Fishing Forum

It was so nice to see the sun and calm skies after such a long bout of really lousy weather. I loaded up my Renegade and motor and headed out to do a little prospecting to find some willing fish in a different reservoir.

I ended up having to do a little detouring to avoid some field burning, so I thought I would just take a side trip up into the hills, and look at some creeks while I was at it. Yep, they are still running pretty high and off color.
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Then I thought about seeing if I could get up a bit higher and look as some tributaries that I wanted to investigate.

This is really turning into a major detour now. As you can see I am easily distracted and have a short attention span!

The road was not great in spots, but it was ok. There was no mud, and it wasn’t soft, so I wasn’t damaging it by being on it too soon. When it had dried out, it left one or two of these “mud puddles”. Good thing that there is a nice hard rock base in this area, otherwise I may have been using my float tube in this lake in the road!
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So after a bit of a hike…….Success! This little feeder stream is running higher, but is almost completely clear. I am practically dancing in anticipation when I spot a fish in a side pool. I can hardly wait to try this creek out. I love small creek fishing!
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As I was rigging up my 4wt rod, I realized that most of what I had with me is for lake fishing! I know I have nymphs and streamers but, I like to fish little streams with small dries. I began searching franticly through my junk, and I found that once again my packrat tendencies will pull me through. I have a small box of dries with me - Perfect! …… but looks like it is chapstick for floatant again. I wonder if the fish prefer SPF 15 or 30??

It is sure beautiful up here! The wild flowers are amazing, and everything is so green.
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There are lots of bugs in the air -- from midges to an occasional mayfly and even a stray caddis thrown in every once in awhile. I tied on a little elk hair caddis, and holding my breath I cast it out. Nope, two snubs and a splashy tail flip said that that was a poor choice. I hadn’t been there 10 minutes, and I was already changing flies! I tied on a parachute adams and bingo! We have a winner!

Little native cutthroats – how sweet it is.
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Needless to say I spent the day on the creek. My float tube just went along with me for the ride!
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That looks awesome. I love high mountain stream fishing. I need to venture up to that area and explore this summer. Most of my Idaho fishing has been for bass, I haven't even touched that sort of thing. Is that area accessible in a car later in the year, or am I out of luck?
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great pics and that's a beautiful fish [cool]
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I wouldn't try it in a car. Some of the holes are pretty deep and the rocks huge. These are like farm roads. I had to get permission to cross and get close enough to hike in to the public land section. Unfortunately it is a very short little spring creek. There is only about 1/2 to 3/4 mile of it on public land, and much of that is really small and braided. Just off of the public land area it goes into irrigation. Thus I am sorry that I won't mention where it is at to anyone. It wouldn't take much to collapse the small population that is there.

Most of the fish were from 6 to 10 inches. The one in the picture was about 12 inches, and was probably the best one I got. They sure were pretty though!

I am thinking that there are more little creeks that are starting to clear up, depending on how large of an area their watershed is, and where the snow level is at. I will probably spend some more time looking. For me the hunt is half the fun.
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Thanks for the tag along. Those pictures are fantastic! Ron
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I didn't think I would fish small streams for another month. Hummmm.... maybe I better start looking.

Windriver
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Nice stuff.
I like the chap stick, Nice trick. Why not. I wonder if I would have thought of that on my own.
Looks like lots of balsam root out, anyone know what the purple flowers are?
And here we are mid June and still need lots of the leaves to still come out. C'mon 70's...two days in a row.
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I don't know if anyone else is interested, but I did finally find out what the purple flower is. I don't think I have ever seen it before. It is an early spring bloomer.

This is from: Idaho Mountain Wildflowers [url "http://www.larkspurbooks.com/hydro1.html"]http://www.larkspurbooks.com/hydro1.html[/url]

Ballhead waterleaf, Hydrophyllum capitatum[/url] [/url]Douglas ex Benth. (right). The ballhead waterleaf is an early spring blooming plant found along seasonal freshets or on slopes still moist from the snowmelt. Attractive, round, frizzy, purple flowerheads up to two inches in diameter soon appear, partially hidden by the plant's bright green, incised leaves. The small flowers have five sepals, five petals, and five projecting anthers. Typically purple, the flowers may range to white at subalpine elevations.

As far as the chapstick for floatant, I have had to resort to it before. It is my favorite "emergency" fly floatant.
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I have on occasion also resorted to using the spf 30 chapstick for sunblock, when I have forgotten my sunblock. A bit messy but great for wind burn too!
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That was a good post. I usually am too focused on getting to where I want to go to get too distracted by other waters. But I know there are times when I am missing out.
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Thanks for sharing the info on the flower. I love all kinds of nature info. No problems on keeping the place quiet. I don't tend to share a lot of places I like to fish either. I think I need to do some exploring this summer and find some of those small streams. I used to fish them all the time when I lived in Utah Valley, but I haven't really gotten into that sort of place since I moved to Cache. I need to leave the bass alone and get back to that. At least some of the time []
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