Up here in North Idaho, weather is a fickle thing. At least 90-percent of the time, the weatherman doesn’t have the faintest idea of what’s going on.
And I don’t blame them.
A classic joke up in this neck of the woods (along with about a thousand other places around the world) is that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. My father, a flatlander by birth, had a classic quip in terms of the weatherman in “he couldn’t predict a fart at a chili cook-off.” For an extremely niche example to the Inland Northwest area, my family viewed the weather for the day through the lens of the Tom Sherry effect: when we watched the weather at night on KHQ, whatever Tom Sherry predicted, it was probably going to be the complete opposite. I had one of those days last Friday.
The weather was predicted to be a balmy and calm 75 degree fall day here in Boundary County. No rain, low humidity, and most importantly, no wind. Yet, when I woke up and let the dog out, the quaking aspen in my yard sounded like a shaking coin purse and the wind chimes I bought Rachel for her birthday last March were singing their beautiful but disappointing song. I had just beat a serious case of HFMD and was finally feeling up to getting outside, and I was no longer contagious.
All I wanted to do was land a trout.
But the wind was howling. The Moyie was out of question due to 1) I wanted to catch a trout, and 2) the wind was going to be ripping in the canyon where I had planned to go.
The Kootenai in town is slow this time of year and the wind really would have played my line hard. So I opted for a nearby creek in hopes to escape the pesky wind and put a couple trout in my net.
I drove myself out to one of my favorite cutthroat haunts and made my way up the creek as I always do. I hit this run and that run, pulling small but glorious trout out and letting them go until I made it to the first large pool that I typically spend a bit of time at.
It really is the ideal pool. A quick, smooth transition at the end of the pool pours out into the creek running below, and over about 20 feet of three- to five-foot deep water holds three separate flows, two usually holding cutthroat and one typically holding brookies.
And these all flow quickly from a large waterfall that is equally beautiful and intimidating. I did escape the wind, but what I didn’t expect is that the air temperature had to have been at least 20 degrees cooler here than when I left my car. The water was frigid. My fingers began to seize up after I released my first fish, a nice little 10-inch cutty with a deep red throat and belly. I’ve seen thousands of these guys over the years, but each time feels like a brand new piece of artwork that nature itself has created just for me.
Being laid up and partially quarantined from my family for the past eight days had begun to take a toll. While it did give me the opportunity to catch up on some reading, tie a few flies, and clean a few of my reels, it was taxing in many more ways.
Sanitizing every surface and item that I touched was a constant annoyance (and I may hold the record now for more Lysol wipes used in one hour), not being able to hug to hug my wife and child, and being stuck inside while there were plenty of trout eating actual bugs instead of my artificial ones.
But as I let the first of the cutthroat with any size on it go, I felt like I was in the right place at the right time. It was cold, but the sun was out over the pool and the log I sat on. It was a bit later in the early fall day and the hoary bats were swooping out of their holes in a large redcedar snag that over hanged the water to hunt the small moths that hovered. All I hoped is they would not try to grab my Hudson caddis that was floating along with the rest of them. The amount of times I have had to yank a fly out of a bat’s grip 20 feet above me on the Kootenai I couldn’t count on my fingers, but today, they could see the difference.
Good thing the trout couldn’t.
There had not been much action on top water feeding in the creek today as the only fish rising for the two hours I fish rose to my fly. But they were still hungry enough to come from the depths, and that is a great sign. After a few more decent cutthroat, anywhere from 10- to 12-inches out of this wonderful little pool, I sat and brewed a pot of coffee and looked up to the clouds. The warm kuksa warmed my hands, the brew warmed my belly and the view warmed my soul.
After a relatively mild summer, I looked upon fall with a smile on my face. Though the fly fishing season up here is dwindling down, the next couple weeks will be good ones to be out and in the water. Fall always brings with it an exceptional last hurrah as the final large hatches take place, the waters begin to cool after the summer months, and the fish are really trying to nosh on anything and everything before the inevitable lack of food happens in their feeding channels.
After finishing my coffee and saying goodbye to one of my favorite fishing spots, I made my way back down to the car with a large smile on my face and a great feeling of accomplishment. Not only had I landed nine trout in the net today, I was back up and at it again and there is no feeling that could beat that.
Well, other than the fact that when I got home, I was able to hug my family again.
The next day I went down to the Kootenai at my house just hoping to catch a fish or two. As I approached the water from above, I saw a large hook jawed, humpbacked, bright red male kokanee feeding off the top. I looked upriver, downriver and back down to the kokanee that was now swimming away. Go back to the spawning grounds, you are a long way from home.
I made my way down the rocks and started swinging wet flies down the current for pikeminnow. It had been almost a month and a half since I had landed a rainbow down on the river in town, and I just wanted the guarantee of a fish that day as I had limited time.
As I swung the fly out about 55-feet from my rock and started to slowly pull back, my fly was slammed. It had to be a pikeminnow with how hard it hit, but then after a few moments, it hadn’t stopped the fight.
My pulse quickened as now I realized that I most likely had a trout on the line dashing back and forth through the fast current.
The fish took my line this way and that, jumped a few times and slowed. I pulled it in, and in front of me was a fine rainbow, probably 12- to 13-inches and deep with color. I admired it while I removed the net from my bag, and the fish wanted to run again. But as I am guilty of doing more times than I want to admit, I held it instead.
Within a second or two, the fish was off the fly and heading back to tell the rest of them, “hey, there is a dude over there with a real convincing fly. But he is a poor fisherman.”
Well, the trout didn’t get the memo since the next swing, I hooked onto another trout that ran the gambit of changing currents and darting under logs. I was more patient this time, and after about two minutes, the rainbow was in my net and I was back in the business of pulling trout out of the river to admire. He was about 13-inches, full of pinks and blues and greens and silvers, and he was a good reminder, a talisman if you will, of how much the river changes throughout the year. The water had dropped aboutsix-inches over the past few weeks, and the trout were out from their normal run and back deep into what is typically the haven of the northern pikeminnow.
If I was fishing dries here, I probably would not have brought up anything but swinging a wet fly this time of year in these river conditions was what was needed. And for the first time at this spot this year, a beaver or two didn’t pop out to scare the hell out of me.
After a few more trout hit the net, all within the range of 11- to 14-inches, I took my leave to head back and cook dinner for Rachel and Olaf while also sprinkling in the talk about the river and the fish, the time of year and the seasons, the changes, the weather.
The toddler didn’t care, the wife has heard about this each and every year for, well, years. But I was happy. I was getting back to normal, or as normal as I can be. I thank the fish for that.