Upper Oldman

On Thursday morning we worked up quite chilled. It was cold and humid and felt much cooler than the 4°C that the truck said. We cooked up hot drinks and had a fire to warm up by. After we felt more like doing something aside from warming up, we drove downstream to find some spots to fish. We worked our way on one bank and went around a couple bends, fishing as we went. Mike hooked a fish on nymph in one pool there, but it managed to get away. We tried another hole that looked promising but we weren't seeing anything and it was starting to rain so we headed back to the truck before the trail to the river got too slippery. Once we got to the truck, we were really glad we did as it stated to downpour. We just sat and waited it our for the 10 minutes or so that it lasted.

We went back to site to see how it fared the rain and waited for the rain to stop before having some lunch. Just after that it looked like we were going to get a 45-minute-to-hour long window between rain showers, so we took advantage of it and drove up to the end of the road where the washout was, walked across it and down the road a touch before cutting in to the river.

We tried a couple spots unsuccessfully while working downstream then got to a nice little pool at the bottom of the cliff face under the washout. I tried casting in a bit with a fly but couldn't get positioned well enough to do much. Mike cast in with a nymph and had a nice break on one of his first casts and then hooked one that went for a little run but got off the hook before I could get him in the net. Two casts more and Mike hooked and landed a nice 6" cutthroat.

The funniest part of that was that there was most of an old fly that the fish must have had still hooked in him which ended up staying in the net. So not only did Mike catch a fish and remove his hook, he took another from the fish and left the fish in better shape than before.

That kind of matched what we were doing on the trip in which finding any cans or garbage where we were, we packed them our.

Happy with that we worked our way back up the slope to the road and noticed the clouds, figuring we only had about 20 minutes or so. We hiked down the washout to the other side side of the pool. I tried first and saw a chase and then hooked and landed a 10" cutthroat on a red Chernobyl ant.

Mike was up next and since we were running out of time before the rain, he just fired his nymph in the pool. There was a nibble, but then he got his line all tangled up, so I cast a few while he was untangling. I hooked and landed an 8" cutthroat. By that point the rain was coming down and the rocks were getting slippery so we had to leave to wait our the downpour.

We headed back to our site, which was about a 5 minute drive, and waited out the rest of the rain. We had a snack and then saw another opening before the next rain. We headed back above the falls again although not as far as the last time. We pulled in beside the Beehive Natural Area sign and walked to the river.

There was a good pool up against the cliff face which we went straight for. The pool itself didn't offer much, but the band of water between the current and it was teaming with fish. Cutthroat trout were jumping all over the place.

I caught a 6" fish on my Chernobyl ant as Mike was changing over from a nymph to a dry fly. Then he caught a 5" fish on a foam hopper.

I got another 8" trout and then Mike got a 10" one.

It was a great little pool; a lot of fun, with a great view of the Beehive portion of the continental divide behind us. We even saw an osprey fly by to complete the scenery.

I worked a bit upstream where I hooked a small cutthroat but he hopped off just before landing him. Looking further upstream, we tried some other areas before the rain hit yet again and we walked back to the truck.

We drove back to site and I put on my waders as I was off to see if I could go find the very large bull trout I had seen the day before. As I was getting my waders on, we heard a splashing in the river. I looked our and saw something beige. Thinking it was the waders of another fisher, I said hello. That's when I realized it was a small bull and cow elk walking upriver, and my voice spooked them to run downstream and to shore and up into the trees before I could even get my camera out.

From there it was back to the bull trout, who by this point we had lovingly nicknamed Gigantor.  I went to the corner he was hiding in but didn't see anything there. I tried casting for a bit but all I saw was a solitary cutthroat that wasn't interested in anything. Working back upstream to the next log jam I saw two big brook trout. I slowly crept into the water and laid out some line, but as soon as I cast and my line touched the water it spooked them both.

In all of that my hook ended up caught on a stick on the edge of the logjam and I waded in past my waist to rescue it, unfortunately ensuring the big fish were safely away in their hiding spots.

We went back to the nearest large pool to our campsite but saw nothing happening there, so went back for a late dinner and fire before bed.