So, what’s a guy to do when he’s getting a bit stir crazy and the fishing’s lousy? Head to the desert! A little place called Valley of Fire State Park (VOF). It’s in Nevada, about 60 miles northeast of Lost Wages. It was 30° F and snowing at home the morning we left. Eight hours of driving later, we were in VOF, basking in the 80° F heat. It had been nearly seven months since we’d felt temps like that. It didn’t even bother me that I was hours from the nearest native trout stream.

We spent four glorious days working on some serious sunburns. Hiked some pretty trails. Took 500+ pictures. Not a care in the world.

I though I’d share some pics with you (a bunch) in case you want to enjoy some vicarious warmth.

Enjoy!.

In my last post I posed a little challenge to determine the two places I stopped. I said it was a trick question, and Harry was pretty quick on the draw when he said “bike trip” and “foolishly didn’t take a fly rod with you.” The fly gear was left home on purpose. Foolish? Hmmmm…jury is still out. Where were the two stops? Red Lodge and home and for the same reason: saddle sore!

In looking at a map of our motorcycling trip, it would probably be hard for a diehard fly angler to comprehend how one could choose to leave the fly gear behind with so many tempting choices in the path. Not to sound boastful (if that’s the right word), but most of these places I’ve been to multiple times and are a 4 hour drive or less away—it doesn’t elicit a great pull on me to fish them. But it does leave me in awe of the amazing opportunities I have to fly fish within a relatively close distance of home. I’m truly fortunate.

So a friend, Paul, invited me to come along with him and a few other guys for an annual trip they started doing a few years ago to Red Lodge, Montana. I jumped at the chance. These aren’t anglers, strictly biking. In fact, Paul is a bit of a speed junky (snowmobiles, jet skies, motorcycles, etc.). My wife and I went with him and a few other couples for a five hour bike ride a few weeks ago. He liked my riding style (fast), and that’s why he invited me for the Red Lodge trip.

We took a circuitous route to Red Lodge, not the fastest route. In fact, my father-in-law asked how long it took us to get there and how far it was. When I told him it was about 460 miles, and it took us 12 hours. He said that we must have been going awfully slow since that would average out to about 40 miles per hour. For those of you who might be motorcycle riders, you’ll understand that frequent butt breaks are important. And, one of the guys needed to stop every 100 miles to refuel. Plus, there is The Park.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Yellowstone as much as the next person, but it can be a real trial for those of us with traffic patience issues. Many of us who visit it, or the surrounding area with any amount of regularity find it both funny, and irritating, that people will stop in the middle of the road to take pictures of deer, elk, moose or bison. Or flowers. Really. (If you haven’t been to the park before, just picture a narrow, two lane road with virtually no shoulders.)

So, there we are, putt-putting along at 7 1/2 MPH. Then some stop and go stuff. And what should we find? Some guy stopped (which automatically means that that lane is now blocked) taking pictures of flowers. Again, I love flowers, but, aw, come on people!

And then the construction. We happened to pull up to some stop-n-go traffic just in time to hit the tail end of a pilot car line. When we got to the traffic stopped going the other direction, Paul decided to count how many cars were waiting in line. 278, with a couple dozen more rolling up right behind them. Boy, I’m glad we got there when we did!

Just outside the very northeast corner of the park (probably the least visited area, but it does have Slough Creek and Soda Butte Creek) is Cooke City. That’s where the grizzly attacked the three campers, killing the one. It’s a fun little town, but more importantly, it’s the gateway to Beartooth Pass.

If you aren’t familiar with Beartooth Pass, you’re missing out on one of the most spectacular drives in the lower 48. The summit is nearly 11,000 feet (10, 947), making it one of the highest roads in the US. It is amazing to look down at snow in August. A large section of the road is brand new, making it an incredible ride for the motorcycle enthusiast (just make sure you aren’t stuck behind cars so you can really enjoy those corners).

This page has some great pictures and video of the road (none of it taken by me).

I tried taking some video (you’ll see it below), but ran into a couple of problems. For those of you who have ridden cruisers (that’s what the Harley-type bikes are called, as opposed to bullet bikes, etc.), you’ll know that these machines are a bit on the rough side—not very smooth. Your head can do a lot of bouncing around. At least, mine does. And just about everything else bounces around too. I took my Kodak Zi8 camcorder and taped it to the inside of my windshield in hopes of capturing our trip. Well, you can see some of the results in the little bit of video I put together. It’s a bouncy bugger! Also, I couldn’t see the screen, so I never knew if I got the thing turned on or off. At one point in time I didn’t get the thing turned off, and I ran out of battery before making it anywhere close to Beartooth.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On the other end of Beartooth is Red Lodge. This is the first time I have ever been there, and I can say that I’ll definitely be back. It’s a nice little town with some incredible background scenery. We decided to avoid traveling through the park again, so the next morning we left for Bozeman, crossing Yellowstone River (which I have never fished outside of the park) then rode south along the Gallatin River (another one I’ve never fished).

I must say, that for being a bike ride, I was looking at a lot of water as we rode past rivers. I did see a number of rises and quite a few anglers and wished I were on the river too. Maybe I’ll sneak a rod along with me next year.

Day 2 of the brook trout fishing escapade – see Day 1 report: Sin, Salvation and Stacks (and Something Fishy).

I typically don’t sleep so well when I’m not sleeping in my own bed, but at the end of Day 1, in  a motel in Roanoke, VA, I slept very well. And I was thankful I wasn’t camping. Camping in the east…I didn’t notice a lot of travel trailers and RVs as we traveled Appalachia. Here in the west it seems like every other vehicle is a pickup truck, every fourth vehicle is an SUV and 30% of either vehicle is pulling a camp trailer. And then there are the behemoth motorhomes careening down the freeway.

I came to the conclusion that it’s just too uncomfortable for many people to camp in humidity like there is in the east. Sure, lots of people camp, but maybe just not in the numbers they do around here, where not only the air is drier, but half the land is federal and camping is as easy as driving a dozen miles and pulling off nearly anywhere in the national forest. My personal experience tells me it’s probably the humidity though: a few years ago my family spent 28 days straight camping east of the Mississippi. No motels. No air-conditioning. It was miserable.

Tuesday morning came and we rousted ourselves from bed to get moving on. This was the day I was most worried about in the planning stages. We were looking for the northern Appalachian brook trout that day and we wanted to fish the Rapidan River to do it. The Rapidan has great historicity when it comes to fly fishing and it’s supposed to have  a good population of brook trout.

However, when I started doing some research about fishing the Rapidan for brookies, most of what I read mentioned that accessibility might be an issue—3 to 4 miles of vigorous hiking just to get to the stretches with the fish, then the actual fishing mileage, followed by a 3 mile hike back to the vehicle, uphill. I emailed a couple of folks and got pretty much the same response. Apparently the most popular method is to take Skyline Drive along the ridge of the Shenandoahs, park above Hoover Camp, then hike down below Hoover Camp and fish back up.

We wanted to avoid a lot of hiking (see Day 1 for more on that) and had plans to meet Justin in Charlottesville at 4:00 for some evening smallmouth fishing. We wouldn’t arrive at the Rapidan until about 11:00. 8 miles of hiking and fishing was out of the question.

I looked at Google Maps and really checked out the Hoover Camp area closely. I saw a road from Skyline Dr., past the camp, then continuing downriver. It hooked into some public roads just west of Criglersville. I figured the road to and past the camp were probably forest service access roads, and not accessible to the public. But since it connected down below to public roads, I thought it was worth looking at more carefully. I did some searches and found that coming from Criglersville we could follow a road up to a fire gate about a mile below Camp Hoover. Four wheel drive suggested. Sounded like the perfect spot.

We arrived in Charlotesville about 10:00 and looked for a fly shop, Albemarle Angler, Justin told me about. We talked to Tom(?) at the shop and he was extremely helpful. We wanted a couple of warm water flies for the evening and he hooked us up. We also wanted info about my access road idea. So I asked if he knew a good way to get to the Rapidan to fish for brookies. He outlined the very route we mapped out! Things weren’t looking so gray after all.

Except in the sky. As we pulled out of Cosby Creek Campground the day before, we were pounded with some of the hardest rain we westerners had ever experienced. We pulled to the side of the freeway because we couldn’t see the road. The skies had dogged us the remainder of the evening. As we pulled away from the fly shop, looking to the northwest, toward the Shenandoah Mountains, we could see clouds hovering.

We passed through the quaint towns of Madison and Banco. Traveling through such countryside, it was hard not to think of how Virginia is steeped in history, a history we memorialize so often because of tragedy. After driving through Tennessee and southern Virginia the day before, it was nice to have more open fields around the roads instead of just tree upon tree upon tree. It gave a nice pastoral setting to our morning. But the dark clouds looming ever nearer put a bit of a damper on how much we could enjoy it.

We only missed one turn, and backtracked a couple of miles before getting the right road. It seems that someone, after spending a couple of hours making really nice, detailed maps for the whole trip, left the maps on his desk as he was packing everything else. At least he didn’t forget any fishing gear this time. The road crossed the Rapidan and turned into a dirt road.

We rented a 4×4 for just this route. As we quickly moved along the road we realized that a high-clearance vehicle would have been just as good. Heck, my brother-in-law Danny would have been able to easily made that road in his Toyota Corolla (he’s taken that many miles over some incredibly rocky/dirty/chuckholey terrain). But, it was nice to know we had the extra capabilities if needed.

We moved from public road into the Shenandoah National Park as the clouds started to spit and spatter at us. After a couple of miles we left the Park and were on National Forest land for a few more miles. We saw one vehicle parked along that section, presumably an angler. The rain came down in earnest as we approached the fire gate at the beginning of Shenandoah Park property again. There was enough room for a couple of vehicles to park, but we were the only ones.

I was willing to wait out the rain for 10 or 20 minutes, but Dan said , “Let’s go!” Our plan was to wet wade, but it was cool enough and wet enough that we donned the waders, slipped into light rain jackets and went.

We were told at the fly shop that the water was down, and “hopefully you’ll be able to find the fish.” At the point where we entered the water, the Rapidan is a pretty little creek. We could see that a good volume of water could possibly move through the bed, but right then, it looked perfect for us, with mostly pocket water and a few plunge pools here and there—we could have easily been at home on a local creek.

The river was about 70 feet from where we parked, and before I even got to the water, Dan had a fish on. A rainbow. Dang! In addition to the rain, things got just a bit bleaker at that moment. But it was short-lived.

The rain began to ease and Dan was in to another fish. A brookie! In fact, from that point onward we caught nothing but brook trout. A good dozen or so brought to hand with an equal number off the hook or missed. And the weather cleared nicely, warming up quite a bit. We fished a good three quarters of a mile upstream. By the time we made it back to the vehicle, we were soaked with sweat, but we were happy with the fishing results—it was a lot easier done than some said it would be.

We rolled back to Charlottesville about 3:00. We were to meet with Justin at 4:00. I met Justin online through Goodreads’ Fly Fish Literati group. We then started up Rise Forms: Fly Fishing’s Literary Voice, our new angling magazine (first issue due this fall). Since we had a bit of time, and we were hungry, we stopped at Five Guys Burgers. Neither of us had been to one (although they do have a couple here in Utah), and since Virginia was basically their home territory, we decided to give it a try (also highly recommended by Dan’s brother, Chris). It was a huge burger. It was good eating.

We dropped by our motel, checked in, and unloaded a few things to make a little mre room for Justin, since we were driving him to our smallmouth appointment. We then zipped downtown to meet up with Justin. The old part of town is just on the outskirts of the University of Virginia (started by Thomas Jefferson), and seems to have a great atmosphere—someplace I’d really like to spend some time getting to know. But we didn’t have time right then. We pulled on to Water Street, headed toward 2nd Street, and it was pretty easy to spot Justin: the guy with a fly rod case standing on the street corner of a downtown always sticks out. We made introductions, then headed toward the Rivanna River.

I’ve never been smallmouth fishing before, and I was probably looking forward to that fishing as much as the brook trout fishing. The Rivanna River is a large river (relatively speaking—large for someone who lives in the desert) flowing through Charlottesville. As the river came into view, it seemed to be just what I imagined a warm-water fishery would look like.

We stopped at a parking area along the river where Justin has had success before. Not another angler in sight. In fact, Justin said that he rarely has seen people fishing there. We geared up and I realized I’d left my reel at the motel in a bag I took into the room. Three anglers, two rods. Dan, being the ever-gracious fishing companion, agreed to baseball it with me (three strikes and you’re out, next guy uses the rod and fishes).

Dan was up first. He fished the bottom of a nice chute with some decent flows through it and some still water depths on either side. Justin worked the slack water above the chute. There was no surface action, but we had on some poppers, trying to get the fish to rise. Justin was the first one with a fish on. A bluegill.

My first experience with bluegill was about 12 years earlier at a campground in Iowa. Or Oklahoma. Or…someplace…I don’t know. It was on the earlier-mentioned trip to the east coast. We stayed at a campground that had a little pond in it. My seven year old son and my two nieces (eight and eleven) went down to the pond. They came back a short time later, very excited. They said there were fish in the pond rising to anything, like pieces of grass thrown in. Or spit. They asked if they could have some bread. They took it back and fed the fish. Then they got the idea to tie some string on a stick, and put a doughball on the end of the string. They began lifting bluegill several feet out of the water before the fish would let go and plop back. It was a riot to watch.

Justin released his bluegill while I worked the slightly faster water on the far shore above the chute. But nothing reacted to my popper. So we moved upstream several hundred yards where there was a long ledge of rocks from one side of the river to the other. I had a strike, but missed it, so it was Dan’s turn with the rod again. Dan and Justin both worked the ledge pretty hard, but came up blank.

We again moved upstream a couple of hundred yards. There was a deep pool, and the water pinched in a little, with a little island toward the far bank. I began working the water above the island and in relatively short time I reeled in a 11″ smallmouth bass—mission accomplished!

Dan fished for a while, but didn’t seem to have his heart in it and turned the rod back over to me a short time later. I worked all around the island pretty hard, then started moving below the island 20 feet or so. I had another strike. This time it was a bluegill. For some reason they remind me of the triggerfish I caught in the ocean behind my house when I lived on Guam. Triggerfish are much more colorful, but I think it’s the blue around the mouth that triggers the memory for me.

I offered the rod back to Dan, but he declined. I continued fishing the area below the island and had a couple more hits. I finally connected with a little silvery creek chub.

It was time to call it good for the day as far as fishing went, and to head over to Justin’s house for some dessert. Well, it turned out to be dinner and dessert.

Justin has a great family with three active children under the age of six (Justin, correct me if I’m wrong on the age thing). While Nicole, Justin’s wife, put the finishing touches on dinner, the kids kept us occupied. In the previous 60 hours we had traveled 2200 miles and had less than 10 hours of sleep. Our trip had started to take on the surreal quality you get after being on an extended trip (we hadn’t been gone long, but lack of sleep and the previous day’s trip through Gatlinburg was adding to the weirdness). It was nice to sit back and relax with Justin’s family, to bring a little normalcy to our trip. That might seem odd, but Dan and I are both family men, and we’re used to having kids around.

So we had a great food and stimulating conversation. It was an excellent end to an excellent day.

Saturday we rode to southern Idaho for a look at the wild and scenic Bruneau River. We only fished about 45 minutes there and didn’t raise a thing. The water was a bit high and off-color. But it sure was beautiful at the overlook in the gorge section!

Here is a Google Earth view of the area. The overlook is the blue box on the right. The Matterhorn in the distance. Notice the discolored circular area to the lower right? Bombing range for the air force base at Mountain Home, Idaho.

[The following video requires MS Silverlight.]

Play Video

The gallery below contains more pictures from the trip (including a “cartoon” version of many of the pics—apparently someone was a bit bored).

We repeated the trip the past two days, going to Bonneville Creek for about an hour and 45 mins. and then to the Greys.

OK, the trip in July was with our friend, Mike, from Boise, Idaho. We stopped at Bonneville Creek and I took the bottom mile of river and Mike and Dan took the upper. I forgot my camera (inconceivable!) so I have no pictures to document the most unbelievable 3 hours of fishing I have ever had in my life. The fish were taking every cast. I missed/lost a good 20 fish, but I landed, and I kid you not, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 fish! The average size would be about 10″ and the largest was about 14″. It was to the point by the last half hour that I was just walking through the river heading back to the truck tossing my fly without really trying to catch fish, but I was catching them anyhow. Mike apparently hooked into a good number of them too (we have pictures of him and his fish).

From their we hit the Portneuf only to find it very muddy. So we left.

We got to the Greys about 8:00pm and it was a bit higher than we would like (about 1000 cfs), but it looked fishable, so we set up the trailer. While Dan was setting up the trailer, I sneaked to one of my favorite holes and quickly picked up two 16″ finespotted cutthroats. We spent all of the next catching some beauties. Nothing too big, with the biggest picked up by Dan at about 19″.

This past Wednesday, August 12, Dan and I repeated the trip.

The fishing at Bonneville was good (about 15 each in 1.5 hours). And then it was off to the Greys. We had some pretty good fishing nad picked up more larger fish, each of us bringing to hand a fair number of fish over 16″, but the biggest only 18″. I didn’t catch anything under 12″, with most of them in the 14″-16″ range.

Enjoy the pictures! (Dan has some more pictures of our most recent trip I will add when he gets them to me.)

To find other items in this riveting series, check here:

Fishing for Desert Natives – Preface
Fishing for Desert Natives – Day 1
Fishing for Desert Natives – Day 2

[The following 3 paragraphs should be read with your best Tennessee Tuxedo narrator voice (quick refresher on YouTube).]

When last we looked, our erstwhile heroes were escaping the marauding mosquitoes of Guano Creek…

The plan was to make it to the dumpy town, er, scratch that, quaint village of Frenchglen to get some gas before they closed. They wheeled in about 4:45, 15 minutes before closing time, thereby interrupting the young lass working the till in the general store/gas station from her web surfing, and she was really putout about it too (we’re confident she was reading another fascinating account of swashbuckling adventure on cutthroatstalker.com, which would certainly explain her hesitation to abandon the computer to help three smelly amigos covered with DEET, fish slime and that overall testosteroney scent of victory—if only she knew she were in fact waiting on the very swashbucklers themselves…)

Anyhow, after gassing up they headed to the campground on the Donner und Blitzen River. Which was only a 15 minute drive from the gas pumps (in other words, they could have not worried about hurrying to Frenchglen, taken more time at Guano and…, well, you know, do other stuff).

So begins a series of events that culminates some 30 hours later in the “Ascent of the Nauseous at 8500′.” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

[End narrator’s voice here.]

The campground at the Blitzen River is fantastic—nice shady spots, grassy areas, clean pit toilets, tables, water: the full monty. And mosquitoes. Lots of them. Worse than at Guano Creek, if that can be imagined. And it wasn’t yet dusk, AKA “Time of the Mosquitoes.”

We had several hours of daylight left in which we could sit around camp swatting and slapping, waiting for nightfall so we could go to sleep, or head to the river and do a little fishing.

I’ve typically found that on most waters in the western US, if there are mosquito problems on shore, they can usually be avoided in the river, especially if it’s a fairly decent sized water. The Blitzen isn’t huge, but I’d guess a good 40′ wide there at camp. It seemed that it would be a sure bet as far as getting away from the mosquitoes. No such chance!

It wouldn’t have been so bad if we were getting into some fish, especially some fish with a little size to them. We hooked up with a couple of little guys, and I did have a 14″ or so fish roll on my fly and I hooked him momentarily, but that was it. We probably fished pretty hard until 8:45, by which time the mosquitoes were just insane.

We cooked up some down and dirty Mac & Cheese pasta with a cheddar sauce and some pan fried kielbasas. Washed down with a couple of Capri Sun juices (all three of us being teetotalers, there weren’t any nice microbrews or wines chilling somewhere for us—but if I were to become a drinking man, a couple of shots of tequila in that juice might have been a good inoculation against the tatting skeeters).

The quasi-bed was assembled and climbed into. Except Gary. He brought a large aluminum pole tent with him, but opted to sleep under the stars on a cot—crazy brave man!

I don’t know if I was thankful or upset about the non-seal-tight bungee job over the tailgate. Thankful because the self-respiring kielbasas were making an afterglow appearance and the tarp was well-aerated; or upset because the mosquitoes were finding every nook and cranny available to gain access for the incessant assault on the tired.

After some major tossing and turning and trying to breathe completely covered in my mummy bag, I must have drifted off to sleep, because sometime shortly after midnight I awoke with a start. My stomach wasn’t feeling too hot—kielbasa’s revenge? I also had a little panic attack.

Last year, when camping in a very small trailer, on a bottom bunk with the top bunk mere centimeters from my nose (Ok, it was probably a good 50 cm from my nose), in a very dark location, I awoke in the middle of the night with a major case of claustrophobia. Which is odd, because I had never experienced anything remotely like it in my life. But I felt like I was suffocating. Since then I have had a couple of minor psychosomatic recurrences.

This night was one of those times, but it was quite small and I think it was more nausea than claustrophobia. I tried turning my head to the end of the truck to get a little more fresh air, but that wasn’t doing it. I would have to get out and visit the john. So I awoke Dan and did “the worm” out the truck and ambled dashed off to the loo.

Somewhat relieved, I moseyed back to the truck, and being the thoughtful guy I am, not wanting to bother Dan again, self-serving wuss I am, figured there would be fewer mosquitoes in there, I hopped in the cab. There I spent the next several hours trying to fall asleep. In the last couple of years, my right hip and knee have started to bother me when I use them a lot or have to sit in a cramped position. In the previous two days we had done a lot of walking and sitting in the truck. Needless to say, my leg was not feeling so good.

Around 5:00 I could take it no longer and needed to get a little sleep. I went ahead and bothered Dan and crawled back in my sleeping bag. Where I dodged and slapped dive-bombing mosquitoes for an hour or so between fitful bouts of almost sleep. I finally pulled the sleeping bag off and decided to get up. But not before looking at the ceiling of the shell. I wish I had the camera. Take your mind back to Day 2’s picture of Dan’s mosquito shirt. Now picture that on the inside of the shell. Dan also showed off his elbow which must have been left out of the sleeping bag because it had at least a dozen puncture wounds in a 2″ x 2″ area.

Gary apparently slept as well as we did.

We hurried and made some breakfast and packed and got out of there.

Day 3’s original plan was to visit Coyote Basin, specifically Willow Creek, the best publicly accessible place to fish for the Willow/Whitehorse Lahontan cutthroat trout. These are some of the least studied cutthroat around. It is believed they originally came from the same stock as the Quinn River Lahontans of the Lahontan Basin during the Pleistocene epoch.

At some point in time some of these cutthroat were introduced into Guano Creek, but later plantings of other strains of Lahontans into Guano have probably bred out any purity of the Willow/Whitehorse strain.

Other trout have not been stocked in the Coyote Basin, thereby leaving the Willow/Whitehorse strain genetically pure, making it a very small and unique population. However, they have not been scientifically named or “officially” recognized as a separate subspecies.

We thought this would be a great opportunity to fish for these rare cutthroat.

The plan was to leave Gary who would be picked up shortly by his father and sister (see Gary’s blog for the events that actually unfolded for him). Dan and I would proceed to Willow Creek and Gary would try and meet up with us there.

The trip through the desert was not too long. We continually wondered what type of person would willingly live in such a place. But live there they do. Not many, but every so often there would be a house or a long-vacated homestead precariously situated in the drought-prone vastness of southeastern Oregon.

I tried catching a few winks of sleep here and there, but the hip was bothering me. And, I had noticed During Day 2, an uncomfortable chafing of the nether regions had cropped up. And the nausea lingered in the background. So I spent my time in the cab squirming about looking for a comfortable position.

After a slight miscue and overshooting of the turnoff we needed (thanks to Gary for telling us that if we made it to the Whitehorse Ranch, we went too far—we did), we found the road and made our way south for several miles until we found the thread of green winding through the sage.

After following the creek for a few miles we came to some bluffs and decided to get out and try our luck. As usual, Dan was on the water while I was still putzing around. Of course, within minutes, he hollered out that he caught one. I made my way to the water and hobbled (knee, hip and crotch combo) around for an hour or so without any luck. Dan didn’t have any luck either. In fact, we didn’t even see fish, let alone cast to any.

I was too tired, sore, and overall feeling crappy to be excited about carrying on any farther. So I headed back to the truck to get some rest. When I was a little ways away from Dan, he hollered out that he saw a fish. But even that didn’t get me interested in turning back to the creek.

This area had a fair amount of volcanic activity at one time, and obsidian chunks and chips were scattered about. I was keeping my eyes on the ground looking for nice specimens, or possibly even worked pieces. As I neared the truck, I caught a glimpse of something about four feet ahead of me. It moved. And rattled.

It was a nice, thick rattlesnake. About four feet long, but fairly girthy. My next actions, which I can only blame on a tired, fevered mind, are rather odd. I picked up a rock and tossed it at the critter as it slithered away. And then I tossed another one, chasing it away from the truck. Now, if my camera was with me (Dan took the camera when we separated ways), I would have probably been thinking more clearly. But by the time it came to me, and I went to the truck and retrieved another camera, and returned to the last known location of the snake, it was gone.

So I slept a little. And took a couple of notes about the trip up to that point. And did a little reading. And had a sandwich. And waited for Dan.

When Dan returned he had pictures of three more fish he caught, some which were nice specimens. But at that point I really couldn’t muster up too much disappointment about my not catching any of those rare Lahontans myself. Now, on further reflection, it would be nice to someday make it back there and catch one. (I know Dan, I said at the time that any Lahontan is like any other Lahontan, and I’d already caught a Lahontan; but you’re right, those are some special fish.)

We headed east out of Coyote Basin. Our original plans for day 3 involved fishing The Blitzen in the morning, Willow Creek in the afternoon, then making it as close to Winnemucca as we could and find a place to pitch camp for the night. But, since we didn’t fish The Blitzen, we were quite a bit ahead of schedule. So we plucked up the gumption to make a long drive and get to the Jarbidge area to camp that night: 360 miles, the first 30 and last 75 on unimproved dirt roads. We figured it would be a minimum eight hour drive. It was around noon, so we needed to hurry.

We zipped south down Hwy 95, entered Nevada then stopped to make some sandwiches. Then we continued south until we got to Winnemucca. From there it was east along I-80 until we got to the little hamlet of Deeth (a couple of houses). We’d picked up a roadmap of Nevada earlier (I had also printed out Google maps of each area we were fishing in). The Nevada roadmap showed us the turnoff we needed to take to approach Jarbidge from the back (south) way. But the roadmap labeled the exit wrong (it labeled an overpass as a turnoff, complete with the overpass’ mile marker. After a 15 minute delay sorting things out and U-turning in an “official turnaround only” place, we were on the road to Jarbidge.

And it was getting late. And it was getting dark. And my stomach wasn’t feeling well. And the dirt road had some wet spots from rain. And there were clouds on the horizon. And Dan’s 4 wheel drive was not working.

The idea was to camp somewhere in those mountains and hit Jarbidge in the morning to fish. But as we pushed ever onward, it seemed like a better idea would be to try and get a room in Jarbidge for the night. Based on the previous night’s experience, it seemed like a phenomenal idea to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m the one who made. In fact, truth be told, I said to Dan that if we made it to Jarbidge, I’d pay the entire bill for staying the night.

The road was not too bad the first 20 miles or so, just dips and a few curves. But as we continued on, it became a little slower going because of the condition of the dirt (not too bad for the most part) and more curves. Did I mention somewhere that I get motion sickness? Well, the Jarbidge road from the south is a pretty good motion-sickness-inducer.

It was turning a bit dark, and the road was beginning to climb. We could see the looming mountains all around that we knew we needed to get through to make it to Jarbidge. The tallest peak in the area, the Matterhorn (that should give you some clue as to the terrain we were driving toward), peaks out around 10,700′. My Google terrain map showed we would be driving well over the 7000′ marker for a fair distance.

It was a dark and stormy night (gee, that seems so familiar somehow). My head felt like it would spin off at any moment. My stomach was lurching with each dip and turn. By then I was ready to abandon the idea of making it to Jarbidge (anyhow, what town would have a motel room available to somebody rolling in after 10:00PM, I reasoned with myself). I told Dan that it didn’t matter to me, that I would gut it out and sleep anywhere he wanted. No, no, he insisted, we can press on.

The road continued to climb. It was a narrow thing, with plenty of twists. As we neared 8000′, the road hugged the side of the mountain with a steep dropoff of several hundred feet along the driver’s side. For some reason, Dan seemed obsessed with the appearance of some lakes he could see below us. I believed he was paying more attention to the lakes than the road. And I let him know, quite often, that his eyes should stay on the road. Sorry Dan, having a nagging “wife”-fishing buddy is entirely uncalled for, I apologize and blame it on the nausea-induced stupor, motion sickness, altitude sickness, homesickness, Tourettes, crotch rot, etc. Even though it began to rain and you had to drive through small washouts in the steep and dangerous road, all the while staring into the depths of the ravines wondering about some nonexistent lakes, I’m not bitter.

We finally made it to a sign that said “Bear Creek Summit, 8448′. It was in a little saddle of the mountains with no gaping precipices on either side of the road. I again suggested to Dan that we could pull off and sleep there. We sallied forth.

But I needn’t have worried, it took  a mere 6 miles to drop over 2200′ in elevation, and we were in Jarbidge in a mighty heave the blink of an eye. The dark, closed up, after 10:15 town of Jarbidge. But oh, wonder of wonders, a glowing light, beckoning the weary traveler with “Outdoor Inn – slots pool booze grub rooms”: five of the six essentials of the food dude pyramid (being Nevada, I was wondering where the reference to the womanly aspects of life, the sixth essential, were, oh well).

We stopped. I stepped out of the truck, darn near fell over, and promptly got back in to nurse my non-alcohol-induced hangover. Dan went in and secured a room at the Barn Hotel for $35.

And there a heavenly rest was enjoyed by all.

Afterword There you have it, the ramblings of a hypochondriac geezer in the making: bad knees; bad hip; motion sickness; claustrophobia; weak stomach; crotch rashes. Somebody put this wretch out of his misery!

Fishing for Desert Natives – Preface

Fishing for Desert Natives – Day 1

I’m usually an early waker, with or without an alarm. So camping for me is tough, especially when sharing space with someone else.

Dan and I decided to use the bed of the truck as our bed. He has a Ranger, which is a little narrow for two and it’s only six feet long (I’m 6′-1″). So using some built-in slots in the bedliner, we made a little platform to sleep on that got above the wheelwells, making it wide enough for two, with about 30″ of space between the platform and shell ceiling. We also made the platform fold out, making it longer than the bed, so the shell door and the tailgate had to remain open. To keep the platform from flexing Dan put a toolbox between the platform and tailgate.

To get in and out of the bed, Dan put a cooler at the edge of the tailgate. I had to step on the cooler, hoist the top half of my body lying on the platform, legs dangling, then scoot the rest of the way up.

To provide some protection against mosquitoes and potential rain, Dan bungeed a plastic tarp over the rear of the truck. The entry and exit point to the bed was on his half. I slept with my head toward the cab and Dan slept with his head toward the tailgate.

To get out of the truck, I had to inch my way, on my belly, feet first, toward Dan’s head. Move the tarp out of the way, project my legs over the edge of the platform, then reach my toes toward the cooler. I’m sure this beached whale routine looked hilarious to anyone who was unfortunate enough to view this. Of course, there is no way I can do this without disrupting Dan’s sleep.

So, back to the waking-up-early dilemma. Since I didn’t want to wake Dan when I awoke with the sun, I lay in my sleeping bag staring into space for an hour or so. I’m not a lounge around in bed guy—when I wake up, I get up. It’s very disconcerting for me to do nothing. So on that morning I waited until my bladder finally got the best of me, then I woke Dan and did my best inch-worm maneuver out of the truck.

And there stood Gary, fully geared, ready to fish! Here’s a guy after my own heart—if it’s a fishing trip, there’s no farting around with externals: sleep, breakfast, etc.—it’s just fish, fish, fish. Even the night before when we met, we talked fish nonstop the entire time. This guy has a passion about not just fishing, but the fish too.

I relieved the bladder, roused Dan (not that he wasn’t fully awake after my grand exit from bed) and got the rod rigged—we were off to fish Rock Creek for some redband trout.

Rock Creek is small enough that we really don’t have to worry about wading it, so we planned on shore fishing. For some reason, I’m currently hiking bootless (I don’t know how that’s happened, but I haven’t had a pair of hiking boots for about a year). So I pulled on my “hiking” boots for the day—a pair of cowboy boots.

Video of Rock Creek:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We walked downriver about 3/4 of a mile and fished back toward camp. The little redbands were frequent and fierce little fighters. I caught well over a dozen with the average size about 6″ and the largest about 9″. They’re beautifully colored with many of them bearing heavy par marks and vivid red bands.

Gary and Dan catching redbands at Rock Creek (hey guys, wet those hands first!):

Click here to view the embedded video.

They seemed eager to take just about any kind of dry #10-#16 and Gary was picking them up on a nymph dropping from a dry.

We fished for a good hour and a half before making it back to the truck for breakfast. With fishing being the main priority of the trip, food wasn’t—no big breakfasts or fancy foods. Like I said, priorities: fish, fish, fish. So it was cold cereal for Dan and oatmeal for me.

Gary’s dad and sister accompanied Gary but were just camping, not fishing. So when it was time to head to Guano Creek, the three of us piled into Dan’s truck. Gary’s a tall guy (I’m guessing about 6′-4″) and so he couldn’t squeeze into Dan’s micro-extended cab (you know, the type with the mini fold down seat). So being the thoughtful person I am I hopped in back and mentioned (not “whined” or “complained” as my detractors might allege) that my knees were touching Dan’s gear on the other half of the back of the cab. I asked if he could shift some of it. Instead, he told me to get out and drive and he would sit in the back. (Stalker’s tip: It’s better to be thought a whiner than be squished in tight quarters for a five mile drive over bumpy dirt roads. Not that that was what I was doing. I’m just sayin.)

We were headed to Guano Creek looking to catch some Alvord cutthroat trout, the main reason for our trip. Dan and I were both pretty stoked: when do you have the opportunity to catch what might be the remaining handful of fish bearing the look of the extinct Alvord cutthroat? We weren’t fooling ourselves, we understood that genetically they are far from pure. But what little living genetic material remaining of the Alvord cutthroat on the entire planet, it seems to remain in only this one creek.

And yet with the excitement was an even stronger sense of dread, maybe even a little confusion over their peril—how could this happen? What were people thinking by introducing non-native species into the Alvord’s home waters of Trout Creek and Virgin Creek? (I know, I know, they didn’t understand what the consequences of their action would be—the science and understanding just weren’t there.) So why hadn’t more of an effort been made when they were “rediscovered” in Guano Creek in 1986? (There were efforts made, but it was probably too late by then anyhow.) Can anything be done now, or is it beyond human’s capabilities to right the wrong?

I couldn’t help these thoughts from banging around in my head as we bumped down the road while Gary told about his trip in last year. Then there it was, an open meadow and Guano Creek running through it. Where we came upon the creek it was closed in by willows, but further downstream we saw that it thinned out. The valley narrows in on each side from small mesas, coming closest together where Guano Creek runs through it at some rock outcroppings. We made our way toward this section and stopped just a little upriver from the outcroppings at an approximation of where Gary figures is the lowest point he fished last year. Our plan was to walk further downstream and then work our way upstream to about where some corrals are.

Dan was already in the creek fishing while Gary and I were still getting ready. A couple of minutes later Dan hollered that he had a fish. I ran over with the camera. It was our goal to photograph all the fish, especially the ones with the Alvord phenotype, and record the length of each and location where it was caught.

The first fish Dan caught had Lahontan characteristics. Even though it wasn’t an Alvord, it was Dan’s first Lahontan, so it was an exciting catch. It’s not exactly clear which strain of Lahontans swim in Guano Creek—historically there were no fish in Guano, so any fish there were stocked at some point in time. It is known that redbands, Lahontans and Alvords have all been stocked there.

I reminded Dan of the plan to walk downstream then fish back up. As we made our way past the rock outcropping, we really started to notice the mosquitoes. They were hovering and clustering as they mobbed us. Dan got his head net out and I grabbed the 100% DEET which we all slathered on. Skin cancer runs in my family so I usually try to wear long sleeved shirts fishing. My shirt, boots and long pants kept most of them at bay.

I also wear a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off. I have a nice crushable fedora I usually wear fishing, but anticipating hot weather in the desert I picked up a new hat. Dan was with me and since he needed one too we both got the same hat. It’s great for warm weather because it has a mesh band around it, but not so great for mosquitoes because the top is light fabric and rests right against my head. The skeeters got right through. I ended up putting DEET on my hat, face, neck and hands, but they have that habit of hovering—especially in the face. Before we’re finished with the day, I’ll have snorted four mosquitoes up my left nostril (I have no idea why the right was spared) and one mosquito entered my ear. The mosquito fishing slap dance is interesting, but I dance it will catch on soon.

We got to a spot where the road crossed the creek and started fishing there. Gary moved down a bit lower and I was a bit higher up the creek (“up Guano Creek” doesn’t have quite the ring as the more famous creek you don’t want to be up).

A good 15 minutes into the fishing and I saw Gary hustling upstream without his gear. He said that he had a fish on, but he lost his camera! I hurried downcreek so I could get a shot, trying to run over the bumpy ground with my cowboy boots on. Gary was on the far bank looking for his camera in the spot he last remembered using it. Luckily the vegetation wasn’t too thick and he found his camera. He continued back to the fish on his own and relayed the information to the data man (Dan took my little field notebook and a pen to keep the data in).

We mostly caught Lahontans and what looked to be Lahontan/Alvord hybrids before Gary caught the first fish with distinct Alvord markings. By the time we made our way back up to the outcroppings I had finally picked up my first Alvord-looking fish. It was really quite something to think of its dwindling gene pool as I gently cradled it in my hand for a quick shot.

The Alvord types seemed to start coming to hand a little more frequently as we got back toward the truck. We were all fishing with an attractor dry and a nymph dropper. The fish tend to take the dropper most frequently, but occasionally we were surprised with a fish on the dry.

By then my feet were getting a little sore in the boots and I could feel a couple of hotspots coming on. I stopped at the truck and changed into some of those inexpensive wading shoes you wear at the beach. I drank as much water as I could then hustled to catch up with Dan and Gary.

We continued to pick up fish, with Gary substantially out-catching us. He had a lot more patience than Dan or me, spending three times as long at a hole casting to fish he couldn’t see. But it was paying off. In fact, if Dan couldn’t land a fish, but saw one, or had one on briefly, he called Gary over to cleanup behind him. Gary would invariably catch the fish.

Our evening plans were to head over to the Donner und Blitzen River (usually referred to as just the Blitzen River). We planned on fishing upstream of the Blitzen and then head over to the Little Blitzen in a small glacial valley and fish it. We weren’t sure how much driving we would do, so we figured we would need to gas up at Frenchglen before heading to the Blitzen. The gas pump closed at 5:00 so we needed to be of Guano Creek by 3:00. While Gary and Dan quickly fished up to the corrals, I picked up the truck and drove to pick them up.

As it happened, I record keeper ended up losing two pencils in the field, so we didn’t record nearly the data we planned on. Since we weren’t recording the data, and since I got tired of snapping photos, I stopped taking pictures (which was silly since I didn’t photograph my best looking Alvord). I’m guessing that by the end we caught 30-40 fish with about 15 of them having the strong Alvord phenotype.

Our trip to the Blitzen River after Guano Creek will actually be covered on the “Day 3” coverage.

Dan and I started planning this trip last winter. We came across Gary M’s trip to find the Alvord cutthroat that Dr. Robert Behnke mentioned in an update in his book, About Trout. Gary located the trout in Guano Creek, Oregon in August 2008 and wrote about it on his blog. Dan and I like to find native trout in out-of-the-way locations and this sounded like something right up our alley. This search became our main objective for our planned five day desert native quest, with everything else incidental to it.

One issue in fishing for native species deals with designating subspecies and people are often divided into two camps: splitters and lumpers. Most lumpers recognize 12 subspecies of cutthroat trout (although there is some debate around some of these subspecies) and splitters further divide those subspecies into different strains, usually based on their geographic location.

The Great Basin holds Lahontan cutthroat trout. Within the Great Basin are many smaller basins, currently cutoff from other smaller basins. The Coyote Basin holds a strain of cutthroat named for the creeks they are found in, the Willow/Whitehorse cutthroat. These cutthroat are genetically closely related to the Humboldt cutthroat found in the Quinn River drainage. Some contend that there isn’t enough evidence to designate them as their own subspecies (such as the US Fish and Wildlife Service) whereas others do (such as Dr. Behnke).

Gary is a splitter and I believe he plans on catching every possible strain of each subspecies of native trout in North America. At only the age of 23, he is surprisingly well on his way. Me, I accept there are various strains, but for now I’m content with catching each subspecies and not as worried about the strains. Later, when looking for new trout to fish, I’ll probably resort to looking for various strains.

So for this trip we planned on focusing on four (five, depending on your designation of the Willow/Whitehorse) species/subspecies: Alvord cutthroat trout, Lahontan cutthroat trout (including the Willow/Whitehorse), redband trout and bull trout (Dolly Varden). We wanted to stick to the upper 1/4 of the Great Basin for this trip.

We wanted to leave early Monday morning and meet with Gary Monday night at a campsite a couple of miles north of Guano Creek so we could fish for the Alvords on Tuesday. That’s 660 miles to travel, or, about 12 hours, considering stops, unforeseen traffic, etc.. We figure a good fish day starts at 5:00 and ends at dark, or about 9:30, giving us around 16 1/2 hours minus the 12 hours of driving. So we could squeeze in 4 1/2 hours of fishing somewhere.

The route we planned on taking would put us about 30 miles from some of our favorite redband trout water, the South Fork Boise River. A couple of miles before the SF turnoff are two creeks that also host redbands: Bennett Creek and Dive Creek. They had been on the radar for a few months and we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to fish for them.

As mentioned in a previous post, there are many reasons to fish for natives. There are a few disappointments as well, one being the cattle catastrophe, wherein the angler successfully finds the target water, and expects pristine conditions, only to find the place denuded by bovine.

As we drove the three miles to Bennett Creek, we had to open and close two gates. This is always a possible good omen that the creek you are looking for is being protected from cattle. Or, a bad omen that the area you are in has a lot of cattle traffic.

We dropped over the final rise and there it was, winding itself among the hills, Bennett Creek. I felt that little rush I often get when successfully finding the sought after creek. But as we pulled a little closer, we saw the scarred ground around the water. The water color had that blue-green look. Everything said, “Cows.”

We’ve raised fish in some scary looking water, so a creek is never ruled out until it’s fished. But after 15 minutes of waving the wand, no fish magically appeared and we put away the rods. We think further upstream might prove a bit more conducive to fish, but we’re on a tight schedule. If the creek held a supposedly important strain of redband, we’d explore it further. But the South Fork Boise, a couple of miles away, holds the same strain.

Bennett Creek Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dan’s truck setup:

Click here to view the embedded video.

A few minutes later and we were on the South Fork. What a difference a dam makes! This tailwater has some great conditions for trout. The flows were at a higher level than I’m used to, but Dan has fished it so  much that he knows where the back channels usually form. (And yet the dam creates an artificial fishery that often didn’t exist before. Luckily the redbands were here previous to the dam, but the dam has altered the conditions. I wonder if the dam were removed, would it be the same fishery—would the size and quantity of the fish be the same?)

Our goal was to leave no later than 2:00 to give us seven hours to make it the final 360 miles to Rock Creek. We used up the first two hours trying a couple of different spots that were unproductive. We finally moved down below Cursed Hole to a side channel, Ice Box. We saw a couple of risers we fished to, but no luck. At the head of Ice Box is the tail of Cursed Hole where Dan pulled a nice redband out.

We fished up through Cursed Hole without any luck. We don’t carry watches, but we knew it must be getting close to, or past, 2:00. We figured this was our last stretch of water. I got to the top of Cursed Hole and was at my exit point. Just above me was a small hole with some rocks and branches forming a chute at the bottom and an overhanging tree bisecting it at the top, leaving about a 4’ x 4’ section of water to fish.

I cast my last cast into the hole. A branch angled up in the center of the chute and my float line was sucked toward it and about to tangle. I lifted the rod tip which simultaneously pulled the fly across the water, and right out of the jaws of a decent sized fish. The first fish anywhere near my fly all day.

Luckily there was no contact between fish and fly. I quickly reloaded the rod and cast a couple of feet above him, but about a foot too wide of his lie. The next cast seemed to be placed within his feeding lane. The fly drifted a couple of feet, but my rod tip was held high, keeping the line from tangling with the projecting branch. Another second and the fish engulfed my fly. I brought a beautiful 15” redband to hand.

This was the angler’s realization of all those self-deceptions and rationalizations when he knows his spouse wanted him home 30 minutes ago but he’s been skunked all day: “I’ll just fish this one last hole—I’ve got to catch something from this one—then I’ll go home.” Which then becomes, “just one more hole…” ad infinitum. But occasionally one experiences the Holy Grail of angledom: TRF²HF (the reward of the first “final” hole fish).

It was 2:30, 30 minutes past our self-imposed deadline. 360 miles to go, the last 50 on a gravel road of unknown quality (on Google maps satellite it appeared to be a nice gravel road, with the possible exception of the last 5 miles) that we didn’t want to travel on in the dark. And we still needed to stop somewhere to pick up groceries for the next four days. It was time to hightail it out of there if we were to make it before nightfall.

With six hours of road time, there wasn’t a lot to do, except tie flies (which we didn’t need), sleep (which was a bit too soon for since we were still running on beginning-of-the-trip adrenaline) or talk about something, like one of those taboo topics that can ruin a friendship, like politics (which we differ on slightly, but often discuss anyhow—although I put my foot down if the radio is blaring Hannity or Limbaugh or such). Or we could talk about another no-no topic: religion (which is actually fairly safe for us since we did originally meet at a church, and therefore have the closely aligned beliefs).

The world at large (and Stalker readership in particular) will be happy to know that we chose to discuss this latter topic and have married scientific, philosophical and theological belief systems into one grand whole. We have closed all loopholes. Solved all dilemmas. Answered all of the big questions. Yes, indeed, in *less* than our allotted time, we did what no others have come even close to, what has perplexed and vexed the greatest minds in history: we found the answer to life, the universe, and everything (Ok, Ok, Douglas Adams did beat us to it, but his answer, “42,” was incorrect). The answer is…Fruit Loops! (“Bucket o’ Chains” is a second line of reasoning that came close, but there were a few discrepancies that couldn’t be resolved.)

Other than the stimulating discussion, the drive took us through some beautiful country. This leg of our trip etched the northern most edge of one of the least inhabited, unroaded places in the lower 48: The Great Basin, also known as Basin and Range. This dry, desolate area just so happened to have experienced one of the wettest three weeks they’ve ever had.

As we rose over each range it gave a view of the next lush basin, most uninhabited. Some with a single farm or field. Some a small creek. All of them green: dusty muted greens of rabbitbrush and sagebrush, light green bitterbrush, darker greens of cinquefoil; dotted with blues of penstemon, blue flax and larkspur.

In Harney County, Oregon (10,226 square miles—population 7,600), the land becomes more basins and mesas and buttes with basalt volcanism being the major cause. We stopped at Buena Vista Overlook that scaled one mesa, giving a panoramic view of the Harney Basin.

Hopping out of the truck to take pictures we were immediately bombarded by swarms of mosquitoes. We were both wearing shorts and sandals and within seconds we were doing the skeeter hop: slapping arms, stomping legs, bending over slapping legs, straightening up to slap neck and arms, then back down to the legs. We took a couple of quick photos then dashed back to the truck. We quickly stripped down and put on pants and a long-sleeved shirt. We put on some socks then slipped our feet back into our sandals (that’s right ladies: socks and sandals—a mainstay of the wader brigade because it’s easy to get in and out of the sandals when you have to get in and out of the waders and believe me, you do not want to catch a whiff of the aroma wafting from a pair of unsocked wader-wearers).

The sun was just slipping over the mountains when we turned onto Rock Creek Road—the dirt road that would take us the remaining 48 miles. The road accesses the 278,000 acre Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, where we were camping for the night and home to Guano Creek, our main destination.

The dirt road teemed with wildlife: cottontail, jackrabbit, sage grouse, owls and quail. But only one antelope. We didn’t take a lot of time to admire or photograph the critters because light was fading fast and we didn’t want to search for Gary in the dark.

We finally (after driving through the first part of the campground, not relizing there was a second part) found Gary at the campground along Rock Creek about 10:00. I talked fishing with him for an hour or so while Dan set up the sleeping arrangement in the bed of the truck. We made plans to fish Rock Creek for redbands early the next morning before hitting Guano Creek, then called it a day.

[go to Day 2]