Each trip is a new adventure and the last three days for Karen and I was no exception. We decided to backpack down stream on one of our more popular eastern slopes rivers and camp. The trip started off with lots of preparation and an uneventful drive to the trail head. Karen hoisted her pack and headed downstream. Yep our packs were heavy but we both were game! It wasn't long before we realized that one of our elkhounds decided to go on his own adventure. We finally reconnected with our hound about an hour later thanks to two kind fly fishers who also were heading downstream with backpacks on their shoulders.
About an hour down the trail, Karen slipped and fell right into a pile of mud and cow paddies. Now that made my wife angry, real angry! Thankfully we were close to a creek and she was able to wash off the worst of the unplanned incident!
A few hours after we started to hike, we arrived at our camping spot. I rigged Karen up and she quickly caught several impressive cutthroat on an orange crush dry fly! That quickly changed the mood back to what our original intent was. Relaxation, fun, camping and exploring new water was our plan!
A few showers rolled in and there were some minor hatches. We even saw some green drakes. The cutthroat just devoured them! The showers brought blue winged olives and the cutthroat love them. We did tie on size 18 bwos and did surprisingly well with these tiny bugs!
Day two we headed a further couple of hours downstream. We found lots of great water and willing cutthroat. We did run into some quaders and thankfully they were quite respectful. We saw several quads parked off of the trail and the fly fishers were on foot along the river. That made us both happy to see. It is not always like that!
Day three started off with warm bright sunshine. We drank lots of coffee, ate pancakes and packed up! We caught several cutthroat around camp and then started for the truck. We stopped to fish a few runs on the way back. By noon, we had our fill of fly fishing and decided to hit the trail back to our truck!
We were glad to get back to the truck. Our elkhounds were tired. So were we but we had a great trip. Even the wipeouts seemed like they happened a long time ago!
Karen and I love this stretch of water. It was again quite giving to us!
Karen enjoying the evening fire.
Heading home!
A very cool bird's nest right above one of the runs we fly fished.
We could see every cutthroat in the run. Karen finally got a sizeable cutthroat on a size 18 BWO.
After an early fishing day, we got back onto the quad track and tromped back to the truck!
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