Theoretically you can backpack year-round but backpacking in the dead of winter can be tough duty.
I remember once in February I packed in on an ice fishing trip by myself. A ground blizzard hit and I barely made it out.
But for this article we’re going to talk about backpacking into the high country for a flyfishing trip. I usually wait until the week after the 4th.
That way the snow drifts have melted and the 4th crowd is gone. I really like waiting until the middle of August because the water has dropped and it’s easier to wade and the fish are congregated in holes).
With the above said, I had a good backpacking trip last week into the backcountry.
This is getting near grizzly bear sized scat.
Whew, I don’t know if I’m getting old, out of shape or Katy said it was the smoke but I was sucking wind, but regardless, it was good to get away.
I had a business breakfast I had to hit (If you’re free I’ll be giving a 15-minute talk at the next one on September 12th at unBound, a branch of the Meridian Library), as soon as it was over I hit the road.
As is usual in the summer I hit some road construction and one road was shut down for fires so I had to take a detour. But despite the fires, I made it to the trailhead.
When I hit the trailhead, it always seems to take an hour to get my pack loaded. Well, I was soon skipping merrily down the trail. Gee!
There was a lot of bear skat on the trail. By the time I packed out, bears had worked down near to where I was camping.
It was nice to get away. The smoke was not bad up there, at least compared to what we’ve been enduring down lower.
Ok, time to fish. The first hole usually has some nice bull trout. I use big black Woolly Buggers tipped off with 1-2, 64th oz. bullet wts. so, I can get down on bottom but the water levels were low so I didn’t use any wts.
I get my flies from flydealflies.com and by chance they’d thrown in some black wooly buggers that had a few sparkly foil type of threads in them.
For some reason I tied one of them on which turned out to be a good deal. They really liked them.
One of the larger cutthroats that I caught.
Like I said, the water level was down in the first hole, or maybe I should say that things had shifted and the hole had filled in a little but regardless, the water was shallow and semi fast so I was hanging up a lot on the bottom.
A good way to get unsnagged in this type of scenario is to let a big loop of line out. Make a loop about 10 feet past the snag.
Point your rod tip down towards the water surface and strip the line as fast as you can.
This is the equivalence of jerking it from the opposite side which will unsnag it a high percent of the time.
I thought I‘d snagged the bottom and jerked it to see if it’d pop loose. Suddenly I realized that I had a hog on the other end.
There was a big log jam to my left with fast water in front of it but a semi nice hole with slower water below it.
I fought the big bull for a while and could not get it past the fast water. Once he took off and was about to spool me but I got him turned.
I thought a few times about crawling over the log jam and netting him in the calmer water on the other side of the log jam but was afraid that while crawling over that he’d get slack and get off.
I saw him a couple of times during the fight and he was a good 22-24 inches.
After about 10 minutes he got back in the fast water and snapped off. Uggh! I wish I had of tried to crawl over the log jam. He was a nice fish. Nice way to start off the day though hanging a 22-24 fish on your first hit.
After that, the largest bull trout that I netted was a 17-incher.
I did net four beautiful cutthroats that were probably 12-14-inches. In the high backcountry any 13-15-inchers are stunning due to their dark maroon and gold/bronze coloring.
I did have one unique event happen. I was throwing a large elk hair caddis. Two trout at exactly the same moment torpedoed up to engulf it. Visualize this. They hit simultaneously and collided at the fly. They erupted a good 3-4 inches above the water while doing a belly bounce causing one to bounce one way and the other another, flying apart in this pattern.
Well, three days soon came to a close and it was time to pack out and head home. Great trip despite the fishing being a little slow.
NEW GEAR
• Tested some Sea to Summit gear. Tested out well.
Normally I wrap clothes in a jacket for a pillow but this time I tested the Aeros Ultralight pillow. Packs down to the size of a sandwich but inflates to 22”x14”x5.5”. Sweet.
• IKOS Lightweight Tent-Many good attributes. Rain cover flares out so even if you encounter a snow flurry it can’t whip under and into your tent. Also extends out at the doors so you can set boots/pack out of the weather. Best tent I’ve tested.
• ETHER Light air mat. Unique-Attach the carrying bag to the mat, puff once into the bag, roll up which pumps up the mat. I normally need two mats but this one worked well.
• ASCENT sleeping bag-Lightweight/compactable.
Tom Claycomb is a hunting enthusiast and writes a bi-monthly column for Great Basin Sun.