Report From Back Home

My dad called me yesterday with a report from Salmon River in NY. Its prime time for king and coho salmon now on the great lakes tributaries and my dad headed over to fish a couple days on the Salmon (probably one of the most famous rivers in the north east). He said he had landed a monster king and sent me pics later in the day.......

Quite the fish! Nice catch dad. I'm very jealous of everybody back in NY and seeing these pics and hearing reports makes me miss NY. However, I will hopefully be out on Idaho's Salmon River fishing for steelhead in the coming weeks. I talked to my friend and fishing buddy Chris Stiles who said he will be brook trout fishing this weekend. He said all the streams are in great condition and the weather is looking perfect for both days. He should get into some trophy sized Adirondack  native Brookies. To hear more reports from NY check out Chris's blog at http://schroonriverangler.blogspot.com/.

Blackfoot- Afternoon

Chris, Cody, Troy and I headed up the Blackfoot this afternoon to streamer fish. We drove up an access road about 4 miles and found a nice stretch that Cody and Garret had previously fished. Conditions were cloudy and cold but the rain seemed to be holding off. Troy and I headed downstream while Chris and Cody headed upstream. We found some great water immediately and we both fished a nice run/pool thoroughly. About halfway through the run I was stripping the fly in quick short bursts and I watched as a big fish missed my fly. A few casts later I had a fish nail my fly on a fast seam. The fish fought very hard and was actually a challenge on my 5 wt. As I eased the fish towards shore I noticed I had somehow hooked it near the pectoral fins. The fish was a rainbow of good size though and I landed him. It was a cooperative fish and I had troy take a few pics. The fish was about 17 inches.

The fly that I caught the fish on was a new streamer pattern that I tied yesterday. Olive has seemed to be the best all around color lately. The rest of the day went pretty slow. Troy and I walked upstream after a while and found Chris and Cody. They had covered a lot of water but neither of them had landed any fish. Cody had hooked one and had a few other takes. I watched them fish for little while and then we all called it a day. It was a good day in that I finally got a fish and kept my streak alive of not getting skunked since being out west. We'll see how long I can keep it going.

Clark Fork- Morning Report

Woke early today to go streamer fish. It was really cold and there was a constant drizzle. The water levels have come up a bit and the water is slightly off colored. I started with a bright flashy colored streamer and fished below the falls. I had one good grab about 10 feet in front of me but missed the fish. I then walked a mile and a half upstream to the pool that I've gone 2 for 2 on streamers. I fished it thoroughly, 3 times through with 3 different flies, each time applying about 6 different stripping patterns for each section of the pool (i.e. I fished the shit out of the pool.)...... No takes. For the first time since I've been out west I have been skunked. However, this was just the morning report. There's still a lot of day left......

Cabinet-Yaak Wilderness Grizzly Bear Reseach Project

Had a great couple days up in Troy, Montana volunteering for a Grizzly Bear research project. Chris and I left Monday after classes and made it up to Troy around 8pm. We met the rest of the crew at the field station(a leased house). There were 3 grad students who would be teaching us how to identify and record bear rubs as well as set up barbed wire hair snares in order to collect hair samples for next summers population study.
The next morning everyone split up and we headed out onto some trails. I went with Brian who plans on studying ornithology during his graduate research. Brian and I picked about a 10 mile trail to do. We were dropped off by Ashley(another grad student). It was a wet and cloudy morning but we started early on the trail. About a mile in Brain spotted the first bear rub. I learned first hand what some of the bears do when they rub against the trees.

After identifying the rub, I set up my first bear snare. The snares, which are basically composed of barbed wire, act as a hair collector when the bear rubs the tree. The process is not all that hard. After identifying a rub we first burn the bear hair that was left on the tree. This is so that when researchers collect hair for the study, it is more recent. After burning the hair, one person sets up the barbwire lengths, criss-crossing them down the length of the tree, depending on where hair was found. The other person (Brian in this case), records all the information pertaining to the rub such as distance from the trail, condition of the hair found, diameter of the tree, district the rub was found in, trail number, tag number, other bear signs, and GPS location. Each rub is marked as a way point in the GPS and later reported. Setting up the barbed wire by nailing it to the tree with U nails was actually tougher than I thought. We finished in good time though and we continued on. We hiked along a ridge for a long time and saw many older bear rubs. We also saw many cases of where bears tore up the trees with their claws.

It was amazing to see some of these trees just torn to shreds. It really shows how strong these bears really are. We ended up seeing one more rub on the day and put up a snare. After that involved a little bit of Hell. We continued on what we thought was the trail and ended up at the end of an old logging road. When we looked on the map and GPS location we discovered we had gone way off course and ended up basically in the middle of nowhere. Our options were to bushwhack 2 miles looking to hit the other trail of follow the logging road all the way back to the road that we drove in on. We decided to take the road, not knowing we would have to bushwhack about half the time through thick bushes. It was hell and we were both freezing by the time we hit the road. Unfortunately we had to wait an hour and a half more for our ride. We were cold but we laughed about it after. It was a tough day, but a great one too and I learned so much about bears and the way they act.

The next morning we were up again and picking trails to do. Today would be an easier day. We headed across the boarder to Idaho and hiked a 2 mile trail. We checked out a previous snare set up a few days ago and found that there was already some big clumps of hair attached to some of the barbed wire.

The silver tips on the hair suggested that it was most likely a grizzly. We continued on down a logging road and met up with Ashley who had the truck. For the rest of the day we surveyed roads for bear rubs and found 2 more. We were glad to have a more relaxing day and we finished up early and headed back to Troy. When Chris got back from his day of work we packed up the car and drove back to Missoula. It was a great learning experience and I'm glad we went. Our volunteer work will give us a good opportunity to be hired next Summer as Bio Techs.

Cabinet-Yaak Wilderness Grizzly Bear Reseach Project

Chris and I are leaving right now and heading to Troy, MT to take part in a Grizzly bear research project. The project involved analyzing bear rubs and setting up hair snares in order to conduct DNA research to identify individual grizzlies in the area. Next summer a major study will take place. The focus of the study is to estimate the total number of grizzlies in the area. We're both really excited to get up there. And as a bonus, we'll probably fish on the way there and the way back. We'll be back Wednesday night.