenly inadequate net we found a huge smallmouth, the mayor of this stretch of the river.  

Lunker to remember

Drop by Paul's garage in Leesburg and you'll probably still see a smile on his mug from that huge fish. Measurement with a float tube ruler is never precise but he was just over 18".  He reminded me of Jangles from the Children's book.  Paul slid him back in the doah and moved downstream forcing he pace to make sure that we fished the final rapid above the take out.

We dealt with some gear issues along the way as Henry wrapped his line around his boots and snapped it as it caught in the sharp teeth of his boot-lace guides and my access 6wt inexplicably snapped in two in the second section, but we fished on with some line magic and the extra rod Henry has thought to pack.  I was once again reminded of buying a quality rod up and the value of the Orvis Guarantee, I just received this rod back from Orvis-repair and for the cost of shipping Orvis will fix this one too.  If you need a rod, advice on water, or want to join the long-rod community see Mark at the Orvis store in Woodbridge and he'll take care of you.

We neared the last rapid at 1400 and fished it for a bit over 2 hours exploring this fast, robust stretch that we'd previously neglected.   What a treat.  It's a challenge to fish with the canoe threatening to pull you downstream, but well worth the effort as willing bass were ready to ambush offerings anytime the water was greater than 2'.  I caught my biggest smallie at 1600 on Henry's three weight and on a light rod like that it seemed like an anchor but I finally brought it to answer with the help of a rock ledge which harbored off the current allowing me to tame the 15-incher enough to give him a kiss before I released him.  I stopped my count, but was with Henry as he BTH # 100 and 101 as we neared the take-out.   This stint on the river was jaw-dropping, our outrageous two day total was somewhere north of 625 smallies BTH, an embarrassment of riches.

Thanks for looking

South Fork Quick Hit on a Friday afternoon

The Gorgeous first Rapid always good for 3-5 smallies

standard Doah bronzeback

Share the river  :-)

James splits the river above the amazing second rapid

Not our quarry but beautiful colors and a good fight

this corner to the left of the main flow is my favorite spot in the third rapid

These were truly black bass -- dark dark on top

looking back up the wider 4th rapid -- lousy with bass

Biggest bass landed today (above) but I missed a WHALE while trying to land him and grab my camera

49 BTH / 4.5 hrs

Harpers Ferry Smallmouth Recon

A recent visit to Orvis inn Woodbridge and encouragement from Mark pushed me toward Harpers Ferry in search of Smallmouth.   I'd long wanted to fish the stretch from above Harpers Falls starting at the ruins of dam 3 down to the footbridge leading from West Virginia to Harpers Ferry so I didn't take much persuading.  A walk around the block convinced my neighbor Doug to tag along and ride his bike up the C&O Canal while I fished.  As we crossed over the 340 bridge from VA to WV I was reminded how big and beautiful this water is.  We parked about a mile above Harpers Ferry, Doug took off and I rode my own bike up to the head of the dam three ruins.  I found beautiful, deep, fast, stained water, my plan to wade in and out easily would have to be adjusted.  I never was able to fish the center-current flows as I simply couldn't get to them even swimming, there was just too much fast water.   I caught several small smallies in back eddies, but they were nothing to get excited about.  I also found that the wind, channelized by the notch made casting quite a challenge, it must have been a steady 20mph straight upstream.  I ended up wading out into a half dozen rock-hopping areas with minimal success.  My lesson learned here is to bring a kayak and heavier fishing gear and someone with local knowledge to clue me in to the better water.

Here's the section I fished from the WV side -- so much gorgeous water but hard to access w/o a kayak