It is so nice having the sun up until after 7 these days! We took Erik’s parents and headed to Pathfinder after school today. It was quite windy and the wind was cold, but the sun was out and the fish were biting. Michelle caught a few on bait, but they weren’t the biggest of the day. The big ones were all caught on flies this evening. Erik landed at least 6 huge trout and lost several others. Mary fought her lunker for 4 or 5 minutes before the fish finally gave up. It was a great trip!
Aug 1
This backpacking trip was a 9 mile trek from the truck to our base camp. We entered the wilderness Friday at 1pm. Besides Scout, Gordon (79 1/2) and Chad joined us. We were fortunate to have cool cloudy weather on the way in to this area. We hiked for 2 1/2 hours from the Ranger and made camp at 10,000 feet. On the way to camp we saw elk tracks all along the trail and woke both mornings to cow calls and young bulls. Saturday morning we were able to watch the large herd from a hill near camp. We watched elk and ate coffee and doughnuts before climbing another 525 feet to the lake we planned on fishing for the day. After arriving at the the lake we boulder hopped for another 1/4 of a mile to our favorite fishing spot. The fishing was good as usual on the lake with all the cutthroats between 17″ and 20″ with most being seen before casting to. We fished till mid afternoon and then headed back down to camp and dinner. The next morning we had bacon and fresh trout for breakfast while listening to elk mewing and even bugling in the background. The hike out was uneventful except for some picking of unbelievably flavored strawberries and a 20 degree temperature difference by the time we got off the mountains. Watch the video!
What a great trip of backpacking and fishing. We hiked 12 miles in four days and fished 4 different lakes. Two of the lakes we fished had small but feisty brookies, one lake had big cutthroats cruising and feeding all hours of the day and the last lake had nonexistent golden trout that had already moved deep. Scout made this trip with us for his first time carrying his own backpack. He did a great job of staying with us over big boulders and up steep slopes never slowing down. This year the mosquitos followed us up the mountain further then usual not stopping until we reached nearly 11,000 feet. We used a therma-cell mosquito repeller around camp but it had a hard time working at our main camp at 10,500 feet with such little oxygen in the air. The last afternoon and evening that we were camping we were swallowed up by the clouds and had three different thunderstorms move through with lots of rain/hail, wind and thunder. It was a neat experience making one remember how tiny we are on this planet. We found out when we got home this was part of the same storm that killed a climber and stranded 9 other climbers in the Tetons. Thank you, God for keeping us safe!!!
Jul 16
We headed up to Dubois to go fly-fishing for big cutthroats. We took Gordon and Scout with us this trip. We got to the lake on wednesday evening, in time to fish for a couple hours before dark. Erik got into several good fish when he first got into the float tube but the bite only lasted about a half hour before the fish shut off. The next day was good fishing around a sunken island in the middle of the lake after it warmed up form a 38 degree overnight low temperature. We kept 4 cutthroats for dinner and breakfast. Their stomachs were completely filled with leeches. After a good breakfast of bacon, fish and cantaloupe and some more fishing we headed back home around noon on friday.
Jun 24
We are amazed with Erik’s dad, Gordon, every time we go on a fishing or hunting trip with him. He is now 79 years old and has barely began to slow. We hiked into outlaw canyon today. It is at least a 750 foot drop into the canyon and in only a 1/4 of a mile, which is steep to say the least. We fished up the canyon for about 4 hours with a nice lunch of hot dogs over the fire. Fishing was amazing as usual in Middle Fork. We mainly used bead headed hares ears but were able to use some big dry flies with a bead head dropper after lunch with great success. The hike and drive out was uneventful with everything going smoothly 
What an amazing place it is! Watch the video!
Jun 19
We decided to do a little hiking and fly fishing today. We decided to try Bates Creek. It has been many years since Erik has been and Michelle has never ventured to this particular stream. It started as a breezy cool morning. We quickly realized many things had changed over the years in this area. The road to the canyon was closed and we were not sure exactly where we were allowed access. Fortunately we had our gps equipped with public and private boundaries! We knew, even though we couldn’t drive on the road, we were going to be on BLM land and we were safe to cross to the canyon.
Once we reached water it was evident the day would be good. The breeze was not strong this low and the temperature was perfect. We started catching brookies in the first hole we reached. There were even a few rainbows to be had this day. We spent about 4 hours fishing up the creek with bead headed nymphs and both caught dozens of brook trout. It was a very calm relaxing day and we didn’t see one other person on the water- where else on a Saturday can that happen
Jun 14
This weather is crazy. We thought that if we drove to the middle of South Dakota we might have some better luck. No chance. We arrived at Richland Dam and parked in standing water… We brought Scout with us this trip so we could spend some time with him and get him in the water for his first swimming experience. On Saturday night, Erik went out in the float tube while Michelle spent time walking with Scout looking for pheasants. Erik found the gills in a hole under a large cottonwood tree and was able to pull in a good number of 8+” fish Saturday Evening. We didn’t know Scout was so ready for his first swim. But after walking within a close distance to where Erik was fishing Scout just had to go see him. So off he went down a steep embankment, plunged into the water and swam straight for Erik. The float tube was much too small for the both of them and after a lesson in staying afloat, Erik was able to get to shore and encourage the dog to get back on dry land.
In the morning, we both spent time with Scout. It was his first water retrieve and he did great! Watch the video! After wearing Scout out, we put him in his kennel so we could both spend some time on the water. The weather once again played tricks on us. The fish were just not biting like they usually do and like they did for Erik last night. It was still a great trip and we caught some nice gills, crappie and bass.
Aug 23
School has started and we are back to being weekend warriors like the rest of the 9-5ers out there. We raced the kids out the door after school, loaded the 4 wheeler and headed for Dubois. The plan was to fish for monster Brookies and scout for sheep.
We drove into the Winds and worked our way along Union Pass. Before we reached Fish Creek, we saw 3 nice bull moose feeding in a pond a couple hundred yards off the road. We made camp a couple of miles away from the Big Brookie Lake just as it was getting dark.
Saturday morning we were on the wheeler by 5:30 trying to make the early morning bite. It was a brisk ride, but a nice temperature for fishing. We were in our float tubes and fishing long before the sun peaked over the hill. Erik caught the first fish of the morning. It was an 18” fat male Brook Trout. Erik caught 5 fish and Michelle caught two and broke one off. By mid morning we packed the wheeler and headed back to break camp so we could make it to the KOA in Dubois in time to eat dinner and then look for sheep in the Badlands before dark. As we were loading the 4 wheeler we noticed something in the front left tire. We had managed to pick up a fencing staple on the morning ride. We realized it was wedged deep enough that we could leave it in until we reached town. When we got to town not one of 4 places we stopped would fix the tire! Two of the places were ATV sales and repair!! So, we bought a plug kit and did it ourselves…
After making camp and fixing the tire, we ate dinner at a local cafe. We spent the evening working and glassing the badlands close to town. We were able to locate two bands of ewes and lambs and learned more about the roads in the area.
Sunday morning we got up as it was getting light and headed for Wiggins Fork Canyon. We parked the wheeler and hiked all along the canyon rim looking for sheep. Unlike the last trip, we saw nothing. Before returning to town we ventured on a road we hadn’t been on before. It was a good last minute idea because we were able to find another part of the area and there was a band of over 20 ewes within the boundry of Mary’s area. We will definitely explore this spot more next weekend!
Monday morning we had a goal of hiking into Hidden Lake and fishing for Cutthroat Trout, big Cutthroat Trout! We had read how many and how big the fish are in the lake and had been waiting all summer to wet our flies here. We took the highway to the sun to the visitor center at Hidden Lake. On the way we ran in to some construction, which normally would have been frustrating, but it was nice to be able to stop and look for goats along a road that had few pull outs for glassing. It is a very steep and narrow climb on this road. No trailers or wide vehicles are allowed- for good reason.
We made it to the parking lot just before the visitor center opened at 9. After a quick tour of the center and cehcking out a goat across the highway, we started the trail to the lake. It took more that 2 hours to go merely 3 miles. The flowers, marmots, bighorn sheep and mountain goats kept impeding our progress.
This is one of the most beautiful trails we have been on. As you ascend to the lookout point over the lake you will see abundant wildflowers including Indian Paint Brush and Bear Grass. As you top out with waterfalls to your right bighorn sheep and mountain goats share the trail foraging alpine grasses and wild chives. The view of the lake is spectacular, but there is more.
Pass the look out and make the descent to the lake to find more goats and marmots posing and interacting with the tourists. At the lake we took off our shoes to make our way across the cold glacial waters of the creek to find the best fishing spot. We had to work our way more than half way around the lake to get into consistent fishing. ONce we found where the fish we congregation we started catching 14-18” cuts using dry flies. It was very exciting to watch the fish break the surface to take the fly.
The fish in Hidden are fat and healthy and put up a good fight. We stayed at the lake until 4:30 before making our way back to the trail. The hike out proved as exciting as the hike in, we saw many goats and sheep on the way back to the visitor’s center. We decided to make our way to Saint Mary for the night. Just before we left the park for the night we saw a gorgeous black bear eating berries by the side of the road. We found a KOA in St. Mary, it is nice to have a place to clean up and restock every few days….
It took most of the day Sunday to drive to Glacier park. We arrived around 3:30 and found a campsite at the base of Avalanche Lake. As we were making our way to the campsite we noticed many day hikers setting out for a destination nearby. So, rather than wasting the long evening in camp we inquired as to where everyone was heading. A park ranger told us that Avalanche Lake was a 2 mile hike from our campsite.
We all grabbed our fishing and photo gear and headed up the mountain. It was a very easy hike in at this elevation, it took maybe 35 minutes to get to the bottom of the lake where we could view the entire lake as well as the amphitheater and waterfalls to the far side. We worked our way to the middle of the lake where we found a nice sand bar to fish from. We were the only fisherman at the lake this night. Each of us took turns fishing and we were all able to pull in several small cutthroats. Geoff caught his first ever Yellowstone Cut! While we fished a black bear worked his way up the shore on the far side of the lake and a nice whitetail buck kept emerging on the shore at the headwaters. We finished the evening with a walleye dinner and a nice visit with a Canadian couple next door.
