Cutthroat practices in Idaho adventures
It was like a week-long flashback. Once again, I joined my brother Jim for some fishing adventures, and once again, he caught two or three fish for every one I netted. But this wasn’t the early-80s, and I was no longer in high school.
Rather than Jim and I seeking pan fish and small-mouth bass around the Lyons Ferry area of the Snake River, we were deep in the Northern Idaho mountains in search of cutthroat trout. Joining us were our spouses and our parents – out for their first tent-camping adventure in a couple decades (they long ago traded their tents for RVs, but this trip wasn’t suitable for long camping trailers).
Donna and I journeyed east to my hometown to meet up with the folks – along with their aging Sheltie, Flicka – and then the next day we continued east into Idaho, picking up Jim and Sue – along with Duke the retriever and Jetta the lapdog – just before crossing the Idaho border at Lewiston. Several hours later we were high up the North Fork Clearwater Valley, setting up camp near the mouth of Kelly Creek (hardly a creek as it’s flow was at least equal to the main branch of the North Fork above the junction).
After setting up camp, Jim, Donna and I rigged our rods and headed up Kelly Creek to test the waters. Even with the water level still high with spring run-off (water was lapping in the brush on the banks) the fishing was fine, if a bit slow. We found fish every day (though only Jim caught fish on the first day of full sun –and then only in the last hole he fished after pounding the rivers all day). The fish averaged around 14-15 inches. The smallest cutthroat (one of mine) was about 9 inches and Donna had one 10-inch bull trout (caught on a dry fly – a #12 caddis). We were able to match a couple small hatches, but mostly we enticed the cutthroats with stimulators and attractors. Big, high-floating dries seemed to pull the sluggish feeders out of the depths but one fly served me better than any other – a #12 or #14 Purple Haze from the Yakima River Fly Shop. These attractors pulled scores of fish out when even perfectly matched hatches failed to draw finicky feeders out of their holes.
On day 1, we watched one thick bodied cut, about 16 inches, slowing working a deep hole just a short cast from a gravel bar. It was feeding on a small hatch of pale mayflies, which we matched perfectly. It came up and looked at Jim’s smooth presentation several time, but never took. Finally, I tried my Purple Haze and the slab-sided cut came out of the water like a starving orca, slamming the fly and flashing back into the depths. I didn’t have my camera for that fish, but it was just the first of many for the week.
While there were only a few anglers working the river, Donna and I were able to find perfect solitude on Day 3, as well as fine fishing, by hiking up the Kelly Creek Trail as it heads upstream from Moose Creek. The first 1 to 1.5 miles of trail stays well above the river, but beyond that, there are plenty of access points to fish-rich holes along the river.
We had a bit of rain the first night, fortunately well after we retired to our tents, but the next day was rainy and damp from shortly after dawn until late afternoon. The sun finally came out on Day 3 and, other than a short lightning storm around midnight, we had fine weather the rest of the stay. After spent the last 15-20 years camping in well-outfitting trailers and pickup campers, Mom and Dad were troopers, putting up with rain, wet firewood (making campfire building a challenge) and whiny anglers who had to work hard for the fish they caught. It was a pleasure for Jim and I – as well as for Sue and Donna – to spend this time in the woods with the folks. Dad found, cut and split stacks of firewood to keep the damp campfire burning during the week, and Mom kept the campers cheery and well feed.
None of us kept track of the total number of fish we caught, but we all acknowledged that Jim easily had twice as many trout as anyone else. Just like he did 30 years ago when he first introduced me to fishing.
Nice story and pics. You make me sound pretty good….appreciate the compliments but I think the tally between us was pretty close.