Idaho: Salmon River Steelhead Oct. 2010

Date / Time: 10/15-10/22/2010 Location: Salmon River Idaho The Characters: Kory, BK, Dad, Spencer Manwaring Weather: First day nice, second day had thunderstorm and rain afternoon, rest of trip Mostly Sunny Water Temp: low 50s (guess) Water Level / Tide: Average typical for time of year around 1400 cfs at Salmon. Hatches: N/A Water Clarity/Quality: Clear Moon Phase: Full on Oct. 22 Fishing: Day 1: Floated from Shoup bridge to town with Dad and BK. They each hooked fish and Dad lost his and Brian landed his a pretty nice hatchery buck. I didn’t hook any but had one potential grab. Don’t remember flies that worked. Day 2: Spence arrived and we floated from Ranch Bar to Tower. I hooked a couple in tailout of gravel pit run on river left and lost them. Threw my rod on the second and fell in and got frustrated and stripped down to dry out, quite a show for dad on the other side. He broke one off over there and Spence landed one behind him, all fish in tailout. Fished run where river first gets a little into canyon on river right. Had one good grab in a spot where a fish exploded as BK floated over. Then hooked another super hot fish on black beadchain floating line and lost at bank. Huge thunderstorm came in right then and pummeled us. Crossed the river and fished the lower left drop off and hooked and landed a sluggish hatchery fish and landed it on bead chain i think. BK got killer wild fish on other side below where I lost that fish. Had one other fish pull drag off reel in tree run above takeout. Day 3: Floated from Carmen ramp to Red Rock. Had one good fish sort of on for a second in sidechannel near field with cabins river left below house run. Spence got one top right of gravel pit. Dad got one top right to his feet same spot on skunk. No fish hooked tailout, but pluggers had worked it over. Fished a few other spots and never had another. Spence got one more in the run on river right at beginning of canyon. Don’t think anyone else got one after that. Day 4: Floated Shoup to town again. Fished the run on river left with the large flood wall on river right and the old cabin at the top. I think we were calling it the tree run, but maybe will call it the Cabin wall run :). BK and I were taking a break in the boat watching dad fish down through the upper bucket by the tree and heating some soup talking about how cool it would be to have dad hook one that he fought to the boat and we could give him some soup. Sure enough he hooked on on queue but it came in quick and we went up and helped him land it. Super cool. We went back to the boat had soup and wine and relaxed in the beautiful weather. After some soup I decided I better go through there and get one and sure enough hooked a good hen on the type III tip and small beadchain while dad and BK were in the boat. I went back to take a break with Dad and BK went up and sure enough he got one there too. It was an awesome triple with dad and BK and we were all super stoked. After that fished through remainder of the run and had one hooked for a minute at the bottom middle but lost it. Headed down river and split up with me in the pontoon. I stopped at the spot where Nick Garrone had got one a few years previous on river left in the middle of the white cliffs. I ended up hooking one at last light on the floating line and prawny for a great closer. Caught up with the others at the boat ramp and found that BK got one more in a cool spot on river left above a rapid. Good day. Day 5: Dad took off and shuttled us on his way out from Shoup to town again. I had a leak in the boot foots and tried to fix it mid float to no avail. There was a plug boat guide trip fishing around us at the beginning just crushing them, but we went fishless other than a few grabs in the a.m. We fished the tree/cabin/wall run again but nothing. Also fished the other tree run above for nothing. In the afternoon, I was fishing river right in Frank’s log run where the newer small cabin and trailer are. BK came down and fished river left in a little slot where I had fished the previous day. He ended up hooking and landing one and I got nada on river right. We headed down and eventually I caught up with BK and spence again on river left at the first cliff run on river left where Spence got one. I floated down to the spot I got my last one the day previous (Nick’s run) and went to change flies and realized I had left them somewhere and was devastated and was also with a soaked boot from the leak that wasn’t fixed. Was sick to my stomach and didn’t feel like fishing so headed out antsy to go back and look for the boxes. Day 6: Determined to find my boxes or move on, I insisted we float the same stretch from shoup to town, but since I wanted to go straight to where i thought the boxes were i knew that we would be pretty far down in the float. Because of this I figured we could do a long float and fish through town all the way to the Ranch Bar Bridge. Since we hadn’t ever fished the town stretch this would also show us new water. We went straight to the tree/wall run where dad, bk and i all got one a few days previous and worked it over for nothing surprisingly. Also made a pass through the tailout up high that i had spotted fish in several days floating through for nothing. Then went to the cabin run / frank’s run to look for my boxes and luckily they were there which made me ecstatic! I took a break in the boat and watched BK fish through. I could see where his fly was although he was on a tip and I saw a flash and he exclaimed something and had just lost one, pretty cool to see. He fished through and hooked another briefly and lost it. I followed him through and hooked and landed a small fish on the tip with prawnee and all was good in the world. We floated down and hit a few other spots, but didn’t hook any fish. We were going through town and I was feeling like a little snack so thought to myself that the taco truck we had stopped at was right off the river. Everyone was game, so we pulled in and strolled up and had a mid day taco break…Awesome! That float is worth doing just for that reason. We headed on into new water and fished a couple of runs including one below a small cliff and rapid and BK had a grab but no hookup. Further down, we stopped at a killer looking run with cliffs river right. I jumped in with the floating line and switch rod and hooked one within 10 minutes and landed it. BK came up for some photos since he had gone to the lower end and made a pass and got one himself. I thought that the tailout looked killer for the dry and it just felt right. I jumped in where I had left off and tied on a riffle dancer i bought at Valhalla several years before (i think that is what it was called). The fly was waking killer and looked awesome in the low light of the evening. Within 10 minutes as the fly was plowing toward the bank a fish absolutely pummeled it and I was on with the dry! Sweet! Played the fish and landed a small, bright hen and was stoked for a great ending to a killer day! I don’t think we fished any more that night and pushed out. Day 7: Don’t remember the details of the beginning of this day but I know we headed down and hit a run that looked good and after fishing it floated over and realized it was pretty shallow. Then fished the same spot below the small rapid. I waked the dry through the tailout for nada and BK fished the top and Spence the very top. I think BK had a take, but don’t remember. We then B lined it for the cliff run. I let BK and Spence have it and went to the next little section and fished through into the tailout. As I was heading down, Spence hooked one for a short period and lost it in my bucket. That was it for us in that stretch. We moved on and went down to a good looking run on river right after a long, slow stretch. BK and Spence went through first and I followed. I had one on briefly in the middle semi hooked with the tip. Fished through to the tailout and felt a heavy, deep take behind BK…he was slightly frustrated. Hooked the fish and at first it was a bulldog fight but I could tell it was bigger. Then it ripped across river and cartwheeled all over the place…awesome! I was super nervous and was fishing my big canon 7136 and was putting steady side pressure on the fish eventually working it back to my side. I got it slowly back to our side of the river and then the battle just stopped, still tension but not moving. I though OH NO! and sure enough the fish was gone and my fly was stuck on a tiny little stick in some rocks…super bummed but that is the way it goes. Moved down to the next run and I ended up having another fish on and losing it and that was it for the day. Day 8: It was our last day and we wanted to cut it a little short since we were driving back. We decided to do the town to the bridge stretch since it had been good the day before and there was some more water we wanted to explore. We B lined it for the cliff after screwing around in one other spot and BK went way up high and got one right away. I followed through and possibly had a take but not sure. Spence nada. Then fished all the way through including the lower drop but nada. Did see some fish in bottom left small bucket on the drift over. Went back to the hole where i had lost the pig the day before but nada. I kept thinking the sidechannel looked good on river right so bailed out and headed up there. It was tiny like the upper provo or even smaller but there was a nice little drop…perfect nymph water but i swung through with my switch and sure enough hooked up and landed one, actually don’t remember how many but had takes every time. Then landed a huge one that was somewhat sluggish but still cool to get them in that tiny spot. Then we put spence in there since he was kind of funking and sure enough he got one too. Think BK might have had one too but not sure. After that we hit one more spot for naught and headed out. Great Trip!