To Rexburg - Year 3

Friday, September 12

Time to take Sarah to school again. Planned the route to pass by the Lemhi again. No magic this time. The river was a little higher and a little dirtier than last year, and only found a few small trout and some nice whitefish (I think what I thought were pikeminnows last year were really whitefish). There were a number of people camped at the access, so it may have been hit hard already.

Only small rainbows this time in the Lemhi

So after leaving the Lemhi behind, with the sun approaching the western horizon, I made a last second decision to run up the teeny tributary where I found a bunch of small rainbows a couple years ago, this time fishing farther up where the small creek split into two even smaller creeks (I saw a pic on Google Earth that showed water in the creeks). The fork was much smaller than it looked in Google Earth, but I was surprised by a nice 10" rainbow out of one of the few spots deep enough to hold fish. Found another one up a ways, but holes were few and far between in this very small stream.

Nice rainbow from a tiny tributary

Then to the other fork, promptly caught a nice 10" bow, then 1 or 2 in every hole in this slightly larger stream that meanders through a grassy meadow. Fun to watch them come up and grab the fly. I was glad I made this stop!

A good number of 7" to 9" rainbows out of this beautiful small creek

Saturday, September 13

Slept in the van after moving Sarah in, then with the sunrise and a McDs #8, headed to the Warm River, with some intel to access above the railroad tunnel without a really long walk. Walked in about a mile, above a deep, whitewater canyon and found some nicer water, but only a few small fish. Moved up a little further, and about 10:00 am when the sun hit the water, a bunch of brown mayflies that flew like caddis started coming off, and soon the trout were following. After rotating through a number of flies, I found one that they really liked (irresistible, size 16 or so) right when I got to a nice, long, waist-deep run with fish rising like crazy, sometimes jumping out of the water to grab a fly out of the air. For an hour I watched nice cutbows and a couple browns come up from the depths and hammer my fly. It was fun!



These guys were rising all over, easy to see coming up to the fly in the crystal clear water

 

Even found a couple browns in the mix!

Walking back down, I saw a dozen fish feeding on nymphs in a deeper hole, so I climbed down and was able to fool a couple with a golden stonefly. Nothing on the psycho caddis today (or prince or just about any other nymph - all surface action today. Another successful BYU-I drop-off.