The weekend before last, my good buddy and I got out on our annual backpacking trip to one of my favorite places. Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future my buddy will be MIA on this trip as he's moving out to Maine at the end of the Summer. So we made the best of the time we had together.
We hauled ass out to the trailhead on Thursday night, and just threw our bags on the ground and crashed around midnight. This set us up to get on the trail early--so we could beat the heat and give us more time to fish. From the car it's about a 3k elevation drop in about 3 miles. So it's a short and very steep hike. Not bad going down, but definitely a slog coming up. This river has a few different trailheads to drop you down at different stretches of the river. Unfortunately I'm not good at change and keep coming back to the same trailhead. That doesn't mean it didn't come without a lot of discussion. I really wanted to get to the upper trailhead to see if the bulls were up there. I was hesitant to commit to that trailhead because it looked like a lot skinnier, faster pocket water (and very brushy to boot) than below and I worried the trout fishing wouldn't be as good as it was down below (my buddy wasn't targeting bulls at all). Someday I'll get up there (If you know this river based off the photos and are interested in discussing, PM me, I don't know anyone personally that's been up there!) So to split the difference, we took the same trailhead but tried to hike a mile or two upstream vs the mile or two downstream that we typically fish. Unfortunately with the fire, the trail completely disappeared (or we lost it--still not sure) and we bushwhacked for about 2 hours before we gave up and just went back to our usual spot (it's a pretty perfect campsite).
Getting our first glimpse over the river down below.
Two hours later than we expected, we got to work.
This is the view from out site.
So like I said, I pack two rods in: a 7' 9" 5 piece 5wt fiberglass rod for the trout and a 9' 8wt for the bulls. This river has a very healthy population of bulls and that was what I was after. Every deep pool usually has a few, and the water is so clear that you can see them. For most of the day, I was getting chases, swipes and eats but couldn't keep one on. I even had one jump clean out of the water chasing my fly as I was lifting it to recast. I felt real stupid for not seeing it behind my fly
. Eventually I gave up for the day and switched back to the small guys. We called it a day, finally set up camp and ate dinner. I needed to give the bulls in the camp water one more shot as the sun was setting. I switched flies a few times but as soon as I tied on a slim brown bugger (a last minute tie), I had a fish on. This was what I came for. It was a respectable (for this stream) 20" bull. I finally got my good bull in this river (no picture, it was real low light at that point), I was now able to relax and enjoy the next two days of fishing.
The next morning I woke up relatively early--6am, while my buddy slept in. I ate my breakfast and figured I'd strip through the camp water while the sun was still off it. Again, cycled through a few flies and as soon as I tied on a slim, schlappen-y bugger I had a fish on. This was by far one of the coolest eats I've ever had. I casted above a ledge, stripped it back over the ledge and as soon as it hit open water, a 21" bull rocketed up from the depths, slammed it, turned and rocketed back to the depths (I saw it swimming the only water column). I was cackling so loud, I'm surprised my buddy didn't wake up.
He's still asleep in thee tent to the right
We hauled ass out to the trailhead on Thursday night, and just threw our bags on the ground and crashed around midnight. This set us up to get on the trail early--so we could beat the heat and give us more time to fish. From the car it's about a 3k elevation drop in about 3 miles. So it's a short and very steep hike. Not bad going down, but definitely a slog coming up. This river has a few different trailheads to drop you down at different stretches of the river. Unfortunately I'm not good at change and keep coming back to the same trailhead. That doesn't mean it didn't come without a lot of discussion. I really wanted to get to the upper trailhead to see if the bulls were up there. I was hesitant to commit to that trailhead because it looked like a lot skinnier, faster pocket water (and very brushy to boot) than below and I worried the trout fishing wouldn't be as good as it was down below (my buddy wasn't targeting bulls at all). Someday I'll get up there (If you know this river based off the photos and are interested in discussing, PM me, I don't know anyone personally that's been up there!) So to split the difference, we took the same trailhead but tried to hike a mile or two upstream vs the mile or two downstream that we typically fish. Unfortunately with the fire, the trail completely disappeared (or we lost it--still not sure) and we bushwhacked for about 2 hours before we gave up and just went back to our usual spot (it's a pretty perfect campsite).
Getting our first glimpse over the river down below.
Two hours later than we expected, we got to work.
This is the view from out site.
So like I said, I pack two rods in: a 7' 9" 5 piece 5wt fiberglass rod for the trout and a 9' 8wt for the bulls. This river has a very healthy population of bulls and that was what I was after. Every deep pool usually has a few, and the water is so clear that you can see them. For most of the day, I was getting chases, swipes and eats but couldn't keep one on. I even had one jump clean out of the water chasing my fly as I was lifting it to recast. I felt real stupid for not seeing it behind my fly
. Eventually I gave up for the day and switched back to the small guys. We called it a day, finally set up camp and ate dinner. I needed to give the bulls in the camp water one more shot as the sun was setting. I switched flies a few times but as soon as I tied on a slim brown bugger (a last minute tie), I had a fish on. This was what I came for. It was a respectable (for this stream) 20" bull. I finally got my good bull in this river (no picture, it was real low light at that point), I was now able to relax and enjoy the next two days of fishing.The next morning I woke up relatively early--6am, while my buddy slept in. I ate my breakfast and figured I'd strip through the camp water while the sun was still off it. Again, cycled through a few flies and as soon as I tied on a slim, schlappen-y bugger I had a fish on. This was by far one of the coolest eats I've ever had. I casted above a ledge, stripped it back over the ledge and as soon as it hit open water, a 21" bull rocketed up from the depths, slammed it, turned and rocketed back to the depths (I saw it swimming the only water column). I was cackling so loud, I'm surprised my buddy didn't wake up.
He's still asleep in thee tent to the right
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