Time: 10:00AM – 4:00PM

Location: Himes Peak Campground from western border with private land upstream a mile. At the end of the day, 30 minutes on the White River across from the North Fork Campground.

Fish Landed: 38

North Fork of White River 09/09/2015 Photo Album

Wednesday represented another episode of my repeat of my 2014 experience. I decided to once again visit the Himes Peak Campground area along the North Fork. This segment of the river has been my dependable productive location on all my previous trips. Could it continue the streak?

For some reason I slept until 7:45 on Wednesday morning after falling asleep at 9:30. If you do the math, that equates to over ten hours of sleep. I did have a headache on Tuesday evening, so perhaps my body was reacting to a mild case of altitude sickness. At any rate, sleeping later than normal allowed me to avoid the colder pre-dawn temperatures, as the sun had already poked above the eastern hills and helped to warm the air temperature. I hustled to eat my breakfast, prepare lunch, and complete my normal morning camping routine; although the drive to Himes Peak was only ten miles, and plenty of time remained for me to begin fishing at a productive time.

I arrived at the Himes Peak Campground at 9:30 and once again chose my Loomis five weight for duty. If I expect to toss heavy buoyant dry flies as part of a dry/dropper configuration, I prefer the slow action of the Loomis. Also it is six inches shorter than my Sage rods, and I feel that it places less stress on my shoulder when executing repetitive line pick up motions. When I was ready to hit the water, I wandered into the campground as I was searching for a path that would take me to the stream below the pedestrian hiking bridge. Normally I begin above the bridge, but I hoped to cover some new water to the west. As I was walking about uncertain of my direction, a gentleman called out from the first campsite. He was about to chomp into a nice slab of trout for breakfast, but he interrupted his feast to suggest that I could walk through his campsite and take the path to the river that began there. He was rather proud of his breakfast, and he went on to inform me that he caught the fleshy treat from Slide Lake which can be reached from the Marvin Creek drainage.

I thanked him for his assistance and walked down the path and then west until I found the downstream border with the adjoining private ranch land. I settled on a size 14 gray stimulator as my first offering to the North Fork trout, and I began prospecting likely holding spots with the buoyant attractor. My efforts resulted in two momentary hook ups, but then I went quite a while with no action. This lack of response caused me to convert to a gray pool toy and salvation nymph since these performed admirably on Tuesday. It was not a novel move, but it worked perfectly, and I deployed these flies along with the intermittent use of a hare nation for the remainder of my time on the water.

I moved upstream and landed four decent fish by the time I encountered another fisherman, or actually two. Three of the four fish were extracted from an extremely productive run not far above the footbridge, and several of the first four trout were quite nice and prompted photos. The two fishermen I met on Wednesday would be the only competing anglers I saw on my entire three day stay in the Flattops. Since there was an enormous amount of open water above me, I simply exited the stream and circled above them. This involved climbing a steep bank to the Himes Peak entry road, and then I followed a trail along the fence line until I cut back down to the river before reaching some thick bushes and trees.

I resumed fishing and increased my fish count to seven, and then I took a quick break for lunch at 12:15. Seven fish in two hours is fair, but I honestly expected a better catch rate. After lunch I detoured around a massive tangle of deadfalls by wading a small channel until I merged back with the main flow. But there was a very still slow moving slough at the point where the small channel rejoined the main river, and I stopped to flip a cast above two large criss crossing logs as I hid myself from view.  It was one of those obligatory casts where I did not expect to catch a fish, but why not give it a try while I moved along? As soon as the hopper splashed down, a feisty thirteen inch rainbow trout charged the foam terrestrial and gulped it down. What a highlight!

The remainder of the afternoon was spent prospecting all the likely pockets and deep runs with the two fly combo, and I had a blast doing it. My fish counter steadily incremented until it grew to 37, and this exceeded my best expectations. I did not see any significant hatch activity such as evolved on Tuesday, but it did not matter. I estimate that one out of every four fish smashed the pool toy, and this seemed to occur mainly in short pockets and slots with decent depth. In addition to the plentiful number of fish that filled my net, I also registered a large number of long distance releases. I attribute the lost fish to the fact that many were small and unable to get their mouths around the pool toy. In human terms their appetite was bigger than their mouths. In other instances I was unable to maintain constant pressure due to the many branches that surrounded me.

Any slower moving shelf pool along the edge of the stream was money in the bank. Wednesday was not simply a numbers day, however, as I landed quite a few fish that placed a sag in my net. One rainbow measured fourteen inches and many were in the twelve to thirteen inch range and quite chunky. But beyond the size and quantity of fish, the greatest pleasure was derived from the beauty of these wild jewels. Some were pure rainbows, but most were cutbows; a product of a rainbow trout and cutthroat trout breeding. There was quite a bit of variation in the coloration of the cutbows, with many possessing the light body color of a rainbow, but others displaying the deep amber shade of a cutthroat with an overlaying pink stripe. The fish were as stunning as I have ever seen.

I managed to land one thirteen inch pure cutthroat (no pink stripe), and that was a special thrill. Surprisingly it smashed the pool toy in relatively fast water. I was amazed by this since I thought cutties prefer deep slow pools next to cover.

I also landed a few brookies, but not as many as I expected based on previous year’s experience and the nice specimens that I hooked on Tuesday. A few were decent size, and they were already arrayed in their bright spawning colors. It is hard to find a prettier fish than a multi-hued brook trout in autumn.

Once I quit on Wednesday I needed to scale a very steep bank, and then I was fortunate to stumble on to a relatively visible worn trail. The path led me to an open meadow where the road came into view, but as I came within fifty yards of the gravel lane, I realized that I was blocked by a barbed wire fence. I removed my wading staff, front pack, and backpack and threw my rod into the grass on the other side. In this slimmed down state I was able to separate the top and middle wires and squeeze through without touching the fence. Fortunately I am not a very large person.

A thirty minute walk on the road brought me back to Himes Peak where I shed my fishing gear and drove on to Trappers Lake Lodge. Here I purchased a bag of ice for my cooler and paid $2 so I could use the lodge’s land line to call Jane and let her know that I was alive and safe.

On the return to the campground I decided to stop and fish the North Fork public water across from the camping area. I fished here in previous years but never experienced the success of Himes Peak or the area below Trappers Lake. Wednesday was no different, although I only fished for thirty minutes, but I did manage to land one six inch rainbow to up my total to thirty-eight. At the very end of my time I approached a large deep pool and converted to a sparkle minnow. I chucked twenty casts into the promising hole and varied my retrieve, but the streamer tactic was not effective.