Birthday Bash, August 5 to 7, 2021

Every year, Tom and I try to make time for at least a day fishing together around our birthday's, August 1 (Tom) and August 2 (me). Tom had the whole week off work due to a Covid-cancelled foreign trip, and it was the week of my Friday off, so a day trip to one of our standard creeks turned into a three-day, two night adventure in wilderness mountains to the east (Rob had previous plans and couldn't join us).

August 5, 2021

Our first day found us in familiar water, very low for this time of year due to the drought, but still quite cool given the heat of this summer. 

We found fish, including a couple of decent size. I slept through what was likely the largest fish of the day. After drifting the fly in soft water near a drop off adjacent to a nice bank, I was looking down to reposition my feet on the face of a steep gravel bar where I was standing before tossing against the bank. While I was looking down, Tom watched as a large fish slowly rose and took my fly completely under. He first thought what good control I had not jerking the fly away too soon in eager anticipation. Two or three seconds after the fish took the fly with no action on my part, he realized I wasn't watching and shouted something about a fish, to which I promptly lifted to set and looked up to see the broadside and pink stripe of a large rainbow, which I felt briefly before the fly came back to me. Oh well, I'm nearly that slow sometimes even when I'm watching...  

Tom with the last (and biggest) fish of the day

Hoppers found fish in fair enough numbers to make a good, though not great day. Surprisingly, there were no hoppers anywhere to be seen and the grass along the stream was fully leaved and uneaten, which could explain the less-than-stellar performance of the hopper. Black buggers also found fish, but the largest fish we saw (20+ inches) were feeding at the surface in slow water on something really small. Frustrating to see such big fish actively feeding with nothing to tie on that they are interested in. By early afternoon it was time move on to where we would camp and fish for the next two days exploring new water while chasing westslope cutthroat (and as it would turn out for Tom, whitefish, but more on that below).

Tom's new method of making sure his fish are bigger than mine - cut off the nose in the photo

August 6, 2021

After leaving yesterday's stream, we drove for a few hours to a campground near the end of a forest service road deep in the mountains beneath the continental divide (with a stop to pick up cinnamon rolls, pepperoni, bagels, and yogurt, our sustenance for the next two days). We arrived after dark, ate the first roll from our cinnamon roll six-packs (mine with cream cheese frosting, Tom's with plain) and slept on pads in Tom's truck, the sound of the nearby river filling us with anticipation for the morning. After a breakfast of the second cinnamon roll and yogurt, we headed upstream, stopping at pullouts near likely looking water, fishing along ten miles of stream over the course of the day. We found beautiful water and plenty of beautiful cutthroats to keep us happy. And we pretty much had the whole river to ourselves.

Tom in a nice run

A good-sized westslope cutt

The trout were never keyed in on a particular fly and never were found in crazy numbers, but we consistently found them throughout the day, sometimes on big dries (chubby chernobyls), small dries (Rick found the parachute adams knocked little 8 to 10 inch cutts dead in one large back eddy), a couple on renegades, but most reliably on a jig-head October caddis or soft-hackle hare's ear. It took a little work, the wading was hard (big slick rocks), but we were regularly rewarded. 

Rick and nice cutt

Beautiful fish

The real action of the day, however, was with the two-bit hooker (the name of a small, red fly, not company back at camp...). After I had fished my nymphs through a likely looking deep section of a run without any interest, Tom stepped in with the two-bit hooker trailing a caddis and immediately hooked a nice...whitefish. And another. And another. Something like a dozen casts in a row, with the indictor going down in the same spot in the run each time. And he actually looked like he was having fun catching non-trout (I won't tell anyone...)

Tom had the big fish of the day, a beautifully colored, fat 16-inch cutthroat that rose to a chubby cast against the far bank. We each had a couple bigger fish, up to the 18 to 20-inch range, rise to the fly but ultimately reject it at the last second.

The fish of the trip

We fished from just after first light to sunset, stopping briefly for pepperoni sandwiches on bagels for lunch. Back at camp, we ate...pepperoni sandwiches on bagels and the third of our cinnamon rolls for dinner, before climbing in bed at 21:30 and surprising promptly falling asleep with the enticing sound of the stream in the background.

August 7, 2021

Up at first light, cinnamon rolls (fourth and fifth) and yogurt for breakfast, then a drive upriver (this is the kind of groundhog day I like!). Today we decided to head to the end of the road and hiked a trail upriver for a couple of miles to see what we could find further from the road. It was a good choice. We fished just under a mile of stream in complete solitude and found fish a lot more regularly, some on the surface, but the ticket was the October caddis nymph or a small soft hackle hare's ear. More fish and generally larger size (12 to 15 inches) than yesterday, but we didn't see any of the really big one's like the previous day.

Typical cutthroat from the second day

Early afternoon arrived and it was time to leave so we could arrive home at a somewhat decent hour. We began the now nearly four-mile hike back to the car as we usually do - wishing we had remembered to bring water (right before leaving the truck at the trailhead, we had filled my hydration pack with water, then promptly forgot to put it on before heading up the trail). The morning clouds had given way to full sun, but luckily, it was only 80°F, not 100°F, and there was an occasional breeze and some shaded sections of trail, so we made it back to the truck without heatstroke. We guzzled water and ate the last of our cinnamon rolls. (Christmas gift idea for our spouses - get us a filtering straw that we can keep in our fishing pack/vest so we can drink straight from the river when we inevitably again find ourselves far from the car without water). 

We bade farewell to this beautiful stream and mountain valley that gave us two days of thinking of nothing but which fly we should tie on and where we should lay it out to drift in search of another fish. I think we will meet again...