Thistle Creek7/31/2012

I'd planned to fish Diamond Fork Creek today, but thunderstorms had muddied the water to 6" of visibility.  After fishing about an hour on upper river where clarity was about 12" I'd caught one nice cutt and had three others to the fly.  I decided to head to more productive waters.

I had thought about trying lower Thistle Creek and there is a turnout with private land access permission so I hopped in the river there.  I had on a grasshopper and managed to land nine brown trout and one small cutt or rainbow--not sure which, but it had parr marks--so it was worth the visit.  Hot as blazes.

Largest brown was about 15" and was a solid fish.  This one is bigger than he looks in the photo--his tail and head are sagging away from the lens--he is camera shy but was fun to catch on a small Dave's Hopper pattern--I think size 6 or 8.  Another fun and productive outing.

Nebo Creek 7/30/2012

Fished Nebo Creek today.  Lightning, thunder, and rain so I sat and read back issues of USA Today for an hour or so until it stopped and the sky lightened.  First half hour, behind somebody else as I later found out, caught one brown.  Went upstream a mile and caught nineteen browns.  All on a Renegade.  Fished 4:15-6:00pm.

Eagle Lakes with Scouts

Spent three days at Eagle Lakes with the scouts.  Cutthroats wanted the beaded prince nymph so I obliged.  Wild weather day two--thunderstorms almost all day, hail storms twice, the last time the size of salmon eggs--many wet cold boys, but I went fishing after it finally settled down around 5pm and found a few more fish. I spend a good part of that day in my tent trying to stay warm and dry.  A memorable scout hike!

Nunya

Tom called me about 10:30 pm Friday night and asked what I was doing the next day.  Since Elizabeth and the kids were out of town, it seemed like fishing would be a good idea.  So on a short night's sleep (about 3 hours) we performed our standard Nunya routine, meeting at the Ritzville McDonalds at the opening, #7 meal with OJ, then carpool to our destination.  No cars in the parking area seemed to foretell a banner day, but the fates had other plans. 

Water level was good, weather was good, clarity a little turbid but good.  Fishing, well, my first cast of the flopper hopper just above the bridge had a take from a decent fish about 15 feet in front of me (I missed him).  That was a good sign, but not indicative of the day, as neither of us had a rise or a take until about halfway to the first big bend.  I had another small one, about 12" that I farmed, then a while later this huge brown slurped my hopper. 

Nothing after that until I landed a 16" rainbow from the fast water below the first big bend.  So in 4 hours, I had done OK, and Tom hadn't found anything except the largest rattlesnake we have seen at Nunya. 

When Tom is laying the hoppers in the grassy bank like only he can do and hasn't had a single rise or take, you know that something is off.  So we called it a day and headed back to the truck.  Since no other cars had shown up, we tried again in the first few holes above the bridge, and I sent Tom to see if he could find the one I had missed that morning.  As usual, if there is a fish to be found, he will find it.  You can see him biting his lip in concentration as he tried to make sure he didn't lose it in the grass, and he removed the skunk, landing a nice rainbow.  I had another looker, but nothing else.  So kind of a slow day for catching, but lots of practice drifting flies tight to the grassy banks.

Uh, one more thing, Tom, I know my hat is kind of dorky, but Sarah just saw the photos and said what I had thought earlier - it kind of looks like you are wearing a diaper! (or at least underwear over waders).  She also said "Nice fish, too bad it isn't as big as my dad's." (you notice I cropped mine so the fish would look bigger!).

Brian loves Nachos. Or was that Naches?

Brian and I floated 12 miles of the Naches River with Troy of Red's Fly Shop today.  River had dropped over the last two days and water clarity was great.  Brian was on a tear!  With a little coaching from Troy he was dead on for hooking up with big cutthroats, mostly on stonefly nymphs under a dry stone.  Pictured above is not his largest of the day, but is representative of what he did while schooling his father.

Rob managed to find cutts, rainbows, a large whitey, and the Naches River steelhead in the photo.  Troy said that all the steelhead in the Naches are around 22" and unlike the rainbows, do not have any spots below the lateral line.  That was certainly the case with this guy who took a stone under a hopper in a hopper/dropper setup.  Brian had lots of cutts, a few rainbows, and a whitey also.  Lots of variety today.

Temps were near 100 degrees so we were wet wading.  Brian decided it was pretty sweet fishing while sitting down most of the day.  Lots easier than tramping around the sagebrush all day with Dad or Uncle Tom.  We saw two shore anglers along the highway.  Other than that, we had the entire 12 miles to ourselves!  Nice day for a float and as usual, Red's guide service was superb.