We now have our third camping trip of the season in the books. This trip was partially a return after my fall off a log pile... which I will have to write about in another post. But for reference sake, the fall abruptly ended our first camping trip of this season at Mackay Reservoir and included a trip to the hospital and a CAT Scan of my back. We are still following up with Physical Therapy 6 weeks later... The other big component of this third trip is that we went with two other couple friends Scott & Cindi and Kery & Patsy. Everyone in this group are fly fishers and most have serious lifetime fly fishing skills and experience. Gari & I are the beginner fly fishers of this group.
We all decided to drive our camping rigs out to Chilly, Idaho to a little BLM campground. Off we went the morning of June 18th, a Wednesday. This was early enough in the week we hoped where we would get our choice of campsites. Sure enough, when we arrived mid day at the Garden Creek campsite we scored a multi-rig site right on the bank of the Big Lost River.
Just arrived and already assessing the river.
Our camping group sitting around camp planning our first fishing expedition. LtoR: Scott, Cindi, Patsy, Kery, Gari and my (Steve's) shoes frame middle bottom.
A beautiful picture taken by Patsy on a fishing expedition in the Big Lost River area.
Cindi drifting a fly downstream.
Scott targeting a "fishy" spot, rod tip down and pointed at the fly, ready to set the hook. Perfect fly fishing form!
Kery & Patsy walk the Big Lost River searching for the perfect "fishy" spot.
Cindi and Steve fish neighboring pools on the Big Lost River.
A farewell Camping Buddies selfie taken with Cindi's auto-shutter.
Back L-R: Scott, Steve, Kery Front L-R: Cindi, Gari, Patsy
Our camping buddies departed for home on Saturday afternoon late. Gari & I stayed and woke up to about 2 to 4 inches of very wet and heavy snow on Sunday morning! This was June 22nd, and in Idaho, that is considered a Late Snow. If it occurs after July 1st, that is considered an Early Snow in Idaho!
Gari & I decided to head to Challis, Idaho and get a hook up in the private campground there because it was c-c-cold and we didn't think there was enough sun to recharge our batteries. We normally won't pull a trailer in the snow, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do!
Once in Challis we refilled water and propane tanks, dumped sewer tanks, recharged batteries, got warm and then went out exploring in search of good river fishing. Challis is situated on the banks of the Salmon River. We soon realized that the Salmon RIver was too big, fast & deep for us to get into and do any wade fly fishing... so, we started looking for smaller rivers and creeks in the area, all the while looking for the next free camping
spot. We thought we would do this in one day, but that turned out to be not possible for us. We decided to stay another two days at Challis and just searching the area for a future camping spot and fishing spots to try immediately. We found several creeks and smaller rivers. Below is Marsh Creek.
Parked at Marsh Creek ready to fish.
Going around the bend in Marsh Creek.
Steve fishing the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River.
Poetry in still frame on the Yankee Fork.
Steve fishing in the East Fork of the Salmon River.
A view along the East Fork.
A view at Valley Creek.
A pretty Trout from Valley Creek.
Fade to black & white on Valley Creek.
Steve tries Stanley Creek with all its dead-fall from previous fires
We had booked a guided Salmon River fishing float in Stanley for Sunday 6/29 as part of our 30 year wedding anniversary bucket list tour, and now it was time to leave Challis, ID and head to Stanley, ID. We went straight to Stanley Lake about 10 miles out of town. When we were pulling into the only available camping spots in a dispersed BLM camping area we were met by a young man and his dog headed out to go fishing. We both stopped and chatted for a few minutes. He said that we would have our choice of view spots and also gave us a few fishing spots to try since he had grown up in the area. We weren't sure what a view spot was until we arrived farther up the road and turned around and looked and saw this! WOW!
These are the Sawtooth Mountains and they are spectacular!
The next two days we put our kayaks into Stanley Lake and spin cast for trout. We caught a couple nice Rainbows there. Below Gari paddles her 10ft Old Town Kayak across Stanley Lake.
We had to visit the famous Redfish Lake. The scenery there is stunning and so are the crowds! Redfish Lake view below.
On the way to Redfish lake we saw the exact photo that we turned into a large wall hanging in our family room (we posted about that here https://pullinchocks.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-switcharoo.html) We never expected to see this exact view. We love the beauty of the Sawtooth Mountains!
Saturday, the day before our Salmon River float, we moved to a campground in town (Stanley) that was within walking distance of the outfitter. Sunday morning we met our guide Scott at 7AM. Scott loaded his raft into the Salmon River just below Sunbeam Dam by 8AM.
The big logs are the slide ramp down into the river. The logs were waaay more steep in person!
Gari drifts a dry fly under the watchful eye of our guide.
Scott was an outstanding guide. He was on time, had everything ready, briefed us on safety and everything we needed to know prior to loading into the raft. Scott was super clear on where we should fish, exactly where we should drift our flies, when we should brace. It was such a fun and outstanding experience. All we had to do was follow Scott's instructions and we continued to catch fish! Below is the first picture worthy Cutthroat Trout.
Cutthroat #2. We caught over 20 fish that day including, Cutthroat, Cutbow, Steelhead, and some big Whitefish. It was a blast and the Salmon River was spectacular.
We returned to the Mackay Reservoir on Monday morning.
It was a hot day in more ways than one! we waited until 7PM and went fishing below the dam.... and Walter showed up! We decided to leave the next morning since the temperatures were approaching the 90s. That was just a little too warm for dry camping. We were home in time to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary at home and prepare for the 4th of July festivities in Swan Valley with friends and neighbors. Happy Independence Day!
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