Yesterday morning I left the house with my rifle, a rod, and my camera. I had no real plan other than wanting to get back to an area that looked like a good spring bear area. Like much of N. Idaho right now, travel off blacktop is limited due to all the down timber from two big winter wind events we had back in December and January. I didn’t get far before I ran into a washed out road. I parked my rig and made a 500foot ascent to look over a big burn. 
By the time I got to where I wanted to be it was getting hot. I found some shade and posted up behind my glass. What a mess! I was only about half interested in what I was doing and my glass kept wandering to a creek at the bottom of the big drainage I was looking over. Eventually, I convinced myself to bail off the ridge I had fought my way up to, grab the rod in my rig, and see if the water I was looking at was as good as I was imaging. This is a small tributary of a tributary. I’m sure there’s a term for that but I don’t know it.
That photograph is only a few hundred feet above the water. By the time I got back to my rig I was HOT! I swapped out my Crispi boots and socks for a pair of Croks. I rigged my rod, rolled up my pants to the knees, grabbed my camera and headed for the creek. I was a few hundred yards below the hole in the picture but there was some sexy water on my way to that spot.
I had visions of big cuts living a solitary life in these hidden blue lines far away from the fabled water downstream. I left the rig with my macro lens on my camera which was great for some snakes and butterflies I ran into along the way but not great for everything else. The fish were very willing but some of them were so small that I didn’t even know they had eaten. The first pick up to recast had me launching a 2” cutthroat into the brush behind me…oops. I made an adjustment and brought no harm to the remaining takers.
A few hours melted away in what felt like a minute. I went back and forth between rod and camera. A few times I left my rod laying halfway in the water and had to search around to find it. It was great fun and killed the heat of the day until I felt like putting the boots and pack back on to hunt the rest of the evening. In the end the only shots taken were of fish, birds, bugs, and snakes but it was one of the best days I’ve had in weeks.
By the time I got to where I wanted to be it was getting hot. I found some shade and posted up behind my glass. What a mess! I was only about half interested in what I was doing and my glass kept wandering to a creek at the bottom of the big drainage I was looking over. Eventually, I convinced myself to bail off the ridge I had fought my way up to, grab the rod in my rig, and see if the water I was looking at was as good as I was imaging. This is a small tributary of a tributary. I’m sure there’s a term for that but I don’t know it.
That photograph is only a few hundred feet above the water. By the time I got back to my rig I was HOT! I swapped out my Crispi boots and socks for a pair of Croks. I rigged my rod, rolled up my pants to the knees, grabbed my camera and headed for the creek. I was a few hundred yards below the hole in the picture but there was some sexy water on my way to that spot.
I had visions of big cuts living a solitary life in these hidden blue lines far away from the fabled water downstream. I left the rig with my macro lens on my camera which was great for some snakes and butterflies I ran into along the way but not great for everything else. The fish were very willing but some of them were so small that I didn’t even know they had eaten. The first pick up to recast had me launching a 2” cutthroat into the brush behind me…oops. I made an adjustment and brought no harm to the remaining takers.
A few hours melted away in what felt like a minute. I went back and forth between rod and camera. A few times I left my rod laying halfway in the water and had to search around to find it. It was great fun and killed the heat of the day until I felt like putting the boots and pack back on to hunt the rest of the evening. In the end the only shots taken were of fish, birds, bugs, and snakes but it was one of the best days I’ve had in weeks.
