August 27, 2014

I finally got to really go fishing today.

First, I went back out to Soda Butte to see if anything was visible, but nothing showed. They had been seen earlier, but were all back in the trees when I arrived.

So, I went back to camp and made a lunch to take with me down into Calcite Springs. I hadn't been in there for 2 years, and the last time I was there, the fishing wasn't nearly as good as previous years. With the road construction, nobody was able to get in there last year, so I was hoping things had improved. One concern I had, though, was that I had seen somebody fishing in there with a guide. If the guides are taking people in there regularly, the fishing will probably degrade.

The hike down was mostly uneventful, except a big tree has fallen over the place where the trail goes over the edge of the canyon, blocking it. I had to find a new way down to the first part of the trail.

There was no worry about the fishing being bad. I landed 15 cutthroat in 2 hours and didn't even go down to the logjam. The largest was 18 inches, and 2 more were 14 inches. The rest were in the 10 to 12 inch range. Maybe it was because they haven't seen my ugly red humpy flies in 2 years, they were so enthusiastic. I'll go back in about a week.

After a rest and a shower, I went out to Soda Butte. It turned into a circus. There were around 20 cars at the same turnout as yesterday waiting for some activity. Then a woman came up and said she had seen a black wolf moving away from us down beyond Soda Butte. We sent her to tell Rick McIntyre, the wolf biologist, who was just a hundred feet away. Soon after that, Rick left heading that way. We stayed around for a while when Laurie Lyman, one of the people who help Rick, stopped by. She was talking with him on the radio and he was saying he was seeing the whole pack and telling her where to look. After a while, it became evident that there were too many ridges and trees blocking our view, so we all piled into our vehicles and headed down to where he was. Of course, by then the wolves had moved into a dense forest and we only got sporadic glimpses of them. Then, they were spotted further up towards where we had been waiting originally. So, we all hopped back into our cars and moved further up the valley. By now it was getting dark and I called it quits. I saw 3 pups for about 10 seconds.