The Pacific Northwest began to dry up early this year. After a bleak snowpack and virtually no Spring runoff, rivers were running strangely low all across the region by mid June. We saw it on the annual pilgrimage of the Firehole Rangers; we see it at home.  Local rivers look like they normally do September, and it’s only mid-July.  Wildfire season hasn’t proven to be any worse than normal but it’s still early yet (knock on wood).  Dry as a bone, the West is. And so when the Rangers departed on our trip to Idaho’s panhandle for a few days of cutthroat fishing, we did so with a bit of trepidation as to what we’d encounter. Flows were checked on a regular basis in the weeks prior to our trip and on paper the river was low. How it would actually look when we saw it in person remained to be seen.

A stop for ice and people watching at Walmart in Kellogg, ID

On the Wednesday of our departure the weather was hot and dry across the state of Washington, as it had been for every day throughout the month of June and thus far into July. As we passed through Idaho the temperature was 90°F although the forecast for Idaho’s panhandle called for a slight cooling trend into the low 80’s and even the upper 70’s (brrrr). There was also a slight chance of thunderstorms on Friday and Saturday. By slight we’re talking 10%-20% chance: not enough to cause concern. Jimmy and I planned to camp for 5 nights, fish for 4 days; Marck, Nash and Morris would be returning home a day sooner. The Man-Van was loaded with plenty of ice and firewood, knowing we would absolutely need the ice; not knowing if we’d even be allowed to need the wood. Did I mention that it was dry?

If the road doesn’t look dusty that’s because this is a photo a different year; a less dry year.

The road is dirt for the last two miles, and even though we traveled slowly the tires kicked up a thick plume of nearly-white dust. Just how dusty was it?  Suffice it to say that one did not want to be following another vehicle on this road. Jimmy and I arrived around 6pm to a nearly empty campground. We selected a site that would accommodate everyone and set up camp before cooking supper.  At around 9PM the others arrived, emerging from a crammed Ford Explorer belonging to the wife of Nash. The amount of gear they had managed to fit into the Explorer was impressive and left just barely enough room for 3 guys. Morris was shoe-horned into the back seat surrounded floor-to-ceiling by fishing and other gear. Besides personal items, groceries, Marck’s large (and brand-new) Camp Chef cooktop, and a Yeti cooler that was big enough to hold an adult corpse (it weighed enough that it may have contained just that). They each also brought their own tents so as to avoid a three man sausagefest. Additionally the roof pod was full of firewood so we would have ample supply for the duration of the trip (there were no campfire bans posted). The late arrivals pitched their tents as darkness fell and we toasted our full attendance late into the night.

Marck’s new cooktop was soon defiled by bacon.

The next morning we broke in Marck’s new cooktop before embarking on Day One of fishing.  With bacon in our bellies the Rangers marched single file up the trail a couple of miles; Marck and Nash dropping down to the river at the “Log Trail” while Morris, Jimmy and I proceeded onward to “The Mine”. The plan was to fish the first part of the day before returning to camp for lunch during the mid-day lull. We would then go out for a later afternoon/early evening bit of angling. As it turned out we ended up fishing straight through the mid-day lull, living on protein bars and water. It’s not that fishing was so good that we didn’t want to take a break—it was just easier to keep fishing than hike back to camp on the trail. Besides this is gorgeous country, and it doesn’t take much before one loses track of time and space, even when the catching slows to a crawl.

It’s easy to lose yourself in this.

Antiquated remains from an ill-fated garnet mine.

Fishing was slower than normal, but better than expected, given the low flows. Fish that would normally be found in the riffles weren’t there. But deeper runs and holes still held some fish, which we caught. Morris may have done some nymphing but mostly it was a dry fly game—that’s why we come here. On a normal water year we can expect to find fish in nearly every inch of the river.

Morris with one of many bends in his rod.

Using a Purple Haze, and later a black foam ant, I managed a handful of small cutthroat in the 10-12 inch range before switching to a streamer as the mid-day lull set in.  The streamer soon yielded a nice 15″ cutt as well as a fish of a lifetime (details of that can be found HERE). It turned out to be a better day than any of us had anticipated, and in the case of the lifetime fish the day was better than I could have ever imagined.

The lifetime fish.

That evening after further defiling Marck’s grill, Nash, Marck and Morris ventured out for some evening caddis action while Jimmy and I stayed back at camp and stoked the fire. It was nice that we could still have campfires because camping isn’t camping without a fire, around which men can gather to solve world problems or site in silence without it being awkward.

Dry camp.

The next morning(Friday) we put another good hurt on the Camp Chef before embarking on a downstream journey to seek out some new water. The previous day had yielded decent fishing but we wanted to try some stretches of river that we’d previously only driven past. We had time to explore—after all this was only Day 2 of a 4 day trip. Nash, Jimmy and Morris were dropped off at one spot while Marck and I drove a couple miles further down stream. The idea was that the other 3 would fish down to where we had parked the car, then drive downstream and find Marck and me. That plan worked well, but when we met up and compared notes it was agreed that the water we’d all fished was less desirable than the water above camp. The river down here was comprised of long, straight and shallow sections with fishable water only to be found at the occasional bend in the river, and there weren’t nearaly enough bends in the river. Fishing had been dreadfully slow until I came upon one run that produced 8 fish in 10 minutes, though nothing bigger than 10 inches. Marck caught several fish as he always does. We headed back to camp for lunch and the mid-day lull.

Marck releases a fish that he had just caught.

That afternoon a couple of Forest Service Rangers stationed at Red Ives stopped by the camp of the Firehole Rangers to let us know that the threat of lightning strikes was very high for the next 12 hours. Despite that the region still looked green, they informed us that it was bone dry—tinder box conditions—and that we should take great care to manage our campfire. Smoke jumpers had been putting out small fires in the greater vicinity and while there were no big burns currently, that could change rapidly. We hoped that it wouldn’t. The threat of thunderstorms wasn’t particularly great and would become even less the following day, but the rangers informed us that on Tuesday the Forest Service was imposing a ban on all fires.  Good timing on our part—our last day was to be Monday so we could enjoy a campfire each night of our stay.

Jimmy stresses about the possibility of thunderstorms.

At that particular time the skies were clear and we were fairly confident wouldn’t be any lightning strikes in the area. As far as rain goes we weren’t too worried: Summer storms tend to roll in fast, do their thing, and roll on out just as quickly as they rolled in. With nary a care in the world we killed some time relaxing around camp before heading out to fish late in the afternoon. When the time came to grab our rods, Jimmy, Nash and Morris hiked up the trail a couple of miles as Marck and I headed downstream. It was our plan to return to camp earlier than the others and get dinner started.

To be continued in Part 2…

The reason for the two part series is two-fold: 1. By breaking the story into 2 parts, I create a sense of drama—a cliffhanger, if you will; and 2. It greatly reduces the length of the drivel. If I were to keep it as one lengthy story nobody would stay focused long enough to read it. Hell, chances are nobody will read each separate story anyway.

Like the sign says: Bull Trout Country

It’s been said that one should never bring a knife to a gun fight, and, being a reasonably marginally intelligent person, I would never intentionally do that. To be very clear I would never enter into a gun fight in the first place—not a knife fight, either. Nor would I be inclined to arm myself with a 3 weight fly rod with the intent of seeking fish that would be better suited to, say, a 6 weight.

That said, when fishing for westslope cutthroat trout on a particular Idaho panhandle river one knows that, despite being pretty rare, bull trout do inhabit these waters. During the summer months they eat their way up the system before entering small tributaries to spawn in September.  But when was the last time anyone caught a bull trout while fishing small dry flies?  These predatory char are known meat eaters that likely wouldn’t waste the energy to sip small bugs off the surface unless they were really bored. They’re much more likely to chase down a hooked cutthroat trout that had eaten your dry fly. But that’s not a common occurrence either, despite that I nearly had it happen once (if one were so inclined one could read about that HERE).

Troubled waters.

In my 4 previous trips to the upper Joe I’d never seen a bull trout—not that I can confirm, anyway. In 2014 Schpanky and I were fishing a couple miles above the St. Joe Lodge, which is itself 5 miles above the trailhead at Spruce Tree campground. We had just come ’round a bend in the river when we saw the shadow of a very large fish moving from beneath a logjam. It slithered, snakelike, and disappeared downstream at a rapid pace before we could get close enough to make an absolutely positive ID. At better than 2 feet in length, it was much bigger than any cutthroat likely to haunt these waters, and I’m confident it was a char. While unconfirmed, that’s the only time I’ve seen a bull trout on this river. But they are there, and they are endangered so targeting them is frowned upon, as is detaining them for questioning. Retaining them is illegal.

The upper Joe is all catch and release for any gamefish in the system and all you’re going to find here are native species: cutthroat, whitefish and, allegedly, bull trout. It’s pristine country, unpolluted by any human activity now or in the past (save for a brief garnet mining stint that proved unproductive and thankfully failed long ago). This is prime, and critical, habitat for the last self-sustaining population of bull trout in the Lake Coeur d’Alene watershed.

When the Firehole Rangers visited the Joe this year we encountered lower than normal river levels. This came as no surprise because every river in the west was low due to a mild winter that produced very little snowpack. But the Joe was still fishing pretty well despite low water: the riffles that typically hold ample cutthroat were devoid of inhabitants but deeper runs and holes still held fish and the fish appeared to be good shape. Overall the size of the fish was smaller this year than in the past but there were larger fish to be found—it just took a bit more work. The river temps were 58° F in the morning, warming to 64° at the heat of the day so it was still within the safe range without unnecessarily putting additional stress on the fish.

The first day of fishing was a bit slow but a handful of cutts were convinced to take dry fly offerings. A size 14 Purple Haze was moderately effective on a few fish, as was a size 16 black foam ant, but around mid-day things slowed considerably as we expected it would because it always does. It was during this mid-day lull that I reached into my bag of streamer tricks and extracted a white conehead Zuddler, size 6. I’ve always like fishing streamers, particularly when fish aren’t rising. It offers hope when hope is all but lost.  If there’s a fish in a run that has ignored dries, there’s a decent chance it may not ignore a streamer. And little fish don’t usually chase streamers.

Proper ammunition for not targeting bull trout.

It should be noted that I was fishing my 7’9″ Sage Circa 3 weight. It’s a sweet little stick for throwing dries all day long, and while I may have been better off using my 4 weight rod, this was day one and I wanted to put in some time with the Circa (I fully intended to rig up the 9′ 4 weight on day two). The biggest cutthroat I’d caught on this river previously was 17″ and I knew, that while not ideal, the diminutive rod was capable of handling a a decent sized fish. My capabilities, on the other hand, are always in question. On my Circa I use a furled leader by Cutthroat Leaders, with a couple feet of 4x tippet spliced to another couple feet of 5x. This setup presents small dries nicely but it does not do a very good job of turning over large flies—especially not weighted streamers. While I managed to get the big bug out there it wasn’t pretty. After Jimmy and Morris worked through a particularly run with their diminutive dry flies I came through with the Zuddler and managed to land a chunky 15″ cutt. I would be a happy man if I didn’t catch another fish the rest of the day.

See that log on the left?

A short time later I came to a nice run with a trough of deep water against a log on the bank. A large rock protruded, breaking the current flow. Had to be a fish there, right? By this time Jimmy had fished well ahead and Morris was behind me. I’m sure Jimmy had fished this spot but he had been employing the dry fly so I approached the hole as if nobody had previously touched it. I put the streamer upstream of  the rock and let it swing close. Then I began stripping (you know what I mean). An aggressive fish slammed the streamer but didn’t allow me time to set the hook properly. After an initial run and a couple of violent head shakes I got the fly back. It was a nice fish—felt like it may have been 15″ or better. Oh well, even streamer fishing, with it’s often violent strikes, doesn’t guarantee success. I knew I wouldn’t entice that particularly fish a second time and doubted there was another good fish in that run. Still, I decided to fish through the end of the deep green water (which was only actually about 3 feet deep). Another ugly cast toward the end of the log and the fly slapped down on the water. Swing, strip…strip…BAM!

This time felt different—the fish didn’t run—it just held its ground as if daring me to try to move it. The wee Circa doubled over under the strain of the stubborn fish and I’d have thought I had hooked a submerged log had it not been for the savage head shakes. When the fish began to move it did so at will, though without lightning speed: it felt more like a diesel powered truck than a sports car. All I could do was palm the Sage Click III reel and hope that my 4x-spliced-to-5x would hold up (I had my doubts). The fish made one good run but I was able to turn it before it had peeled too much line from the reel. As I coerced the fish into the shallower water opposite its lair I got a first look: that’s when I noticed fins with white leading edges. Not a cutthroat. I began to think ahead to landing the fish and wasn’t sure how that was going to happen as I had no net. Every year I tell myself I should bring a net to the Joe, and every year I decide that it’s too much crap to carry so I leave the net back at camp. Fortunately Morris was coming down the river toward me so I hollered squealed like a school girl, “Bull trout!”  He quickened his pace. I had managed to get the fish into the shallows just a few feet from where I stood and the fish remained fairly calm, as if it wasn’t particularly impressed by me. All of the bull trout I’ve caught (and there had only been 3 previously) were grayish-silver bodied; this fish was a more of a rusty-orange, and it was considerably bigger than the previous three as well.

All the bulls I’ve loved before.

Morris held my rod (you know what I mean) while I removed my Nikon AW1 from its case and switched to underwater shooting mode. All I could do was point the camera at the fish, depress the shutter and hope for the best—I had no idea what sort of images I would capture.  The big char didn’t take kindly to my attempt at a front angle shot and darted into the faster water, giving Morris a chance to play the fish back into the shallows. After a couple more shots I grabbed my forceps and gently removed the streamer from the fish’s maw. I didn’t want to  handle the fish if at all possible, and I sure wasn’t going to reach into it’s mouth with my fingers to remove the hook—its teeth were formidable and would have made short work of my phalangeal flesh.

Handling with kid gloves.

After a clean hook extraction the big char moved quickly back to the deeper water whence it came. “That was pretty cool,” I may have said to myself and possibly to Morris as well; I don’t know—it was almost dreamlike.  Following a high five we discussed the length of the fish. It was mutually agreed that it was likely equal to the distance from the end of the real seat to the stripping guide: (B) 25 inches; or on the conservative side equal to the distance from the end of the reel seat to the first ferrule joint: (A) 23 inches. I’ll agree to split the difference and call it (C) 24 inches.

A + B divided by 2 = C

No matter the size it was a fish of a lifetime and I can now die a happy man with a debt of gratitude owed to Morris for coming along at the right time and holding my rod.