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Fishing and Huckleberry Picking
Weekend of Fishing and Huckleberry Picking
We at Dry Fly Innovations have built our business on fishing public waters and being shoulder to shoulder with our fellow fishing enthusiasts. This past weekend I had to break tradition and fish a private section of the Little Weiser River. I showed up in Indian Valley on Friday evening around 6:00 pm and met up with a family friend named Wendy and we headed to a section of river that my in laws own. They do not own the water of course, but they do own the land on both sides of the river, which gave us a huge advantage because no one fishes it except for Wendy and my father-in-law. The water was beautiful and was flowing nicely; I thought it would be pretty easy to land a few fish in a short amount of time.
Was I wrong! There was nothing hatching on the surface and the Little Weiser looked like a ghost town. There was nothing feeding on the surface and the only bug in the air was mosquitoes and let me tell you there were a bunch of them. I first tied on a little Bare Belly Caddis (Gray) just to see if that might be the ticket. I fished this fly for about 30 minutes and had no rises or refusals so I knew right away that this was not the fly for this particular evening. I immediately switched to a Blue Dunn stimulator and walked up the river a little ways around a bend and found a gorgeous little run of water and I casted into it and nothing happened. I made another cast and bam out of nowhere a fish came right up and took the stimi. The fight was on and after about 30 seconds I landed a little rainbow (8 inches). Naturally I casted right back to that hole and nothing came to it. Nothing came back to my fly the rest of that night. The fishing conditions were tough because there were no hatches and stimulators were not attracting any fish. Nonetheless, it was a fun night on the river; the Little Weiser won that round.
On Saturday my wife Jessica and I headed to New Meadows for a family function and after that we headed to Burghdorf hot springs about 30 miles from McCall. We got there around 7:00 pm and we found a nice little camp spot that was conveniently placed about 30 yards from the Payette River. I immediately rigged up my pole and went to fishing. There was a monster caddis hatch going on and it looked to me like about a size 18-20. So I figured the Bare Belly Caddis (Gray) needed another shot on the weekend so I put that fly on and started fishing. First cast hit the water and it was not on the river 10 seconds and wham a rainbow came up and took my caddis. I got the fish to me and it was about 8 inches so I took the hook out and let him go. Casted back out on the next cast another fish takes my caddis. Fought that fish around and landed it. I fished the same hole for about an hour may be a little longer and in that time I landed roughly 25 fish all small rainbows ranging from about 6-9 inches. The Bare Belly Caddis (Gray) came through with flying colors.
The next day (Sunday) we went to the hot springs and swam for a few hours and then we headed down towards McCall. On our way back the upper end of the Payette Lake looked real fishy, but when I headed down to the river on both sides of the trail all I could see was huckleberries everywhere. I went back to my truck and grabbed a couple gallon size bags and put my fly pole away and started picking huckleberries. My wife Jessica is not big on fly fishing unfortunately, but she enjoyed her afternoon picking and eating huckleberries. Though it was not fishing, it sure was enjoyable being waist high in huckleberry bushes. If you want to plan a fun weekend of fishing and picking huckleberries I strongly advise you to head to McCall and go to the upper end of the Payette Lake. There are millions of berries to pick and plenty of good fishing holes that you can hit in the same area. Go enjoy the vast beauty and joy of the state of Idaho!
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