Tough day on the North Fork

Went early today to the North fork of the Blackfoot with Chris G., Chris L., and Troy. It was Chris L's first time fishing with us, although we've all been good friends since college started. Being on the football team has left little time for him to fish with us. We decided to fish a lower section of the river. The colder weather over the past few days has really affected the fish. We learned that pretty quickly today as the fishing was nothing like it was last weekend. The fish were way less active and I noticed that many of the fish were now sticking to cover like logs and big boulders. This made it very hard to target fish because today they were pretty much in random places. Chris L. and I fished some lower pools while Chris and Troy went upstream. Fishing was slow to begin with and in the first hour I only had 1 follow. Chris L. missed a nice fish and I had a few more takes on a bright flashy streamer pattern before we met up with Chris. He had hooked a bull trout earlier of about 18 inches but lost it. Troy had landed 1 little cutthroat nymphing but other than that both of them hadn't had much action either.

                                                               Troys Cutthroat

Now that I can finally post videos here is one of the many great shots that I got while out on the river today....





The rest of the day went alright. I finally picked up one cutthroat on a streamer that fought like crazy in some fast moving water. It felt good to just get on the board.

                                                        Photo credit: Troy

We continued hiking upstream finding nice pockets. Each of us missed a couple fish and Troy managed to land 2 more fish nymphing.

Farther upstream, Chris and Troy found a really nice pool upstream that was stacked with rising fish. There was a good hatch of small tan caddis and sulphurs in good numbers. Many fish were rising but they were very picky. After each of us gave it a go I found that Chris L. had a sulphur imitation in his fly box. I kindly asked to borrow it and he complied. He should have used it himself! It took many casts but eventually I managed to entice 1 cutty to strike. I got a very good head shot of the fish.

After we fished that pool for a while we decided to call it a day. It was a pretty long day and we got in more than 7 hours of fishing. It was a good day trip but the fishing was pretty tough. I was hoping to help get Chris L. hooked up with a big Cutthroat but it just didn't happen. Hopefully next time.