September 25, 2023 - Fishing Away From the Highway

I love fishing this river. If it wasn't for more famous waters nearby, this river would be a destination river. It has cutthroat, browns and rainbows, but it's the cutthroat that I come for. The one problem with this river is that it is followed almost its entire length by a busy state highway. Week days are mostly tolerable, but weekends have a steady stream of cars that make constant noise. 

There are a few sections where you can get away from the highway, but you have to hike over sage and shale, and navigate down through a pretty steep canyon. Still, it's worth it to get away from the sounds of the road. I love the flow of the water and the technical nature of working the fly through and around the pockets. This is definitely a fast flowing freestone, but that's the way I love my rivers. 

I prefer a 400 cm rod in this reach of the river, while further downstream I prefer a 360 cm rod. It's more open up here, and the 4 meter rod gives me better reach when matched with a longer line. The TenkaraBum 40, Nissin Zerosum Oni Honryu 395 or DRAGONtail Ragnarok 400 are all perfect here. The Tanuki XL-1 is also good, but it doesn't have the power needed to control larger fish in faster currents. It's a finesse rod, for sure. Still, it's fun to use. The Oni Type-I is also good for length, but I tend to lose fish after the hook up. 

I mostly use bead head attractor kebari in this section, but when the water is clear and flows are not too high an unweighted kebari works well. I'm sure attractor dries would be excellent on this water as well, but I haven't thrown them in years. 

The bottom isn't slippery but the current can be difficult to fight against, so I watch the USGS river flow gauge data and try to hit it when its not too high. September is prime time on this river.