My absolute favorite fly fishing contains at least one of the following elements: native cutthroat, a nice hatch (especially mayflies), surface-feeding fish, dry flies, moving water, and finesse casting.

Today, all six of these elements coalesced into an couple of hours of fishing.

A little bonus was the fact that I got to fish with one of the genuinely nice guys in the world. And we rode our motorcycles to the river. And the weather was perfect.

Every now and again, we all deserve one of these days, especially when it follows on the heels of just the opposite.

I anticipated Friday evening with a little bit of giddiness since I was heading to my favorite little stretch of homewater. I typically reserve that place for a time when it feels right to fish there. However, my wife’s family has a yearly camp that lasts for four days. This year my wife’s immediate family (parents and five sisters and their families) were in charge, and they chose my creek. There’s a different theme every year, and they decided to have this year’s camp centered on movies.

I try to avoid the whole thing like the plague. My wife used to be disappointed when I bowed out, but she’s getting to the point of talking about skipping it as well. They needed someone to play King Kong, and I thought I would offer my services. Kind of. In a sneaky, not really offering kind of way. You see, Dan and I had planned on fishing in Idaho on Friday, not too far away from his in-laws’ family reunion he would attend. I told my in-laws that if something happened and I wasn’t fishing that day, I’d love to help them out (knowing full well I was going fishing). Heh-heh-heh! Well, something happened and Dan pushed the fishing back a day to Saturday. And I had to eat my words.

Of course, I would go up a couple of hours early get in some good fishing, do my part, then head home. No problem, I could do that. The first part of the plan worked out pretty well—I got there early. It went down hill from there.

You can’t get 100 people (50 of them kids) camped on a pretty creek without all the little buggers relatives destroying utilizing the riparian zone on a hot day. My brother-in-law Danny (I know, I know, too many Dans to keep track of) and I walked a ways up river to get away from the mayhem wreaked on the water. I hooked into a nice 12″ Bonneville cutthroat, but lost him going over a small waterfall. After that the fish were quiet. Too quiet. Dan’s friend (and a cousin-in-law) Justin happened by around that time and mentioned that he saw a couple of guys with a shocker working a small feeder tributary earlier. I figured they were probably in the mainstem too, but I pressed on.

The hike was enjoyable, and it was nice to see the restoration work that had gone into closing down a road that paralleled the creek for a couple of miles. The riparian cover created from the work looked great, but the fish just weren’t showing themselves. I moved on leaving Danny behind. Which, in retrospect, was too bad, since he would have appreciated what happened shortly after we parted.

I rapidly moved upstream a half mile or so, looking for any trace of fish. While navigating the far bank, I stepped out of the creek to bypass a couple of rocks and sunk my right foot about 16″ into some mud that was part of a sloughing bank. It sucked me down pretty solidly, so I looked for a firm place to put my left foot to get the leverage I’d need to pull my right one free. I was about two feet above the water, which was only six inches deep and covering what looked like gravel—the perfect spot. I put my left foot toward the gravel, shifting my mass in that downward angle, preparing to meet something solid. It wasn’t. It was gravel, but it was covering a layer of the same mud my right foot was in.

I was already experiencing Newton’s First Law of Motion, and it was too late to change the vector. My right foot pulled free with a slurp as my left foot continued to sink. There was enough viscosity that I seemed to be in slow motion, aware of every riffle and seam in the water my face was moving toward. My right foot, free of the muck, seemed to provide enough momentum to speed up the process at the last second.

This creek is about eight feet wide and ten inches deep at the point of impact. I wasn’t worried about drowning. But I was worried about (and for those who have taken a dip a time or two, they know this thought) my fly rod. I flung it away from me, and forward. Into the fastest part of the water. Even though the creek isn’t big, it was still in spring spate, so it was moving at a pretty good clip.

There I was, face down in ten inches of water, muddy boots flung up and over my back in another successful replication of Newton’s First Law as my rod slipped away from me. I had no choice but to to crawl after the rod. Which I did and succeeded in capturing after a couple of feet, just on the brink of dropping over a lip of rocks. Actually, I grabbed the float line coming out of the reel. And pulled. Releasing a couple of feet of line as the rod in fact slipped over the edge. I flung myself one last time and gripped the butt of the reel seat at the last second.

While still in that preposterous position, my first thought was, Did anybody see me? I quickly glanced to see if Danny had made it up, or if some hikers were walking along the path. I was in the clear, so I extracted myself and laughed. That must have been a sight—a one-man Three Stooges routine.

I made my way to a large rock bathed in direct sunlight. I stripped off my shirt and spread it out to dry, then settled my butt into a nice groove in the rock and faced the sun. I shifted my hat over my eyes and relived the humiliation, but laughed again. I really didn’t need to worry about Danny seeing that, as I had seen him take a tumble in the water several times over the 20 years we’ve known each other. In fact, it probably would have done him good to see someone else take it in the shorts for a change.

As the sun inched closer to the ridge, I decided to head back for my movie star debut, where I would get a second helping of humiliation.

My King Kong gig was for the “Universal Studios Tour” put on at dusk, in which the clan would wander around the camp area to view some prearranged movie sets and movie stars. I was to be in a “cage” (cardboard) where the tourists could only see my hairy hands and hear me grunting and rattling the cage. As they progressed on the tour I would make my “escape” only to jump out at the tourists when they came back past the wrecked cage at the end of the tour.

Arriving back at camp from my little water escapade with wet shorts and underwear, I needed to change. Luckily I brought an extra pair of pants, which I planned on changing into anyhow since after the sun drops the temps quickly follow. But I wasn’t planning on getting wet, so I didn’t bring any underwear. No big deal, I’d wear pants sans Hanes.

The King Kong costume was hot and made of some itchy material. In my role I needed to jump around and scare the kids in a gorilla-like fashion. Which I did with gusto. I failed to take a belt with me, and the gorilla-like activity worked the pants down to an uncomfortable position with regards to the nether regions and the chaffing material of the costume. At which point I was reduced to a half-gorilla stoop holding up pants no one else could see lest I give the little kiddies something even more frightening to behold. I returned to my house about midnight, a skunked and humbled man.

At 7:00 the next morning I met with Ken at his house. We fished together last year on Cinnamon Creek, and I remembered what a great time he seemed to have and how eager he was to learn, so I was excited to get on the river with him again. Reports of the river we were going to (herein dubbed “Chalkstream”) had been favorable, so I was doubly excited to go. Top it off with the fact that Ken has a motorcycle and he wanted to ride his bike to the river, and I was bursting at the seams because I was ready for a ride (with the cruddy weather we’d had, there hadn’t been much riding).

It’s approximately 100 miles from my house to Chalkstream. The ride was incredible, with temps in the low 50′s and a rolling countryside bursting with green. The sun, slanting low in the early morning hours, gave it that golden glow photographers love. We planned on meeting Dan and Coach at the river at 8:30, but we didn’t make it until 9:10, enjoying every minute of the ride. Since by the time we got there Dan and Coach had already taken off for some fishing, Ken and I headed across country downriver.

I wish I had my camera, but my wife took the point and shoot with her camping and my dSLR would have taken too much space in my saddlebags, already stuffed with fishing gear. The sun, bright blue skies with puffy clouds, green meadows, clear water with river grass snaking through it…it begged for a pastoral composition or three.

As we readied to cross the river, I saw a rise-ring: it was an excellent sign. I cast to it a couple of times, but nothing came to my #16 PMD. We crossed, headed over a hill (only to find out later that Dan and Coach were just then heading upriver along the bank, out of our sight on top of the hill), then to the water. An angler was downstream and around the bend, so I figured we’d head to an area I’d almost always had success at.

As we stepped into the river, I saw the air above the water thick with mayflies. Not the midwest kind of thick that is picked up by radar, but the Idaho kind of thick that is plenty enough for me. I heard the splashy rises of several fish and looked over the water at rise-rings floating past. The apex of fly fishing for me: rising trout and a slurry of bugs.

I eased toward the center of a river that is atypical for this part of the country. Our usual rivers and creeks are rough and tumble with lots of elevation loss, plunge pools, pockets, riffles—water far fro its destination but eager to get there anyhow. This river is what I picture the chalkstreams of the UK and the spring creeks of the upper Midwest, Pennsylvania and New York must be like.

There is very little structure from rocks. The riverbed is mostly gravel, with some silt thrown in. The gravel gets channeled, and weed beds get thick and ropey. A few riffles and ripples form here and there, most of that hydrology caused by the gravel channels and weeds, but it has hot springs in several places too, adding bubbles and current. But the majority of the surface is smooth.

Except on days when the river is pocked with rises from hungry fish gorging themselves on a thick mayfly hatch.

There were splashy rises from smaller fish, head-dorsal-tail rises from medium fish and pucker rises from the big ones. This wasn’t a Henry’s Fork phenomenon, with hundreds of fish marring the surface, but there were a good twenty or so I could see a hundred feet in either direction of us. It had been a long time since I experienced a good hatch. It got to the point that Dan and I made a special trip to Silver Creek last year just to catch the Green Drake hatch, but ended up missing them by about 20 hours.

My PMD flicked back and forth over the surface and fluttered upriver. It drifted down toward a steady sipper, then carried past him. The next cast did the same. The third cast sent the float line over the fish’s head, and he disappeared. I targeted another riser. And then noticed that Ken wasn’t around. (I tend to get a little focused while fishing, and hadn’t really picked up on the fact that he wasn’t near me in the water.) I looked back toward the shore and there he was, fiddling with his rod.

“I broke the cap off the reel seat last year when I fell in. I thought I glued it back together, but I can’t keep the reel on,” he said.

I offered to trade him rods or switch off my rod so he could get in on the action. “Nah, you fish, I’ll be okay,” he said. (I should have been a little more aggressive at switching rods, but I’ve learned you don’t press too hard with a guy who’s 6′-3″ and 250 lbs.) He worked his way into the water and tried to hold on to the reel and rod with his right hand and cast. It was a bit clumsy, especially for someone who was new to such wide open casting (last year’s excursion was in tight quarters with no room to get full casts in). I suggested he hold the reel in the left hand and work the rod with the right. And again suggested to exchange with him. But he insisted he was okay.

By then I had made it into position to work a seam against the far bank that had 5 or six risers. I decided to switch to a smaller #20 BWO parachute pattern. Knowing the fish on the river tend to duck and run when the fly line spooks them, I decided to fish from as close as parallel to the fish as I thought I could get. I put the fly above the riser a good six feet and let it drift back to him several times, but as before, it put the fish down. I moved tot he next fish and repeated the procedure, but with a slightly bigger, #18, sparser BWO pattern.

One of the things I like about fishing to risers is that they’re usually looking for a specific fly. And it’s my job to find the right pattern. That process of elimination and mental work is one of the aspects I enjoy in fly fishing (until, of course, the point comes where I’ve tried every pattern in my possession with no success—but there is even a certain kind of pleasure in that type of frustration).

The new pattern seemed to do the trick, as I shortly hooked into two fish. Both of them seemed to be solid takes and the fish felt heavy. I saw them and they both looked like they would easily be over 16″, but they both were off within several seconds.

It tells a lot about a person when things aren’t going well but they persevere without complaint or cussing. Ken was dealing with his awkward setup when I saw him reach into the water well past his shoulder. Up came the reel. Later he said, “It’s OK I tightened the tension down so I could easily retrieve the reel when it fell again.”

He was ready to head back to Dan’s truck and see if there was duct tape or something he could use to fix the problem. Then it came to me: tippet. We could take some tippet and tie the reel to the rod. Which we did. It worked for a wile, then had to be retied, but it kept Ken on the river a bit longer.

We had moved upriver to an area that has some lava rock on the bed and a few poking out of the water. This place gives a bit of holding water and I think I’ve always caught a fish from there. Sure enough, there were more risers working this section. We had been fishing for about an hour and the hatch had died down considerably. I had been working my eyes and brain in trying to figure out which stage the fish were taking the flies in, since emergers, duns, spinners and spent flies littered the water. As I watched the rises more closely, I could never see a full-wing profile mayfly in the rise. I tied on a #16 BWO emerger pattern (blue-gray forward tilting CDC post, green dubbed body and trailing Antron shuck) and immediately hooked and landed a fish. I had another hook-up with a bigger fish, but couldn’t bring him in.

Watching the big fish work the hatch was great fun. And casting to them was exciting too. Knowing that some of the fish were native Yellowstone cutthroat was unbelievable. Most of the cutthroat I end up fishing for are in the 12″ range, with the biggest pushing 18″. When I fish the Greys River for fine-spotted cutts, the average jumps up a few inches. But Coach had caught a 24″ cuttie just a couple of days before, and I had hooked into and seen a fair number of fish that big working the water.

Casting to rising, native cutthroat of that size just doesn’t happen too often around here, and I was having a great time. But I was ready to land one too. I had spotted a decent-sized fish working the edge of a weed bed on the far side of the river. I had thrown my previous fly his direction several times. The first time he rose to it, drifted down with it a couple of feet, then swam back to his feeding lie. The same thing happened with the next cast. The following five or so casts were then ignored.

With the emerger pattern tied on, I figured it was time to try for him again. My first cast drifted past him, six inches too far to his right. I gathered the line for another cast and put the fly four feet ahead of him in what looked to be a perfect cast. Apparently the fish thought so too as he took the fly, then took off. Fishing weed beds means fighting a hooked fish in the weeds, so it’s a double battle. I had on 6x tippet since the water was so still. I was concerned about keeping the fish on without horsing him too much against the light line.

I soon brought him toward me and Ken scooped him up in his net. I’m trying to get to the point where I don’t feel the need to capture the fish I catch on film (exploitive, and all that). And he was big. I’m also trying to get over the size thing, so I won’t report his size. Okay, that was a lie, he was a good 20″. I can do this. He was the biggest Yellowstone cutthroat I have ever caught. I have given up the “hero shot” some time ago, and my need for reporting its size, but I still like the occasional picture for purely aesthetic reasons. And this one was gorgeous. Some of the fish in Chalkstream are rainbow and a few cuttbow, but this was all cutthroat. Dark, greenish back. Golden, buttery, pinkish belly. Slash of orange-pink on his throat.

It really doesn’t get much better than that. Except catching another one nearly as big a short time later from nearly the same spot. But that one was a rainbow. It was still a nice fish, but not the beloved cutthroat.

It’s amazing how one’s fortunes can shift so rapidly within a 15 hour time span. I plan on fishing Chalkstream again on Wednesday. Or am I better off leaving it alone with the memory of this one perfect day?

Yellowstone NP is making another concerted effort to stem the tide of non-native fish within the park, called “The Native Fish Conservation Plan.” There are several sources to find out more. The Island Park News has a quick overview of what the park is doing. The park has a home page to find out more. They are currently taking public comments, and you can go to this page to add your voice. You can see the detailed letter sent from Walter Wiese, Head Guide at Parks’ Fly Shop in Gardiner, MT to get some ideas (if you need them).

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).

the end of the leaves signifies the end of fishing

Periodically (every few years or so), I find my passion for fishing wanes temporarily, and I actually worry about whether or not I’m all that interested in fishing anymore. It’s kind of weird, but why should I worry about it—if I no longer am interested, so what? But that usually only lasts a couple of months, then I’m ready to hit the water again. I’m not really in one of those phases right now, but with the onset of winter, my preoccupation with school, etc., I did have to take a couple of minutes and reflect on whether or not I was going through a little phase.

It’s been a few weeks, but the last of the fall fishing was a great few hours on the Cub River. Dan and I got into a fair number of cutthroat. The river was quiet. With most of the leaves having dropped it opened the river up, making it feel more expansive than summer fishing. Hardly any canopy and a nice sunshine kept the river well-lit with that sparkle a low-slanting sun provides.

Bonneville Cutthroat Trout

I find myself taking fewer and fewer pictures of fish when I go out. I usually try to take a shot of one fish (just to prove I caught one?). If it is an exceptionally colorful fish, I’ll snap a shot, but otherwise, I’m just not that interested in taking the time to photograph the fish. I find myself taking more shots of the river and surroundings (although I didn’t this last time). I wonder if this says something about me as an angler? I really don’t need to prove anything to anyone else, so why even take one? I’m sure if I caught a “big” fish I’d want a memory of it. Or something unusual about a fish or the catching of one that I’d like to remember I’ll take a shot. Although I have also thought about taking a photo of every fish I catch, but I’m not sure why I’d do that.

So, for those of you who take pictures of the fish you catch, why do you take pictures? And for those of you who don’t, why not?

Bonneville Cutthroat Trout

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.)

This is a native fish trip where we plan to catch some nice native species. Gary M from Gig Harbor, WA (Native Trout Fly Fishing blog)  is meeting up with us and has been a valuable resource in planning—thanks Gary!

Here is the map and planned itinerary:

Monday 6/29

• DRIVE: Logan to Mountain Home
  • FISH: Idaho – Bennett and Dive Creek – redbands (Columbia strain)
  • FISH: Idaho – South Fork of the Boise- redbands (Columbia strain)
• DRIVE: Mountain Home to Burns to Frenchglen to Hot Springs Campground on Rock Creek

Tuesday 6/30

• DRIVE: Rock Creek
  • FISH: Oregon – Rock Creek – redbands (Catlow/Great Basin strain)
• DRIVE: Guano Creek
  • FISH: Oregon – Guano Creek – Alvords/Lahontans (not sure strain)

Wednesday 7/1

• DRIVE: Donner und Blitzen
  • FISH: Oregon – Donner und Blitzen – redbands (Malheur-Harney strain)
• DRIVE: Willow Creek/Little Blitzen
  • FISH: Oregon – Willow Creek – Lahontans (Whitehorse strain)
• DRIVE: As close to (or east of) Winnemucca as we can get

Thursday 7/2

• DRIVE: Charleston/Jarbidge
  • FISH: Nevada – Bruneau/Jarbidge – bull trout
• DRIVE: Marys River
  • FISH: Nevada – Marys River – Lahontan (Humboldt starin?)

Friday 7/3

• DRIVE: Bettridge Creek
  • FISH: Utah – Bettridge Creek – Pyramid Lake Lahontans
• Drive: Toward home (through Raft River?)
  • FISH?: Utah – Raft River drainage – Yellowstone cutts
• Drive: Home!

A potential break in the cloudiness presents itself and on pretenses of picking up sod to turf my yard, Dan and I make for Williams Creek. We visited the creek about three weeks ago on a little reconnaissance mission. There is a supposed population of browns and rainbows higher up the creek and potentially a few cutthroat—we’re looking for the cutts.

We found a good place to launch our fishing trek last time, so we planned on going to the same spot this time. Last time the water was still high and fast. In a normal water year the first several weeks of June would have significantly dropped it. But this is a record-breaking wet year with lots of rain. Almost daily rain for three weeks.

The access road to Williams Creek is an interesting little road that begins as a public road, but turns to a private road. For two miles the road is on private property but there is public access on the road—no leaving the road (the sign boldly declares). At the end of the two miles the road returns to national forest land.

Our first real intimation that the water might still be too high happens on our way up the road. Three weeks ago the road was smooth, in fact we commented on it then about what a nice road it was. But now the road is rutted. My 1986 Ford F-150 is a bit of a rust bucket. The tailgate has some rust issues which prevent the tailgate from latching shut. Since I usually have a shell on it it’s not a big deal because the shell keeps the tailgate closed. However, since we are loading the sod in the back of my truck, we’ve removed the shell. Bouncing, jouncing roads created by three weeks of rain cause problems. At the top of the rise Dan looks back and notices the tailgate is open and his work boots (for the sod) and his wading boots are missing.

I back down the road where we spot the first hiking boot (which I promptly run over).  The second isn’t far away. But the wading boots are nowhere in sight. Not trusting my backing skills, I immediately turn around. We discuss the fact that I don’t remember seeing Dan leave his house with two pair of boots, just one. The closer we get to the asphalt the surer I am that there are no wading boots to be found unless we return to Dan’s house. Dan agrees and we turn around again and resume the upward march.

The truck is in four-wheel drive. The road continues to ratchet up the chiropractor bill . We sally forth.

The road winds toward the Williams Creek Canyon until we are a couple of hundred feet higher than the creek. The trees on each side of the truck move closer and closer together. From our trip last time we know that when we get to our stopping place that the road turns into an ATV track, not a real road for full-sized pickups.

It hasn’t rained for almost 24 hours but there are standing puddles of water. We slosh through the first without a problem. The second puddle appears in front of us at a point where the road pinches together and the left side of the road slips precariously off to the river, a hundred feet below. I slowly enter the puddle and the front drops away, like hitting an air pocket in a plane. I’m afraid my front balding tires will not have enough traction to get out the other side 15 feet away so I gun it a little. The rear end drops and the bumper immediately jars. I gun it  a little more and we pass through the mud hole.

We are on a little hump of ground that gives a fairly decent view of the creek below on the driver’s side. I hop out but Dan is penned in by the shrubbery on his side. From here the water looks identical to last week: high. We make a decision to skip the creek and turn around for somewhere else. But to turn around we must drive forward another half mile or so.

I come to another puddle, this one much shorter than the last, only about seven feet long. The front tires slip into the puddle and the entire front end jerks to the left, toward the drop off to the creek below. This road is mostly clay and wet clay is slick. I yank the steering wheel to the right but that doesn’t seem to do any good. Luckily the puddle is short enough that our forward momentum has already carried the front onto the dry road beyond, the bald tires somehow gripping enough to yank us back on track.

Cardiac arrest isn’t my idea of fun, and that was just a little too close for comfort. And when we turn around in a few minutes, we have to do it again.

Our turn around is successful and I inch toward the puddle, at least knowing what to expect. But it doesn’t help. We’re again thrust toward the edge and at the last second escape to the other side. I’m so worried about that puddle that I’ve forgotten about the “drop off” puddle and do a repeat of the back-jarring events.

Safely past these obstacles we think of Plan B. There is a paved road that runs parallel to the lower creek where it empties into the Bear River. The creek is all fenced for about a mile until the road ends at a gate to a field. We decide to check with some landowners and try to get permission to enter. The gentleman we talk to is very nice. And minutes later Dan is opening gates as I drive through.

We get just into the trees at about the mouth of the canyon and decide to try that spot. There aren’t any recent vehicle tracks. In fact, the road had a fair amount of small branches and debris that leads us to believe this area hasn’t been accessed this year (always a good sign for the angler). Dan improvises and squeezes into his work boots since his were left at home. I’ve left mine home before too and once I had to use my sandals (luckily they were strap sandals so they stayed on my feet).

We walk downriver and hear the water gushing. When we visited higher up a few weeks ago it didn’t sound like there was this much water. We bushwhack looking for a place to enter the water (this is a good sign—any place there are trails beaten to the river=fishermen). There is a slight clearing and rise a little further ahead and the sound of the creek increases exponentially.

The slight rise is a narrow dolomite ridge. The creek to the left is placid, but to the right it plunges away. The dolomite ridge is a natural footpath over the creek with the water cutting a cascading waterfall of 40 feet or so, creating the dramatic sound. (You can see in the picture below the whitewater working itself away from us toward the top of the picture.) Since Dan left something home I had to follow suit—I forgot my camera. Luckily, for maybe the second time ever, Dan brought his!

We work ourselves over the bridge and into the creek above the falls. I put on a size 6, ugly, tan, foam bodied, red rubber legged fly (one of my former students gave it to me and I really don’t know if it has a name).  On my third cast a fish smacks it hard. A pale 9″ rainbow. I decline the photo op figuring that with such quick success we were bound to get into plenty more—a creek section rarely (if ever) fished was sure to have gullible residents.

A couple of more small fish scatter as we work our way upstream around the first small bend to the right. The next bend to the left brings another cascading waterfall into view. This one only about ten feet tall. We’ve been at it for about 15 minutes since the first fish, but not another shows itself.

I peak up the falls which has too much vegetation and slick rocks to try and scramble up. Dan works his way back downstream a little looking for an exit point. He finally beats his way through the bushes and I follow. We skirt around the falls then look for an entry point. We each take separate paths but enter the creek again.

A couple more small fish scatter as we work the creek another five minutes. We round a bend to the left and run into this little beauty. We’ve fished for maybe 20 minutes and have covered about 50 yards of creek and have encountered three waterfalls. I can count on one hand the waterfalls I know of that are this close to our home location of Cache Valley, and it (that’s right, one) is a wimp compared to anything we’ve seen so far.

I take a few shots of the waterfall and in a little grotto to the left is an aluminum handled fishing net. Uh-oh, not good.

We skirt around this waterfall a little easier on the far side of the creek. There are more nice stretches that look fishable and a couple of small, skittery fish, but nothing rises to our flies. We come to a little section of plunge pools and our second sign of humans. There is a lot of debris left from a fish testing site: mesh, piping, tanks, tarps, etc. It looks like it has been here for several years. This wasn’t some rinky-dink operation, but pretty large scale. (I wish we had a picture.)

Why they abandoned everything is hard to understand. Did they figure that since nobody uses the area it’s no big deal to just dump it? Was it a project that lost it’s funding or had a change in personnel and the new people didn’t know about it? Whatever the reason, it’s disconcerting.

We don’t feel like working through the plunge pools and decide to head back to the road and see if we can walk upriver a bit to some more accessible fishing. The vegetation is still thick as we ascend a fairly steep section of road for a couple hundred yards. Then the canopy clears and we are standing in a man-made clearing. A man-made embankment in front of us traps water and diverts it through a large corrugated pipe to a contraption that looks like it might be a large debris filter.

This whole thing looks like it was done within the last year. Off to the side of the road we came up was a newly plowed road. Actually, more like a pathway for the piping coming from this setup we see. We figure it’s some sort of culinary water filtration system. (If this looks familiar to anybody, let me know what you think.)

Dan fishes the impoundment and I wander toward the edge of the clearing. We’re about 100′ above the section of creek we just fished and I hear some thunderous sounds. The vegetation is still fairly thick, but peeking about I can see at least four waterfalls plunging from this area. Unfortunately, there isn’t any clear visual shot of them for a photo opportunity.

We have some sod to pick up (we pick up the scraps for a hugely discounted rate—it costs me about $60 to sod almost my entire front yard), so we decide to call it quits for now. We pack up and roll out, wondering why there were so few fish and so small for the large pools we saw. We figure that with so many waterfalls the fish are trapped in short stretches. They really can’t go anywhere unless they get flushed downriver.

There is no way for fish to access these stretches from below. We hope that above these last falls things calm down a bit and the creek becomes more fish friendly. However, by being cut off from any foreign influences from below, the upper creek would be a perfect spot for some cutthroat restoration work!

I know why Frank Lloyd Wright built his Fallingwater. And if I owned this land it would be extremely hard not to put a house on it. Luckily for us, someone else hasn’t done that either. Such a beautiful out-of-the-way place definitely fits into the category of one of those fishing days where it doesn’t matter that we didn’t catch many fish because the surroundings were so incredible.