Finally!!!

Whip finish and head cement and you're done. This is by far my favorite

winter pattern in Black Canyon. Tie them in a variety of colors. The only difference

from a regular wooly bugger is the large cone and thick lead wire. Tie them really heavy.

Wrap the chenille forward away from your body and then wrap the saddle

in the same direction. Remember with hackles shiny side forward.

Leave the tinsel for last and wrap it in the opposite direction of the chenille and saddle.

Next tie in the marabou tail and wrap over the lead to make it smooth.

Tie in a piece of chenille, tinsel and the tip of the saddle at the hook bend.

This is a size 4, 4x long hook with a large cone head

and heavy lead.

By the time I finish teaching and doing homework the last thing that I want to do is blog. I have somehow mustered the motivation tonight. I could use this time to complain about all of the fishing that I haven't done but I will instead say that I have fished once in the last month. Pathetic. I got down to tying some Buggers tonight and that perked up my spirits. With the winter all but here, I now dream of Bear River rainbows, and fat ones at that. In preparation for the trip that may never happen I began tying my Black Canyon arsenal. Part one the Wooly Bugger with plenty of weight. Here goes. As you can see the pictures are in reverse order. Great for the dyslexic. 

Pumpkins and Cutthroats

Tiffany and I had a great time today taking the boys to the pumpkin patch in Preston and then retreating to the Cub river for a picnic and fishing. I only got to fish for about an hour, but hey, it was an hour more than the last two weeks combined. The Cub River is a beautiful little cutthroat stream in its upper reaches about 10 miles southwest of Preston. It is pocketwater that has decent little cutts in almost every pocket and seam in the river. The fishing was pretty good, fish were rising to the trusty P.A. and I landed about 5 and missed several others. I did get some pictures though thanks to Tiffany of the river and how beautiful it is this time of year. No fish pictures though, sorry. For anyone that is interested I did pass through both Black Canyon on the Bear River and the Onieda Narrows in the past few days. AWESOME. The water is perfect and the fishing looked great from what I could glimpse of the river. I saw plenty of rising fish in the Narrows in the foam lines and the water below where it is usually to fast to wade was very fishable. Check out the link to Oregon Trout's blog for pics of our Deschutes adventures.

The Elusive Deschutes Steelhead

I have never caught a steelhead before. My trip last weekend led me to the lower Deschutes River in Oregon around the town of Maupin. Maupin is a cozy little town with a few fly shops, restaurants, motels, an eight man football team and not a few steelhead fishermen. Luckily when we arrived at the river after our 1 1/2 hour drive from Gresham at 7:00 AM we found relatively few people on the river and some willing trout on our nymph rigs. I caught 4 of the 5 first fish of the day between the three of us, in the first 1/2 hour and then only two others the rest of the day. Nate got into 3 really nice trout in a row 18, 17 and 16 inches in that order and fat. The fishing slowed considerably by 10:00 and we were working for only the occasional hit the rest of the day. Nate and I fished a section about 1 1/2 miles downstream from where John was and we had no luck. We wandered around for a while and then decided to go find John. When we found him he immediately had a story about a steelhead that he had just hooked but had released early. We thought, "right". Not 30 seconds later John was into a decent steelhead and we were feeling more than a little sheepish. John played and landed the 7 pound steelhead like a pro on a 4 weight rod. That was, in fact, my first and only look at a real steelhead. Oh well, maybe next time, it was still a great time.

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.