Campground Reflections

December 5, 2016 By TB

Our River Ramble travels took us to 45 different campgrounds in 2016. While a few of them were simply travel stops, getting from one fishing location to another, most were places we stayed for 4 to 8 days at a time. Since trout generally live in very beautiful places, we didn’t have much trouble finding campgrounds near each of the TU Top 100 rivers we fished, but they were all unique in their own ways.

Our criteria for picking these started with proximity to the river we were fishing, of course. We were fortunate in that throughout the 2016 “ramble”, we were never more than 10-15 miles from prime fishing spots. While proximity was #1 in our minds, its always nice if the campground has electrical and water connections. The SaraLinda has a large water tank and a diesel generator so we we can easily “dry camp” without having connections. However, its always nice to avoid noisy generators and carrying water weight. Finally, being able to wash clothes, especially when staying for 8 days in one spot and traveling light, is a necessity.

Beyond these criteria, we found three other campground types that really became our favorites. First, campgrounds in state and national parks were special. These always seemed to have bigger spaces for the SaraLinda and our little Subaru XV Crosstrek. They also usually had beautiful, large trees for shade. We stayed in 8 state or national parks during 2016 including: Yellowstone National Park; Unicoi State Park (GA); Deep Creek Lake State Park (Oakland MD); Kettle Creek State Park (PA); Hartwick Pines State Park (MI); and, American Legion State Forest (CT). These were favorites of ours given their beauty and value.

Second, while proximity was our #1 criteria, the ultimate proximity was actually camping on the TU Top 100 river we were fishing. Being able to simply walk out of the SaraLinda and down to the river was awesome! Highlights of this kind of campground included: Ekstrom Stage Station (Rock Creek / MT); Lake Placid KOA (West Branch, Ausable / NY); Kelly Gallops Slide Inn (Madison / MT); Ellensburg KOA (Yakima / WA); Roscoe Campsite (Beaverkill / NY); Angler’s Roost (Bitterroot / MT) as well as Yellowstone NP, Kettle Creek State Park and American Legion State Park. We often overlooked some other criteria like laundry facilities, close to town, etc… in favor of being right on the rivers we were fishing. PS…. if you are ever near Clinton, MT and want a great meal, go to the restaurant at Ekstrom Stage Station.

Third, and it’s really very close to the second, are campgrounds that are CLEARLY there to serve fly fisherman. Of course, such campgrounds are often right on the river but that’s not enough. These campgrounds typically also have fly shops, boat rentals, guide services and more. The prime example of this, is Cottonwood Camp near Fort Smith, MT. When you drive down the road to this campground, in addition to the RVs parked in spots, you see drift boats everywhere. As you near the small hill that drops you down into the campground office, there are even more drift boats for rent. Check in for the campground is actually in the fly shop itself. This campground was fly fishing central for the Big Horn river. Others we encountered on the trip included: Slide Inn (Madison / MT); Anglers Roost (Bitterroot / MT); and Roscoe Campsite (Beaverkill / NY). If you are a fly fisherman and heading to these rivers, you must stay at these campgrounds. If you’re not RV’ing, each of these have cabins as well.

We are really looking forward to our 2017 “rambling” that will take us to 49 more of the TU Top 100 Trout Streams and finding more campgrounds of every type. For now, if you are traveling to any of these areas, please take a look at the campground websites. We hope you enjoy the pictures we’ve included with this “Gallery” post.

Ramble On

Lagniappe

Oregon Outstanding!

November 22, 2016 By TB

We’d been to Oregon several times before starting our River Ramble. It was always flying into Portland for meetings/R&R, hitting Salem for state capitol confabs and occasionally, an education conference on the Oregon coast. In other words, we were always on the western side of the Cascades. It turns out, the four Trout Unlimited Top 100 Trout Streams are on the eastern side of the Cascades in what is “high desert” country.

This area has incredible beauty from the basalt cliffs that line the Deschutes and Crooked rivers to the tall pines and redwoods found near the North Umpqua and Metolius rivers. While we toured these four trout streams, we’d always look up and see the majesty that surrounded us. It seemed we always were seeing the snow fields on Mount Jefferson, regardless of which river we were on.

From a fishing perspective, we caught acrobatic steelhead in the North Umpqua, native Redband trout in the Deschutes and Crooked and one measly fish from the mysterious Metolius. I know, I know, “It’s Not About the Fish” and it truly isn’t. But we have to talk about our “excuse” for our River Ramble sometimes.

Once again, we met some incredible people and had the best guides. Tony Wratney steered me into holes on the North Umpqua, after I’d fallen in the river on my third step in, at 6:30 am, and caught and landed 4 steelhead, in one morning. I thought this was just a typical steelhead fishing day, but, I learned that it was not typical at all, but an epic sort of day. Tony said he’d not brought along his net because he was going to be surprised if we needed it. Little did we both know!

All along our trip, we’ve been blessed with finding a fly shop that really goes above and beyond in helping us. In this case, it was Fly and Field Outfitters in Bend, Oregon. We met Jasper, Gabe, Dave and Griff the first day we were in the shop. Griff is the lead guide and instructor for the shop and we were fortunate to have him as our guide. Griff gave us a most memorable day on the Deschutes. I cannot recommend him enough for his instructional techniques, his manner in working with us on the water, his knowledge of how to fish the water and most importantly, his humor and outgoing personality that kept us laughing and having a great time all day.

A few days later, Eddie Mack from Fly and Field, took us on a trip along the Crooked River. The setting for the river is simply spectacular. The fishing, both nymphing and dry fly fishing, was great. Eddie was incredibly helpful in getting us into spots on the river where fish were holding, and helping us with the flies and best techniques to catch them. Again, many thanks to the entire team at Fly and Field Outfitters for a great time.

We did our best to sample the food and drink of the area as well. We loved our time around Sisters, OR, and Camp Sherman. The Camp Sherman Store is a must stop, given its setting along the Metolius. Sisters is just 25 minutes away and also a must stop at the Sisters Bakery and Three Creeks Brewing. While the secret of Bend has been out now for a while, it’s still a place you must visit; breweries practically on every corner like Starbucks in Seattle. Bend has this outdoor vibe that sucks you in and makes you want to bike, hike, kayak, float, fish, board, ski and even surf right in town. As we were heading up to Washington, we even stopped in Maupin, a little town on the Lower Deschutes. Great fishing…. great food… great flyshop in the Deschutes Angler with three great fly shop dogs: Lupin, Nelly and KD. We’ll definitely be coming back to Oregon.

We hope you enjoy these “highlights” of our time in the great state of Oregon. It truly was outstanding!

Guide Talk, Henry's Fork, Snake River

TroutHunter TJ

November 21, 2016 By TB

For years, we’d heard from our son-in-law, Chris Drake, of the difficulty in fishing the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River near Island Park, ID. How the fish all had Ph.D.’s and were easily spooked. How perfect presentations and drifts were essential to catching fish. Well, we saw these clear, flat waters outside the TroutHunter fly shop in Island Park, ID, but decided our best bet fishing was in sections where there was a little more current and structure that would lend itself to having better luck.

We’d also heard about the local charm of Island Park, ID. According to wikipedia, “the city was incorporated by owners of the many lodges and resorts along U.S. Route 20 in 1947, primarily to circumvent Idaho’s liquor laws that prohibited the sale of liquor outside of city limits. It is only 500 feet wide in most locations and, at 33 miles (53 km), claims to have the longest “Main Street” in the world.” TroutHunter’s fly shop, lodge and restaurant/bar are one of the highlights along the route. We were fortunate to have booked our guide from the shop and to have met friends for dinner at the restaurant/bar. More on that in another post!

We met our guide, TJ Powell, at the TroutHunter fly shop on a cold, crisp October morning and headed off for a section of the river nearer Aston, ID. When we put in, we knew it was going to be a great day because we immediately came upon fish. They weren’t the giants that inhabited the Railyard section of the Henry’s Fork, but beautiful wild trout that fought like crazy.

We had a blast fishing with TJ and hope you enjoy his “Guide Talk” video about fishing on the Henry’s Fork.

Lagniappe, Yellowstone

Snow Day

November 21, 2016 By TB

We had an awesome week fishing, hiking and touring Yellowstone National Park. We stayed at the Madison Campground inside the park. It was just a short hike to both the Gibbon and Madison rivers. The week started with a great guide trip with Patrick Daigle of Blue Ribbon Flies (West Yellowstone, MT). We fished the Madison, Gibbon and Firehole rivers with Patrick and got a great feel for fishing by swinging wet flies for big fish that were moving up the Madison from Hebgen Lake to spawn.

Our typical plan in an area is to go out with a guide on our first day and then fish on our own the next few days. In this case, the day after our trip with Patrick, we awakened to white stuff dropping from the sky…. SNOW! The temp outside was in the mid-20’s. We’d accoustomed ourselves to fishing in the 40’s and even in the 30’s as the temp was during our day fishing with Patrick. However, the mid-20’s was something else. So…. we made a decision….. SNOW DAY!

We took off from the campground about 9am and didnt return until dusk. It snowed on us all day but made the landscape of YNP so beautiful. We hope you enjoy this narrated video of our “Snow Day” touring Yellowstone National Park.

Guide Talk, South Platte

VSP

November 21, 2016 By TB

The South Platte River is a blue ribbon trout stream famous for its most productive sections like Cheesman Canyon, 11 Mile Canyon, Dream Stream and Deckers. We had the pleasure of fishing the Dream Stream section with Vinnie Renda of the South Platte Fly Shop in Woodland Park, CO.

We met Vinnie at our campground at 7:00am on another COLD October morning. Lucky for us the campground didn’t have good cell service because a message from Vinnie came through from days earlier asking us if we could meet at 6:00am. What we soon realized, as we arrived at the river just below Spinney Mountain Reservoir, was that it wasn’t because of good fishing early, but because so many anglers wanted to get the “prime” spots first! When we arrived, there were already at least 10 cars in the parking lot. However, we found there was plenty of water to be found.

As we fished different spots along the Dream Stream section, the winds kept howling with increasing intensity. 30-40mph gusts were common with a constant 20mph wind. This didn’t deter us at all as we chucked our nymph rigs into likely spots and watched for the slightest movement in our strike indicators. When it happened, BOOM… the water would explode as large brown trout would fight to expel the tiny #18 zebra midge fly that fooled them.

We really enjoyed our day fishing with Vinnie and appreciated his desire to keep people off the “redds”. Vinnie explains this and more in his “Guide Talk” as we conducted it inside the SaraLinda due to the gale force winds outside. Enjoy!

Arkansas, Guide Talk

ArkAngler Billy

November 21, 2016 By TB

The Arkansas River starts high in the Rocky Mountains north of Buena Vista, CO. While many come here to whitewater raft through Royal Gorge, it’s also a blue ribbon trout stream. We took on the Arkansas, via raft, with Billy Hicks of ArkAngler Fly Shop in Salida, CO.

As we met Billy at the fly shop and discussed the trip, we found out that he is from Chillicothe, MO, not too far from where Barb and I grew up. We shared great stories about growing up in Missouri and when we got ready to do our “guide talk” interview with Billy, he excused himself to put on another ball cap he was carrying, as you’ll see in the video. We also did the video BEFORE we took off on the trip, because we found a great spot for the interview as we were gearing up to put in. We had a couple of “friends” who “video-bombed” the interview as well.

We had a great day floating and fishing the Arkansas with Billy. We actually floated the section that runs right through Salida, stopping right downtown for a quick break around lunchtime. This is such a beautiful river and the fish were willing along the way. Not huge fish, usually in the 12″ range, but beautiful, hard fighting trout. We know you’ll enjoy ArkAngler Billy’s views on fishing the Arkansas.

Firehole, Guide Talk, Madison, YNP

YNP Magic!

October 3, 2016 By TB

Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is one of our favorite places on earth. We’ve fished in the park many times before, primarily in the northeast corner on the Lamar, Soda Butte and Slough Creek. While we’ve fished the Madison and Firehole rivers before, we’d never fished them with a guide.

We hooked up with our guide, Patrick Daigle at Blue Ribbon Flies, ready to explore a few of YNP’s gems, the Madison, Firehole and Gibbon. Patrick took me out to our first hole, totally away from any other anglers, not a soul in sight, and the “Magic” began. Swinging flies for hungry trout coming up out of Hebgen Lake into the Madison is so fun; waiting for that strike on the fly as it swings and sets off the trout. We explored a few holes, had a few tugs but no takes and then, boom!

First it was Barb who hooked into one of these incredibly beautiful rainbows and the fight was on. We learned some new techniques from Patrick, the most important one was tilting our rod down and upstream. When we did this, it caused the trout to swim upstream toward us. This made Barb’s landing of that first fish of the day so much easier.

Next it was my turn in the pool and within about 5 casts, fish on! While I was practicing the same techniques to land the fish, this trout was really ticked off at getting hooked. He jumped and then ran way downstream and around some rocks. Patrick was preparing me for the likely outcome of loosing the fish on the rocks. However, with a couple of other tips from Patrick, we were able to get the fish away from the rocks and headed back upstream to our waiting net. It was an amazing fight to hook and land this big rainbow.

Our day was made, but there was so much more to come. We went to another hole on the Madison and decided to nymph fish. Good decision! We hit into a great number of big, beautiful rainbows who hit our rubber legs, shop vacs, and prince nymphs. It was lunchtime but we didn’t want to take a break given how great the fishing had become.

Afterward, we hit the Firehole in the canyon section and then the Gibbon. However, the Madison kept calling us back. While we didn’t get back to it with Patrick, he had shown us an “epic” day in YNP and we were able to go back the next day and hook more fish.

Patrick is an outstanding guide and gave us the confidence in reading the waters, picking the right flies, putting us on fish and helping us with the techniques needed to land them in these waters. I won’t mention any of the holes where we hooked into all the fish. You’ll have to book Patrick and let him show you these pristine waters through his eyes and expertise. For now, please enjoy his interview we did along the Madison river after a magical day in YNP.

Guide Talk, Madison

Madison Mayhem

October 3, 2016 By TB

We think of the Madison as one of our “home” waters so it’s always a treat to fish it. When we stopped at Kelly Galloup’s Slide Inn to book our guide trip, Kelly said he knew the “perfect” guide for us…. Doug “Spaz” Pauline. Kelly described him as “kind of a hippie” and lots of fun, which sounded really good to us.

When we met Doug, we knew it was going to be a crazy day…. maybe even some mayhem along the way. We had a great day on the water, hooked into some beautiful rainbow, brown and, ahem, Rocky Mountain golden-hued white “tarpon”. When we got back to Slide Inn for the interview, that’s when the “mayhem” happened.

It’s always fun to do the interview in the fly shop and this was no exception. Doug’s buddies wouldn’t leave him alone as we started the interview and had us laughing constantly. You may hear a bit of their hijinks in the background. We hope you enjoy this “Guide Talk” as much as we enjoyed our day fishing with Doug. ? Cheers!

Guide Talk, Yakima

Yak Attack!

September 27, 2016 By TB

While we were in Oregon, we were told that the Yakima River was simply like the Deschutes… a mirror image, just on the Washington side of the Columbia River. What we found was “Not Exactly”. While we still felt the “high desert” climate and saw similar sights, we found the rivers to be quite different. No “Redsides” in the Yakima. A river that isn’t as wild and woolly as the Deschutes. You can fish from the boat on the Yakima, where on the Deschutes, you float from spot to spot, but have to wade to fish. So overall, for us at least, it was different.

We floated the river with Jeremy Miller of Mitchell’s Evening Hatch in Ellensburg, WA. It was a tough day on the water in terms of “catching”, but the fishing, as always, was great. We “attacked” the Yak with everything we had in the fly box. We hooked into a few good fish, landed a few, but not as many as Jeremy would have liked. It’s always true with good guides, they actually are more determined for us to catch fish than we are. What we found that day, was that we actually had a better day than other boats on the water.

When we left for the day, Jeremy left a dry/dropper rig on my rod. The next day, we went out and Barb, using my rod and Jeremy’s rig, caught a nice 16+” rainbow on a prince nymph with rubber legs that Jeremy had tied himself. Needless to say, we sent our thanks to Jeremy.

Please enjoy the interview we did with Jeremy on the banks of the Yakima River.

Crooked, Guide Talk

High Sticking the Crooked

September 23, 2016 By TB

As you drive south along Highway 27 out of Prineville, OR, you pass through pastureland filled with cattle. Soon however, the valley narrows and you find yourself in a canyon driving along the Crooked River. The section below Bowman Dam is classified a “Wild and Scenic” river; Barb and I will both vouch for that. It is a spectacular drive which luckily, is dotted with campgrounds providing easy access for anglers.

We had the pleasure of fishing the Crooked River with Eddie Mack of Fly and Field Outfitters of Bend, OR. Eddie met us at the Big Bend campground where we “wadered up” and began our trip. For some reason, there were a lot of fisherman on the river this day, so finding some spots where we could have some space proved challenging. However, one of the beauties of the Crooked, is that there is so much access; if one campground is brimming with fishermen, you just head on to the next.

Our first stop was at Castle Rock campground. Barb was a bit concerned with wading on the slippery rocks found in the Crooked, but, with Eddie’s help, we embarked on crossing the river to get to a couple of great fishing spots where we hooked into both the beautiful Redband Trout as well as some rather large whitefish. After fishing here a bit, we crossed back and went to another campground where again we crossed the river to get to the best fishing spots. Eddie was great, helping us traverse the river, making sure our rigs were set the right way and putting us on fish.

We had a blast fishing with Eddie and would encourage anyone coming to fish the Crooked to call Fly and Field Outfitters and book him for a trip. For now, please enjoy our interview with Eddie, stream side on the Crooked River.