Northern Idaho Help

[johnnyd]

I just found out that I will be in Post Falls, Idaho next week. I just checked, and it is right next to Coeur D'Alene. I'm not sure if anyone has any knowledge of this area, but I thought I'd ask. I will have wednesday afternoon and possibly thursday afternoon free from about 2 or so on. Ideally, I would just be looking to wade, and not go with a guide, but feel free to completely disagree if you feel that is dumb.
Not sure if this post should go here, so feel free to move if you see fit.
Thanks for any help on this.

 

[pete41]

In that area the hot ticket around the first of november is trolling Coeur d'Alene or Pend Oreille [pond du ray] for monster kamloops variety rainbows- as this will be "turn over time" for the lakes.If you get a chance to do that,jump on it .It can get a little raw on the rivers when you edge into november.It will all depend on the weather but chance to pick up nice fish.
Best bet if no one here is familiar with the area-google up fly shops in Coeur d'Alene and scope their fishing reports.
Hunting is the big deal now.

 

[pcray1231]

Yeah, I spent a summer in Idaho Falls, and ventured from the Yellowstone area over to central Idaho/easter part of the River of No Return wilderness. If you think you'll be down that way I could help some. But no experience in the panhandle region, sorry.

 

[salmonoid]

I spent the summer of '97 in the panhandle, working out of a small tent encampment, near Red Bridge, ID. Nearest town was Avery, but thats a good sixty miles or so upstream from the mouth of the St. Joe river, which flows into the southern end of Couer d'Alene Lake. Unfortunately, this was during the fishing desert time of life; I don't think I fished once while I was in college or grad school, so I missed out on four years of everything around State College, the summer in the ID panhandle, and two-thirds of a year in Seattle (with access to the Olympics and the Cascades). A couple of guys I was with in ID did fish the St. Joes, but I don't remember a whole lot of success.

What I can say is that from tramping around the mountains there (we were doing geological mapping), the streams were awesome looking. So I would say that pretty much like Centre or Potter County here in PA, unless there's some sort of impairment to the stream, the streams will have trout in them. There are big lakes down to small ponds and large rivers down to small streams; take yer pick. Definitely worth packing your gear

 

[pete41]

Some of the streams which feed into the lakes have bull trout-
whatever this is streamer fishing time in the west.

 

[johnnyd]

Thanks Guys. I'm looking at the Coeur D'Alene river or St. Joe's at this point. I'm going to give the local fly shop a call though.

 

[troutbert]

I fished the St. Joe River years ago, and we had good cutthroat fishing, but you had to drive WAY upstream to find the good fishing. If you only have part of an afternoon, you simply won't have enough time.

I've heard the Cour D'Alene River is pretty good, but I haven't fished it and don't know what sections are good.

 

[RickF]

Never been to Coeur d'Alene, but a good friend of mine spent some time on Kelly Creek in September. They got into lots of fish and the scenery was spectacular. Doesn't sound like you will have enough time though. If you have time for a beer? An old high school buddy of mine lives in Post Falls and just opened a Belgian style brew pub, called Selkirk Abbey Brewing Company. His name is Jeff. If you go, tell him Rick sent you!

 

[salmonoid]

troutbert wrote:
I fished the St. Joe River years ago, and we had good cutthroat fishing, but you had to drive WAY upstream to find the good fishing. If you only have part of an afternoon, you simply won't have enough time.

I've heard the Cour D'Alene River is pretty good, but I haven't fished it and don't know what sections are good.

I meant to type Red Ives, not Red Bridge. Must have had ANF on my mind. Troutbert, were you in the section above Red Ives? If I recall correctly, the road went upriver from there for just a few more miles and then deadended in a campground/trailhead. When I was there, a pack train was getting ready to head out for some backcountry upstream. I'm sure there are other roads coming in from the MT side further up from there. Was really a cool summer, including tracking, and eventually finding a moose, and on the same day, finding the carcass of a dead moose.

 

[troutbert]

No. We drove well above Avery, but we did not get as far as Red Ives. We had decent fishing, but didn't catch anything very big, 15 inches tops. Smeone later told us, that we should have gone even further up. It was all C&R where we were fishing, so I'm not sure why it would get better even further up. But that does seem to be a common pattern.

 

[dryflyguy]

I also fished the St Joe once.
Very good cutthroat fishing, although the average size wasn't very large - at least on dry flys. All were in the 10 to 12 inch range. Mostly fishing around the last few campgrounds going upstream. We did hike up a little from where the road veers away from the stream one day - but found the fishing to be about the same.
Very pretty area though - and worth spending some time at

 

[riz]

I fished the CDA a number of years ago and had a blast. the fish were not huge, 10 - 14 in, but they were plentiful and eager to take a dry. hooked up with 3 - 4 dozen and landed about 30. I did see larger fish, up to 20", in deep holes ( the water was crystal clear and deceivingly deep) and the rocks were the slickest I ever fished, use studs if you can. as for where to fish, take 90 east to route 9 (CDA river rd) rt 9 will split off to the right but stay on CDA river rd. follow the river till it get into the CDA NF and find a nice section of river to fish. i stopped at several location doing this and caught fish at every stop. look for bluff cliffs and you'll find nice holes and riffs to fish. i believe it took about an hour to get there from CDA lake, I was staying in spokane WA at the time. this is medium sized water and easily wadable, except for the slippery rocks ( i blew out a set of felt boots here).

 

[johnnyd]

Great feedback guys! I really appreciate it. The info I got from the Orvis store there pretty much echos all of this feedback as well. I'll let you know how I do.
Thanks again.
-Johnny

 

[salmonoid]

An interesting sidenote on the CDA river.. Its one of the largest SuperFund sites in the US. The valley has supported silver mining since the late 1800's and with over a hundred years of mining, and less than environmentally friendly tailings disposal practices (i.e. dump the tailings in the stream), the entire flood plain down to the lake, as well as the lake bed, contain layers of heavy metal contamination. In addition, in 1973, the Bunker Hill smelter had a fire, which damaged some of the emissions control equipment. The smelter continued to operate afterwards, which tripled the lead emissions in the area of the smelter. The work I did for the USGS on the St. Joes side was strictly geologic mapping. The work that I did on the CDA side involved water sampling in various streams, tailings piles, and mine seeps, to see what concentrations of heavy metals were in solution. In addition, we sampled sediments on the flood plain, and prepared contaminated sediment maps for the Lower Basin. The Sunshine Mine has been one of the largest silver producing mines in the world. The rocks are from the Belt Supergroup, a pre-Cambrian age set of formations. One theory has the initial concentration of silver in this location as being caused by deep sea vents (i.e. black smokers), deposited billions of years ago. Later localized faulting served to further concentrate and move the silver to where it is today (a typewritten report here)!

EPA SuperFund site info

With the lead around, you might want to make sure you practice C&R