The Salmon River

In the fall of 2010 my friend Rusty and I made our trip out to fish the Snake, Grand Ronde, and Clearwater. River conditions on the Snake were a little tough with some pretty high water temperatures on the Snake and a frustrating number of people on the Clearwater. We caught a few fish on the Snake, had a few early grabs on the Clearwater and that kept us fishing there longer than I wanted, but other guys were getting fish. One guy got a fish on a popular run that I had just told Rusty was a pure shit of a run. I guest don't get the Clearwater.

After about five days jumping between the Snake and Clearwater, we decided to try some new water and headed down to the Salmon river near Riggins, ID. On the drive down I realized the down side to the Salmon is that if you get there and it is not fishing, you will have a long drive to find them. The drive down was really neat though, as you come south down 95 from the Clearwater you a following the route that Lewis & Clark used to return to the east, after reaching the Pacific Ocean. Rusty has read the accounts of that trip and was able to tell me about some of their adventures as we headed through passes and valleys of Idaho.

We passed through a town on the way that had the full skeleton of a mammoth in a glass house. I am often looking for spots where ancient people would have traveled or lived in the lands I fish and here was a sign of the truly ancient, the prey of America's first humans. The slopes around us were wooded with several streams and they over looked a great grassy valley. I imagined people gathering fire wood and being able to see the mammoth in the distance, across the valley 8,000 years earlier.

Anyway, we had to get licenses in Riggins as well as camp supplies so we got to the Salmon too late to fish, but were able to identify a few good looking spots to start on the next day. As we made camp we had a Small doe wandered by our beautiful and relatively solitary camp and that was just the beginning of the deer we saw over the next day and a half. We saw lots of "small" bucks(according to Rusty that is, to my whitetail eyes they looked huge) and does along the banks and hillsides of the the Salmon.

This year Rusty brought a camper, and it was really awesome. We got camp set up pretty quick and efficient, as Rusty got me in line with camp chores and trailer moving, although I was the one who encouraged all the moving...but that another story. The point is that the trailer was great and that we had a good camp there on the Salmon.

The next morning we were up bright and early and on the river. We marked a few spots on the GPS on the way down the Salmon the day before. I started, what I thought was about half way down the run, but this run like lots of runs we found on the salmon are just a little different. I was at the head of a little twelve-to-twenty cast spot, but it only took three.

I hooked and landed a pretty bright hatchery hen, especially for being over seven hundred miles from the sea (I will double check on that number)