Fall Trip 2011

HENRY'S LAKE

Idaho

This years fall trip took us up into Idaho and Montana to fish at 3 different locations.  We drove to Rigby, Idaho Tuesday arriving late at night and crashed at Jarrons In-Laws house for the night.  The next morning we got up bright and early and drove another hour and a half to Island Park to fish at Henry's Lake for the next two days.

Fishing the first day at Henry's was ridiculous.  We paddled over to the spot we wanted to fish and anchored down just before 9am.  The next two hours of fishing was insane with literally a fish on with every single cast.  What they wanted? Anything olive in color.  We caught them off of the still water nymph and bug both olive with orange tails, and also an egg sucking simi seal bugger.  The afternoon wasn't anything like the morning was but was still good fishing.  We had to work a bit for the fish we caught but the bite was on all day.

This trip also produced a few nice Brookies!  For brook trout these are nice fish.  Definitely the biggest I have caught to date.

Jarron caught the first brook of the day.

Justin with is first brook trout

2nd Brookie

 Mainly we caught a lot of Yellowstone cutts mixed in with a few fat Hybrids and the occasional brook trout. You always knew when you had a hybrid on because they fought a lot harder than the Cutts.

The second day we paddled out to our same spot and apparently word got out because there were about 8 other boats in the same area.  We arrived about the same time as the previous day hoping for the same experience; however the water was dirty and we had to work hard for the fish we caught.

We moved a little further away from all the boats and the fish started biting again.  It wasn't quite as good and the morning before but the fishing was still crazy for the next hour or so with a fish on almost every cast.

This is a great lake to fish because the average size fish is a big fish and there is always the chance to catch a huge trophy. 

Above is Jarron with a nice fat hybrid.

Towards the end of our first day out, Jarron landed this Pig of a hybrid below.  For some reason neither of us had a tape measure on us so none of our fish where measured.

SITZ RANCH
Montana

Thursday evening we left Henry's and headed North towards Sitz Ranch.  Late that night we pulled into a town that was close to the Ranch and camped by a local lake.  The night was dark and spooky and the town was even spookier.  I kept expecting to hear the sounds of banjos playing in the distance, needless to say I slept with my .45 ready to go under my pillow and Jarron slept with his .40. 
Sitz Ranch, or The Sitz as we called it, consists of 3 smaller lakes around 15 acres and one medium sized lake just over 100 acres.

The fish fight HARD here for their size and are nice and fat, but for a private trophy lake the fish could use a few more inches of growth.

Below is another nice brook that I caught from one of the smaller lakes.  I took several pictures of this fish since it had nice color to it and a dark black jaw; however after I let it go I noticed that there was a splash of water on the lens and below was the best non blurry picture that I got.

The KRAKEN

At the Sitz one of the ranch hands told us how to get to the biggest of the 4 lakes, since we were a bit lost for awhile, and told us that when we got there we would want to fish by an old gold dredge and told us, "don't worry, you'll see it". 

This thing was a monster and kind of spooky to get close to.  In the pic below you can see Jarron battling some fish by what we named the Kraken.

This big lake they told us was hard to figure out, but Jarron tied on a olive still water bug with the orange tail and absolutely slayed them.

CLARK CANYON RESV.

Montana

After fishing the Sitz all day Friday, we packed up everything and hit the road again traveling towards Dillan, Montana.  We got to Clark Canyon late after stopping off at another town on the way for dinner.  By this time we were sick of making dinner and putting up the tent in the dark, just to go right to bed and wake up early the next morning.  Clark Canyon Resv. is a shallow reservoir with big brown trout that were moving in towards the shore to spawn.  We caught a few nice browns right off the bat, and worked hard for a few more the rest of the morning.  By noon that day the wind picked up hard and blew us off the lake.

Our plan was to fish all day Saturday, but these fishing trips are serious trips.  We fish from sunrise to sunset, travel a couple of hours after getting off the lake just to set up camp, make dinner, sleep, wake up and put everything away before the sun pops up again.  So, by Saturday after the wind blew us off the lake we called it a day and made the long trip back home.