Another Blue Line and a Great Black Fishday

Sunshine, solitude, lots of small, wild bows with the chance for an occasional lunker, another new stream (#128 for Rick - we need Tom to add up and report his total if he isn't too embarrassed how far behind he is - but then again, I have nine extra years on him...). Trash talk aside, it was about as perfect of a Black Fishday as you could get.

The plan was to avoid the Ford and check out a new blue line on the map, where rumor had it some trout could be found. With morning temperatures in the teens predicted in the Columbia Basin, we chose a late 8 am start when the sun was full up to give it a chance to warm up. After the obligatory #8 at McDs, we were on our way. It was a balmy 24°F when we left, then as we approached our destination, a few fog banks appeared, and the temp dropped to 18°F. Memories of Black Friday on the Touchet two years ago, but by the time we arrived at our destination, the sun was shining through the mist, making the 18°F seem a little warmer. 

"Prime" trout water; doesn't look like much, but any water full of trout is prime to us!

Looking down from the bridge, we immediately spotted a few small trout, then more and more. Just upstream a school of thirty or so small rainbows could be seen, and fish were actually rising with the temp at 18°F! It was going to be a good day! I tried my hand at catching one off the bridge, but that would have to wait for Tom at the end of the day. Dropping into the stream, Tom fished below, I fished above. Trying small nymphs first, we each caught a couple small, pretty rainbows, but soon switched to stripping small buggers after Tom caught one about 16" on a black conehead bugger.

First rainbow from Stream 128 for Rick

I found a few more willing fish upstream, but they were easily spooked in the shallow, small water. I turned around and headed down to catch up with Tom, and quickly found the technique to avoid spooking the fish was to swing the bugger straight downstream. Hard to hook them, maybe one hookup for every three or four strikes, but we still caught multiple dozens of fish, Yep, it was a good day. Walking down by some still, deep water I saw a number of large fish, 16" to probably more than 20" in with a school of smaller ones. Stripping the bugger through them, I could only get interest from one little guy. But that would change when coming back up with Tom later....

I finally caught up with Tom, and we worked our way down, side by side, catching fish after fish after fish. In every run there were schools of dozens that would dart every which way as we waded through.

The rare solitary fish in this stream; we saw them in schools of dozens in every run

At one deeper hole, we surprisingly found no love for the buggers. Tom walked right up to the top of the hole, and saw a school of forty or fifty sitting right there below him in plain sight. In a brilliant moment of inspiration that can only be attributed to instinct, since Tom has only fly-fished since he could stand on two feet, he brought out the San Juan worm fly and began to dip fish like the primal bait-chucker (minus the styrofoam cup of worms, of course). And immediately, he had a fish. Then another. And another. After about six in a row, I got out the camera to catch this new and effective fly-fishing technique on camera - stand in plain sight of the fish, drop a worm-like fly in front of them, watch them eat it, then pull them in. 

Mostly small, he did entice one of the larger fish in the school to take his worm, I mean, fly...

Tom and a nice-sized rainbow

We continued fishing until the sun became low over the steep banks of the stream. Several hours of fishing, and we had only covered a little more than 1/2-mile of stream. And we had another access point to check out on this day of exploration.

I love finding trout in unique, out of the way places

On the walk back, we dropped into the stream to see if we could entice one of the big boys I had seen to give us a fight. I tried drifting a bead through the run, while Tom returned to the worm. No love for the bead, but Tom saw one of the big ones spook as we approached and head under the grass right at his feet. He dipped the San Juan Worm into the water, and watched as the monstrous fish approached the fly, opened its mouth, and sucked it in. He set the hook and the beast took off upstream, took his line into some floating tumbleweeds, and came unhooked. How to experience both exquisite joy and pain at the same time!

Back at the truck, Tom caught his obligatory fish off the bridge, and we were on our way to check out access at another point on our way home. As the road turned from paved to gravel to dirt, we were not met by any "No Trespassing" signs, and ended up on a bluff above the now larger stream. The sun was nearly to the horizon, and Tom had taken his waders off earlier, so we debated if we should check it out now, or another time. Well, we were here, and I was still ready to fish, so I found a path down to make a few swings while Tom watched from the bluff above. First hole, a good tug after a few swings, then the next cast, this nice fat rainbow.

A good little rainbow - note Tom on the bluff above

A little further down, a good, solid two pulls on the swing, but no hookup. That was a solid fish, but then nothing more. Tom was gracious enough to let me check out the likely run upstream. Not enough light to see how deep the water was, but it looked nice. Casting across and swinging/stripping the black bead-head bunny, I had a good hit, but again, no hookup. A few casts later, another, this time solidly hooked. As the fish jumped, even Tom from the distant bluff could see it was a good one. So as the sun was sinking below the horizon, I landed this fat, 18-inch rainbow, a fitting end to one of the best Black Fishdays ever!

A fat beast to end the day

I had visited this stream with Rob years ago when we first moved to the area, but couldn't remember for sure if we had caught fish in it, so it wasn't on my list of streams. Today definitely cleared that uncertainty up with an exclamation point. We will be back to visit this beauty again.

Lower Boise

Mel and some friends were running this weekend in the Nike Cross cross-country meet in Boise. Not because they are good, just because it would be fun. And fun is what I also found, since the meet was held at Eagle Island State Park, which splits the Boise River into a north and south section. My research found that although it may not be prime trout water, there can be nice trout in this section. No special regulations, and with limited public access and a large nearby population, it probably gets hit pretty hard, but hey, it is fishing, and every trip is an excuse to fish...

At the park entrance, the girls went straight and I turned right to a sportsman's access at the Eagle fish hatchery. Apparently, this is the hatchery that is working to restore the Snake River sockeye, quite successfully from what I have seen. It was a beautiful morning, empty parking lot, no wind, sun just coming above the trees. A short walk brought me to a smaller channel of several braids in the river. Fishing a psycho prince followed by a red copper john, in short order I found a small whitefish, followed quickly by about a 10-inch rainbow. Then nothing more.

Baby whitefish

Pretty little rainbow

Further upstream found a couple more nice runs, tried streamers, buggers, but nothing more. I heard the gun starting the girls' race, and made my way back to the starting point and fished another braid. Still nothing. So I packed things up and called Mel to see if they would be ready to go soon. She asked if it was OK if they wanted to stay longer to watch a friend race later. I said no problem, there are two more access points I could check out. So off I went, downstream about 10 miles to another access point. Obviously heavily used, by fisherman and hunters, but no one there at the time. Satellite images on my phone directed me up to the head of an island in the braids, and I found a nice broad run, first fishing the bugger with a red copper john, then switching back to the psycho. Patiently working my way up, fishing from the bank to the middle of the current, I finally had a takedown as the indicator was nearly beside me in the waist deep water. A lively, 15-inch or so rainbow took the psycho, and after a brief fight, came unhooked as I was trying to get the net under it. Finding nothing more to the top of the run, I went upstream and crossed to fish down the other side. Working my way down the nice looking water, another takedown, this time a 15-inch whitefish on the copper john.

Nice-sized whitefish

By now, it was about time to meet the girls, so I made my way back to the car. Nothing spectacular about the fishing, but anytime you can find some fish in addition to solitude on a pretty stream, it is a great day!

I'm Thankful for the Ice Age Floods...

Sitting in a float tube in the middle of a lake, I realized that a large fraction of the nearby places we fish are a direct result of glacial Lake Missoula and its humongous floods - Nunya, Little Nunya, Lenore, Rocky Ford, Dusty, Homestead - all carved out by the Ice Age Floods that swept across Eastern Washington in the not-too-distant past. So in this month of thanksgiving, I am thankful for those floods, and of course, for Him whose creations provided the landscape to be molded by those floods and the fish to fill the streams and lakes left by them (there Tom, I even got the floods into the blog!). Which brings us to our outing today into another flood-carved area, the Drumheller Channels and the seep lakes.

The flood-carved channels and seep lakes

Joining again with our favorite chironomid fishing expert, Kirk Morris, we met Tom at the parking lot for the short hike to Quail Lake, a small, fly-fishing only lake hidden in the basalt cliffs and flood carved channels, like the 50 or so other lakes that dot this unique area. A short hike of less than ten minutes or so brought us to the fog-shrouded lake, and we quickly launched our tubes and made our way through the muddy shallows to deeper water.

Fog on Quail Lake

Trolling buggers on a sinking line, Rick and Kirk found a couple fish like the fat rainbow below and Tom had some short strikes, but no hookups. Nice fish that fought really well, but not a lot of them.

Rick's fat, feisty rainbow from Quail Lake

Kirk and a nice Quail rainbow

With a couple fish to hand in the far end of the lake, Kirk of course decided it was time to bring out the chironomids, and he started fishing under the bobber as the fog cleared and the sun warmed us. After some epic whiffs, he hooked and landed a nice one on a strike that barely moved his indicator.

Kirk and his chironomids

Hooked right where it is supposed to be...

Tom brought out the chironomids and also found a fat, feisty rainbow.

Fighting...

Landing...

Showing...

Although the fish were good-sized and healthy, they were too few and far between for our liking. And we had another lake or two we wanted to explore, So off we headed to North Windmill, a slightly larger lake with another short hike in. While stopping for a quick break at the facilities at Windmill Lake, fish were seen jumping just out from a nearby basalt wall, and by the time I got out of the outhouse, Tom was already there fishing. Kirk and I made our way over, and we found abundant, but small fish (7" to 10") that would take a stripped bugger on almost every cast, or with less frequency, a dead drifted chironomid. The day was passing into afternoon, and Kirk really wanted to check out North Windmill. The hike brought us to the outlet end of lake, where dramatic cliffs ringed the lake and separated it from the larger Windmill Lake by just a few tens of yards. We made our way down the steep slope to the lake and began kicking around trolling buggers again. In a change from the nearby Windmill, we found no action and saw no fish rising.

Tom and Kirk on North Windmill

Looking  up North Windmill

At the outlet, a small creek flowed through a cleft in the cliffs and dropped down a small waterfall into Windmill Lake. We pulled out and walked down to try Windmill at this point, and again found some willing, but smallish fish. Tom and Kirk returned back to North Windmill where Kirk hooked and fought one decent fish, but that was the only action there. I fished Windmill a little more without additional success, then decided to hike back by a different route to where we had first started at Windmill so I could enjoy the flood-carved scenery.

Pelican in a bay on Windmill on my walk back

Back at the Windmill parking area, Tom bid us farewell and headed back to Wenatchee. Kirk and I tried off the basalt wall again, with less success, but noted fish jumping all throughout the narrow lake. Into the tubes we went, slowly kicking down, then back up the narrow channel, stripping buggers and leeches, and finding lots of fish. Still not much size, most 8" to 12", I landed one that was maybe 13" or 14", and Kirk hooked a monster that turned out to be a little guy tail-snagged so he fought like a big guy. It was a perfect evening, a little drizzle, no wind, lots of fish, kicking, casting, stripping, and catching side-by-side while we talked. I had forgotten to change out of my sunglasses, so dusk came early and I could barely see for the last 45 minutes or so. Then it really did get dark. For the last 15 minutes kicking back to the car, I missed a half-dozen or more fish, and when I reeled in at the takeout, I found out why. My second fly was gone, and my bugger was tied up in knots and dragging backwards through the water. Lesson learned. Don't fish in the dark with sunglasses and no headlamp.

And the fish were still hitting it...

It was full dark and raining when we pulled out, but we had fish hitting all the way to the end. So we didn't find our dream lake full of monster trout just waiting to suck in any fly tossed their way. But we found a few nice fish, lots of little ones, saw some beautiful country, and shared some great company. All while fishing in the path left by the Ice Age floods. What's not to be thankful for?