If I had a nickel...

If I had a nickel for every fish that I have caugt recently I would be a poor man. Have not fished much lately. My day usually goes like this school-football-dinner-homework-bed. My recent schedule has forced me to put the fish on the back burner for a while. In the last few weeks I have made a few trips to the Portneuf and I fished 8 mile creek with some boy scouts on our last campout. The Portneuf has fished great the last few times I have been there. If you can find sections were there is good moving water or a little wind it is very possible to have enough cover to be able to catch alot of fish. It is commonly believed on the Portneuf that once the water gets low and really clear that it is impossible to get close enough to a fish to catch one, but with the right conditions and knowledge of the river it is very possible to catch lots of fish. I fished a section about a week ago that had moving water and was very weedy. In the seams between the weeds was a cutthroat. I only caught one rainbow and nothing over 20 in. but if you want some tough, fun fishing find this kind of water. Stiff tippets with hoppers are a winner right now. I had to go to a 2x because of all the weeds in order to keep their heads up. I expect that with the colder temperatures at night the fishing will get even better clear up until the closer. My brother is getting married in Portland this next weekend and I get to go back to the Deshcutes. The fishing there has been good of late and the word is that this year is a record steelhead run. That would provide some real excitement.

Good fishing, don't give up. 

Kevin

August 23, 2008

Great fishing on the Portneuf in the mid afternoon. A few fish looking for hoppers, most were eating smaller bugs on top. Good amounts of activity and fish rising. Caught one bigggg fish and a few other smaller 16-20 in. fish. I have also heard great reports from the Blackfoot river and several of the larger creeks toward Caribou Mountain. Fish on the Blackfoot really like Dave's Hopper and I have seen pictures of some in the 2-3 lb range. Below the narrows seems to be the place to be.

Taco or Burrito?

Will somebody out there that reads my blog tell me and the 8th Grade class at North Gem what the difference is between a taco and a burrito!!!! We are confused.

Aug 12, 2008

I need to take more pictures. That is the conclusion that I have come to after viewiing several other blogs. Mine tends to pale in comparison, still I chug along hoping to offer as much info as I can on my home waters. Right now the Upper Portneuf is fishing well in the mornings and evenings. Very shortly the fish should be onto the hoppers in the afternoons. I have not fished the Bear River in quite sometime, but it should fish well later in the month. Usually the water really clears up after they quit messing with the flows and in some stretches the fish will really be looking up for hoppers. I will definitely be out in Black Canyon by the end of the month looking for some of the big fish in the canyon to be looking up. Creeks in the area continue to fish well. Check out McCoy, Tincup, Bear, Brockman, Pebble, Toponce, or Eight mile creeks. I don't think that you can go wrong with any of these creeks later in the month. All of these have good populations of Cutts and are a real hoot to fish. The real purpose of this post is to chronicle the results of my last trip to Bonners Ferry. My brother Todd and I fished Snow Creek and Myrtle Creek and though Myrtle Creek is much larger I ended up catching more fish and larger fish in some of the big pools below some small falls on Snow Creek. Myrtle Creek new to me and has some beautiful water. The real joy of my trip was fishing a canyon section of the Moyie River where we found some great fish, mostly rainbow, and one really nice cutthroat. It was a great time skipping along the really slick rocks, more like greased bowling balls and I have the bruises to prove it. We probably caught 30 fish in this section that recieves relatively little if any pressure since access is through private land and pretty difficult. Well worth the trip.

August 7, 2008

Met with the cutthroat stalker this morning for a full day of fishing. I am going to keep my post fairly brief as I am bogged down with homework (yuck) but will give you a link to his site that will provide you with a great story I am sure about our trip. We fished the Portneuf in the morning and saw great numbers of mayflies in the area downstream from the parking lot on Croney Road. We were mostly casting to rising fish in the morning which made this trip really fun. Except for the one that got away. It is very rare that you get a shot at a fish more than once that is 20" or longer. I missed the first time and then donated my P. Adams to his nose on my second chance. I dreamt about it last night. We then moved downstream to fish the area downstream from the horseshoe bend. I had good success in some faster water but by 11:00 all the fish had gone down. I found about 5 nice fish on a P.T. nymph in some of the faster water. Most of the fish that we did catch on the Portneuf today were over 15" with a few pushing 20 and one that I landed in the evening that was well over 20". Check out cutthoat stalkers blog for pics and video. We fished in the middle of the day on the South fork of Toponce and had limited success, it was not what I had expected at all but the south fork did fish better than the main fork where we only landed a few fish. I have a post coming soon on my adventures in Bonners Ferry.

Toponce Creek July 22, 2008

I guess Tyler was hot!The creek is really looking in good shape. The big hole
DT's first Cutt on a fly rod

Took Tyler and DT fishin' on Toponce creek. We had a ball until the sun went down. Then the fish went down too. Drove by the Portneuf and it is running high but pretty clear. There should be fish feeding. We had a great time tonight, the only casualty was Tyler's new Cars watch that he bought with his own money today. He forgot to take it off before falling in the creek.

Oregon Pictures