It's a Dirty Job, but Someone Has to Do It

The Tools of the Trade...

...the sweatshop...

...and the fruit!

It's all in a days work really...It's a rough, rough life out there on the river.

Oregon Coast

Well we took a little family vacation to the Oregon Coast and had a blast. I did not get my camera out of the case one time which was weird. Kyla posted a whole bunch of our trip on bows-n-bugs though. Here are a couple of my favorites that my really talented wife took:

Middle Fork of the Boise River Round 2

A vibrant native 10" Rainbow. This is probably the average fish we caught size wise. Notice the white tips on the fins. That is a trait that seems common on the Middle Fork 'bows.

Well today my brother Todd and I hit the road for some mountain stream fly fishing action. Todd is just learning the sport and this is a good river to do that on. He got things started right by landing the first fish of the day within our first 10 minutes on the water. It was a nice little 11 inch Bull Trout. Quite a thing to have your first fish caught on a fly out of a river be the ever elusive Bull Trout. Things were slow at first after the initial burst of action but they picked up when we moved to a new spot. All told on the day I caught between 15 and 20 feisty native Rainbows and a lonely wild Cutthroat. Most where in the 10 to 11 inch range but a couple pushed over a foot long. I hooked into a very nice fish I am guessing would have easily gone 16" but after an impressive aerial display, jumping three feet out of the water four seperate times, it got free. Todd had a long dry spell after his Bull Trout but then got things figured out and landed 5 fish in the span of about a half hour towards the end of the day. It was nice to get out and see some beautiful country but for some reason I again did not take many pictures. I guess when the fishing is hot it is hard to take time to snap the shutter. Sometime I need to get some pictures of the area as it is some neat country.

Caddis? What Caddis? I'm Fishing Streamers

I think I am slowly developing a thing for fishing streamers. When you talk to fly fishermen they always like to brag about the nice trout that sipped his delicate little size 22 trico spinner so subtly he barely noticed it was gone. Not me. Yes I do like to catch fish on a dry fly but there is something down and dirty about tugging a big ugly strip of feathers and rabbit hide through the water and watching a large wake cruise up behind and smash it. It may not be where the glory in fly fishing is but it sure is where the adrenaline is.


Tuesday night my heart skipped a couple beats each time I saw that big swirl all around my size 4 gray Zonker. The fish were not hammering it on a consistent basis but they were even aggressive in their investigation. Often they would come up and take a look at it and then give a big tail slap on the surface of the water that would have made many a beaver proud and turned back to their ambush site. A few fish grabbed at it after their investigation but failed to get the hook in their mouth. But there were two fish who fell for it and they did it with passion. The first, a 23 inch fatty, hammered the streamer right out in the middle of the river and I knew immediately this was a nice fish. So far this is the biggest fish I have caught on the Owyhee River. It pulled hard and made several good runs before finally coming to hand.

After reviving this monster and watching it swim slowly away I turned to grab my rod and noticed I was in a virtual cloud of Caddis. I have to admit I chuckled to myself when I thought about the massive hatch that was happening all around me and yet there was no way in the world I was taking that big Zonker off. If you want to catch the big, mean, ugly Browns, you have to think big, mean, ugly thoughts. Or at least throw a fly that fits that description.

Summer on the Owyhee River

One of the larger Caddis that were hatching

Well the fishing was so-so last night on the Owyhee River. I spent more time simply observing the more subtle everyday happenings on a river than I usually do. I am hoping my observations help out tonight when I go back. Here is a quick summary of the evening.

All my usual spots had fishermen in them so I ended up at one of my not so favorite spots. It is a place I always try when everything else is filled up because it looks like a great spot but it has yet to produce like it appears that it should. I fished for an hour or so, caught one small fish on the smallest pheasant tail nymph I had, and then started really noticing all the bug activity on the river. There was a tiny caddis hatch and by tiny I mean the Caddis were tiny, not the hatch. There were midges all over the water. Then there was a hatch of larger caddis and I even saw what appeared to be a smallish stonefly I am guessing a Yellow Sally. I also noticed a lot of callibaetis nymphs floading in the water so that would explain the success with the pheasant tail. Then came the exciting part of my outing. In trying to wade a little too fast back down stream after taking a few pictures I slipped and fell. In flailing around trying to get my feet under me I reached out and grabbed at the nearest peice of brush along the shore which just happened to be a nice patch of stinging nettles. My right arm is still tingling today. It is funny I never remember nettles hurting this long when I was a kid but I am sure I didn't marinate in them like my arm did this time as my priorities where more along the lines of not falling rather than worrying about what it was I was grabbing on too. Meanwhile my arm was in there getting well introduced to the nasty stinging plants. After this debacle I moved to one of my favorite spots in the last hour of light and had numerous hookups with what felt like very nice fish but for some reason couldn't keep the fish on the hook. Maybe next time.

The Middle Fork of the Boise River

Well I had some fun this weekend on the Middle Fork of the Boise River. I caught several Cutthroat and a lot of Rainbow Trout. It was my first trip up this beautiful river. Too bad my camera battery died before I got any scenery shots. You couldn't ask for much better than this. Fiesty trout in a picture perfect setting. I will have to make another trip up there.

South Fork of the Snake Video is in!

Well Tom went with us on the latest trip to the South Fork of the Snake River and shot some fishing footage to use for an episode for his website basecamplegends.com. It turned out good as do all of his videos so get over there and check out the rest of the site. Here are the results of our float:

Part 1


South Fork Part 1 from Tom Sorenson on Vimeo.

Part 2


South Fork Fishing trip Part 2 from Tom Sorenson on Vimeo.