The trip to Idaho was absolutely phenomenal though. The scenery, geology, wildlife, everything was just what we were looking for. We met up with some of my girlfriend's friends from Oregon and camped for the week at Alturas Lake campground which had some extremely beautiful tent-only sites tucked next to the lake. Early week was very quiet and peaceful till later in the week when there was a music festival in nearby Stanley so there was much more drinking in the area. I only fished the lake one day and I'm not much of a stillwater guy so I didn't have much luck but enjoyed watching some families slay stockers with powerbait, nice to see the kids so excited.
We hiked up to the Alpine lakes one day and fished those however we got to the trailhead a little too late so the "w" had shown up and put all the fish don and my casts too haha. I was stubborn and would only throw a dry but it was fun and worth just the sights, we really enjoyed them and you live and learn. There was tons of bug activity up there though which was really cool to see.
We also did a float trip down the Salmon River which was my first guide trip and my first float trip proper. Man, that was a seriously good time. I could do that every day and not get tired of it. Our guide Troy lined up with our ideas on conservation and fishing in general and was a great guy to be around, I'd consider him a friend and plan on fishing with him again one day. We caught tons and tons of fish too with some being decent sized. My girlfriend had the time of her life throwing big foams and not touching a single fish haha. She hit her first fish on her own and broke off her first fish too. Several times I heard "I should have given him line Alex" haha the one that got away. Driftboat fishing is amazing though and I'm extremely interested to do it more.
Lastly, I fished the tribs to the Salmon which were somewhat difficult to fish and access was tough at times. They were much clearer and higher flows than some of our streams and the fish seemed to be sitting in different positions than I'm used to. After an hour or two I started to figure it out and got into some fish. Around lunch, I started to miss fish and make mistakes that lost me some very nice fish. I also made a very big mistake of losing a fish, snagging, and then while frustrated retrieving the fly slipping and busting my shin very hard on some very hard rock. It was close to a day ender. Perseverance wins though and I was rewarded in the late afternoon with some 18" native cutthroat, the fish I went to Idaho for. They were very aggressive on the take and the fights were exhilarating too.
Overall my first major out of state fly fishing trip was a major success. We took a much-needed vacation and got to do some super amazing hikes and fishing. I have a ton more photos of some of the other areas like hot springs and falls I'll be putting together later, I can post the link to that here later but it's for her family too so it's going to be tough...
Thanks for reading and check out Idaho if you haven't! Feel free to pm and I can give you some pointers.
link to photos: https://imgur.com/a/Am3Q8CT
link to the conversation in the forum
We hiked up to the Alpine lakes one day and fished those however we got to the trailhead a little too late so the "w" had shown up and put all the fish don and my casts too haha. I was stubborn and would only throw a dry but it was fun and worth just the sights, we really enjoyed them and you live and learn. There was tons of bug activity up there though which was really cool to see.
We also did a float trip down the Salmon River which was my first guide trip and my first float trip proper. Man, that was a seriously good time. I could do that every day and not get tired of it. Our guide Troy lined up with our ideas on conservation and fishing in general and was a great guy to be around, I'd consider him a friend and plan on fishing with him again one day. We caught tons and tons of fish too with some being decent sized. My girlfriend had the time of her life throwing big foams and not touching a single fish haha. She hit her first fish on her own and broke off her first fish too. Several times I heard "I should have given him line Alex" haha the one that got away. Driftboat fishing is amazing though and I'm extremely interested to do it more.
Lastly, I fished the tribs to the Salmon which were somewhat difficult to fish and access was tough at times. They were much clearer and higher flows than some of our streams and the fish seemed to be sitting in different positions than I'm used to. After an hour or two I started to figure it out and got into some fish. Around lunch, I started to miss fish and make mistakes that lost me some very nice fish. I also made a very big mistake of losing a fish, snagging, and then while frustrated retrieving the fly slipping and busting my shin very hard on some very hard rock. It was close to a day ender. Perseverance wins though and I was rewarded in the late afternoon with some 18" native cutthroat, the fish I went to Idaho for. They were very aggressive on the take and the fights were exhilarating too.
Overall my first major out of state fly fishing trip was a major success. We took a much-needed vacation and got to do some super amazing hikes and fishing. I have a ton more photos of some of the other areas like hot springs and falls I'll be putting together later, I can post the link to that here later but it's for her family too so it's going to be tough...
Thanks for reading and check out Idaho if you haven't! Feel free to pm and I can give you some pointers.
link to photos: https://imgur.com/a/Am3Q8CT
link to the conversation in the forum
