Fall is Prime Time in Hells Canyon! Trip report on our 4-day fishing trip!

Hanging out around the campfire is one of my favorite things to do on fall float trips. 
I pack in firewood in a dry bag so we have plenty. 

Hi all, 

A week ago, I had the privilege of visiting Hells Canyon once again on a fall fishing trip with a small group of good friends. Even though I've done tons of fall trips in Hells Canyon, I always am awe-struck by the steep, gnarled black cliffs rising from the canyon below Hells Canyon Dam. 

It's truly a magnificent sight to behold on a sunny day. On a rainy day, like we surprisingly had last Thursday, we had jet-black skies threatening overhead, combined with the austere black cliffs of Hells Canyon. My gut was churning big-time. 

Looks like rain! I hate rigging and packing my raft in the rain! But at the beginning of a trip, I've always got a ton of adrenaline pouring through me - a mix of excitement about being on the river again, apprehension about the big rapids in the biggest-scale whitewater experience in Idaho, overstressing about what I forgot or didn't forget in terms of group gear, and now, the weather. Whatever!   

We caught lots of nice small-mouth bass, all catch and release. Fun fighters! 

We got the boats loaded before the rain hit, and then we sat out the first burst of rain under a shelter at the put-in. And then it let up for a few hours. 

Time to start floating and fishing! My friends Jim Acee and Bruce Reichert were in the front of my raft, and Acee was ready to slay the bass and trout with two fishing poles in hand and all of the trusty spin-cast lures that work in Hells Canyon. Bruce was spin-fishing for the first time in decades since he normally fly fishes at high mountain lakes. But within minutes, both of them had fish on! 

Very slowly, I worked the eddies alongside the river, and the boys caught a number of small-mouth bass. Very few trout! 

In less than 4 miles, we made camp on this cool sand bar and natural cove in the cliffs on river right. Looking up at the sky, I could see a few patches of blue, but it looked mostly dark and more rain imminent. We put up my big-ass 16x20 foot tarp, set up our kitchen stuff under that, and we were ready to sip cocktails and enjoy the scenery, rain or no rain. 

My tarp is big enough to cover the kitchen area, plus lawn chairs!  

As many Idaho boaters know, fall river trips are a great way to enjoy cooler weather, fall colors, as well as fishing and bird hunting along the way, side-hikes, etc. Hells Canyon is one of my top picks because road access is relatively easy from Boise (5-hour drive), it's got more water flow (7,000-11,000 cfs) than other Idaho rivers this time of year, and the fishing is very consistent and pretty amazing, considering the variety of fish in the Snake River. 

People fish for rainbow trout, small-mouth bass, and sturgeon, plus steelhead are running now, and fall Chinook salmon also are running now. If you don't have your own raft, you can go with a Hells Canyon outfitter or book a jet boat ride with Hells Canyon Adventures, Hammer Down River Excursions, Kilgore Outfitters and more. See Riggins Chamber or IOGA for a full list of outfitters.

The logistics for Hells Canyon are as follows: Put in a Hells Canyon Dam and float to Pittsburg Landing, a distance of about 35 miles. This trip is easily doable in three or four days. My advice: Take as much time as possible. After Labor Day, only self-issue permits are required, available at the put-in. Shuttles can be arranged through Scotty's gas station in Pine, Oregon for $225 cash. They do a marvelous job!

Below Sheep Creek ... sturgeon road ahead! 

On Day 2, I had Bruce oar the raft and I fished with Jim in the bow. The fishing was hot! We hooked a ton of bass throughout the day. We cast against the black canyon cliffs into these nifty little coves and small pools, and bam! Fish on! We released all of the bass because we had Bruce's famous chicken piccata to look forward to for dinner! Plus pineapple upsidedown cake in the Dutch oven.

But first, we ran Wild Sheep Rapids, the first big Class 4 drop at about Mile 8. I went up on the mountainside to scout the big rapid, and at 7,000+ cfs, the best route looked like the typical run for this time of year. You enter on the left-center side of this massive rapids, and then row super hard to the right-center of the rapids, and hit a narrow slot as a giant left lateral wave merges with a giant right lateral wave.

We saw a group of kayakers and one raft approach, and the lead kayaker was barking orders to the other kayakers and they didn't scout. Well, the lead kayaker made the right move, and the rest of the kayakers got absolutely slammed by a wall of 12-foot left lateral waves on the left-center side of the rapids. That was interesting to watch! Long swims for those dudes. 

Bruce and Jim 

But I hit the slot, and Kristin Nelson nailed the run as well in our group, so we were homefree to make our next camp and enjoy Bruce's chicken piccata. This time around, Bruce moisturized his dried morels with white wine, and that really added a tasty zip to those luscious shrooms! 

Third night camp. Rosy clouds hint of the sunset to come.

The next day, we needed to make some tracks. We floated through all of the whitewater rapids without a problem, caught more bass, and lunched at Johnson Bar. We ended up at Caribou Creek camp that night and had chili from Kristin and her husband, John Blanchard. The sun came out with a vengeance that afternoon, to the point where I had to swim to cool off! Quite the contrast to the start of our trip. 

Anyway, I highly recommend a fall trip in Hells Canyon. 

Here are a few other options for fall trips:     

• Lower Salmon Canyon - Float from Hammer Creek to Heller Bar or arrange for a jet boat shuttle to Pittsburg Landing from the mouth of the Salmon. It's almost 50 miles from Hammer Creek to the mouth of the Salmon, and the river is running very low, so allow for plenty of time to do your float. Fishing is limited to small-mouth bass and steelhead in this section. 
• Salmon River near Riggins - If you don't have time to do a longer trip, you could put in at Carey Creek or Vinegar Creek and float down to Riggins while fishing for steelhead and hunting chukars. 
• South Fork Snake River - Put in at Palisades Dam for the long version of the float or at Swan Valley and float to the takeout at Heise. The South Fork Lodge in Swan Valley does shuttles. Check with the experts on what kinds of flies the fish are taking. The cuts on the South Fork get fished very hard by a steady stream of outfitters every day. By this time of year, it's more locals than outfitters. Here's a blog post I did on the South Fork two years ago. 

Fall trips provide great opportunities to see wildlife.
We've seen multiple black bears in Hells Canyon. 

Steve talks about his latest outdoor adventures with Ken and Melissa on 94.9 FM The River every Friday morning at about 7:40 a.m. Please tune in! 

Three Sweet Hikes that Shine in the Spring - Hells Canyon, Rapid River and Mary's Creek/Sheep Creek!

Denise Lauerman enjoys a spring backpack trip in Hells Canyon. 

Hi all, 

Spring is just four days away on Sunday, March 20, so the actual spring season according to the official American calendar is upon us. The trails and roads in the low country are beginning to dry out - in between rain storms - and the weather is warming up into the 60s at times. That gets people antsy for an outdoor adventure. 

For my outdoor tip of the week, I'm recommending three sweet hikes that shine in the spring in SW Idaho:

- Snake River National Recreation Trail in Hells Canyon, starting from Pittsburg Landing. 

- Rapid River Trail in Riggins. 

- Mary's Creek and Sheep Creek in the Bruneau River country.

The weather forecast for this weekend looks sunny on Friday with a high near 60, cloudy and rainy on Saturday, and then clearing and sunny on Sunday with a high of 50. That's the forecast for Boise and Riggins. Even if this weekend doesn't work to visit these destinations, you could wait and visit one of them at another time. 

Snake River National Recreation Trail. A few years ago, I wrote about hiking or backpacking 6 miles (one way) from Pittsburg Landing to the Kirkwood Historic Ranch. A friend of mine, Denise Lauerman, and two of her friends backpacked to Kirkwood, and spent a couple of nights camping in Hells Canyon before returning to the trailhead in Pittsburg Landing. 

"It was a great trip -- I can't wait to go back," Denise said.

Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America at over 7,000 feet, stradles the Idaho-Oregon border for more than 100 miles. The mighty Snake River flows through the heart of Hells Canyon and continues on to Lewiston. Hells Canyon is usually the warmest spot in Idaho, and it's also drier than many areas, so it's a good bet for a spring trip. Ditto in the fall. In the middle of the summer, it gets sizzling hot; hence, the name. The austere black rocky canyons also have contributed to the name.

The trip starts with a 4.5-hour drive from Boise to Pittsburg Landing, the trailhead, via ID 55 to New Meadows, U.S. 95 to Whitebird, and then a well-maintained, steep gravel road from Whitebird over Pittsburg Saddle to the trailhead at Lower Pittsburg Landing. Signs will guide you the whole way from Whitebird. Four-wheel-drive is not required.

Kirkwood Museum 

It's 6 miles from the trailhead to Kirkwood Ranch. Denise and her friends drove in on a Friday, backpacked to Kirkwood in the afternoon (allow 2.5-3 hours travel time) and base-camped on the grass next to the Kirkwood Museum, where former Idaho Gov. Len B. Jordan and his wife, Grace, ran a sheep ranch in the 1930s.

The museum is definitely worth visiting. Behind the ranch, there is a two-track gravel road that climbs Kirkwood Creek for more than 3,000 feet to a high saddle. This is a great side-hiking opportunity that Denise and her friends climbed on Day 2, seeing all kinds of cool wildlife and landscapes along the way.

On Day 3, they side-hiked to Suicide Point along the Snake River, came back to Kirkwood, strapped on their backpacks, and hiked out. Suicide Point provides great views of the river canyon.

For more information, go to the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area web site. You can purchase maps at the Hells Canyon NRA office in Riggins.

See the full post Hells Canyon hiking 

Rapid River Trail (courtesy Hiking Project) 

Rapid River Trail in Riggins

This is a beautiful hike along Rapid River when things are greening up and coming to life in Riggins. Here's a description from All Trails. Full length is 8.6 miles out and back. You may not be able to go to the top of the hike, but you could likely hike a couple of hours to a high point that works for you. The trail winds along the river and then climbs up on a high ridge. Great views of the surrounding area. 

Trailhead is next to the Rapid River Hatchery on the south end of Riggins. Watch for signs on U.S. 95 to the hatchery.

Barb Cochran looks into Mary's Creek canyon, a tributary of Sheep Creek.

Mary's Creek and Sheep Creek 

Mary's Creek is one of the easiest places to access in the Jarbidge-Bruneau Wilderness. You can do a 8.75-mile loop hike from the Mary's Creek Trailhead to Sheep Creek canyon and back. The route I recommend in my Owyhee Canyonlands book takes you along the edge of Mary's Creek canyon, which features large black lava rock,  and then you drop quickly into Sheep Creek canyon (rhyolite and basalt) where you can have lunch or camp out next to the creek. And then retrace your tracks back to the trailhead. 

You also can camp at the Mary's Creek trailhead or in other BLM dispersed camping areas off the Roland Road.

Getting there: Take I-84 to Mountain Home, then Idaho 51 to Bruneau. Head south on Idaho 51 toward Duck Valley. It's about 40 miles from Bruneau to the signed turnoff for Roland Road on the left side, just past the old bar and junk yard in Grasmere. Go left on Roland Road and take that good-quality gravel road 5.2 miles to Mary's Creek Wilderness trailhead. 

Huck checks out Sheep Creek. 

- SS

General deer season opens Saturday; Try to squeeze in a fall cast-and-blast float trip

Hunting season is upon us! General deer season opens on Saturday statewide.
Scott Smay is pictured here on the edge of the Frank Church Wilderness. 

Put bright colors on your dogs if you take them in the woods
during hunting season. 

Rick Gerrard enjoys catching fish while soaking in the grandeur of Hells Canyon. 

Steve hauls in a fall chinook while Huck inspects the prize. 

Black bears scout for berries in the hackberry trees in Hells Canyon.

South Fork Snake River in summer mode ... 

Wendy on a side hike on the Middle Fork in October ...
We had the whole river canyon to ourselves for a week! 

Hi all,

Well, the endless summer in Idaho is coming to a close as the days get shorter, the temperatures drop more steeply at night, and the calendar clicks into October. Fall general rifle hunting seasons also are kicking in on Saturday, Oct. 10th, with the opening of general deer season in many parts of Idaho, and general rifle elk season will follow close behind on Oct. 15 (McCall unit) or Oct. 25 (Weiser unit) or Nov. 1st (Boise unit). See the Idaho Fish and Game regulations for details.

Summer-like weather in the afternoons in October can be marvelous, however, so it's tempting to continue your fall hiking, biking, backpacking, and mountain-climbing trips amid the throngs of hunters. Be smart and wear hunter orange and put some bright colors on your puppies to protect yourself.

I'd also recommend trying to squeeze in a late-season float trip on the Lower Salmon River, Middle Fork Salmon, Main Salmon or Hells Canyon to fish and hunt chukars, if you're so inclined. This has been an annual tradition for me since the late 1980s, and it's always a great time. In Hells Canyon last weekend, the fish were biting big-time, and there were lots of chukars running around on the Oregon and Idaho sides of the river. We caught tons of small-mouth bass and rainbow trout and four members of our group caught a big fall chinook salmon.

In a matter of days, the steelhead will be running stronger up the Salmon River and Snake River, so you could add these beautiful ocean-going fish to the list of fish you might catch. If you have people in your group who carry big-time fish tackle for sturgeon, that'd be another potential prize to pursue.

From the standpoint of trip logistics, it's easiest to put together a Lower Salmon or Hells Canyon trip in SW Idaho. For those who live near Stanley, Salmon or Idaho Falls, a Main Salmon trip would be easier to pull off, but it also would take more days to do the 80-mile trip. The South Fork Snake River is another great fall trip near Idaho  Falls, where you can fly fish for trout and maybe find a grouse in the woods above camp.

Here are some basics on the fall river trips:

• Hells Canyon - Put in a Hells Canyon Dam and float to Pittsburg Landing, a distance of about 35 miles. This trip is easily doable in three or four days. Take as much time as possible. Only self-issue permits are required, available at the web site. Shuttles can be arranged through Scotty's gas station in Pine, Oregon for $160 cash. They do a marvelous job! 
• Lower Salmon Canyon - Float from Hammer Creek to Heller Bar or arrange for a jet boat shuttle to Pittsburg Landing from the mouth of the Salmon. It's almost 50 miles from Hammer Creek to the mouth of the Salmon, and the river is running very low (3,500 cfs), so allow for plenty of time to do your float. Fishing is limited to small-mouth bass and steelhead in this section. 
• Salmon River near Riggins - If you don't have time to do a longer trip, you could put in at Carey Creek or Vinegar Creek and float down to Riggins while fishing for steelhead and hunting chukars. 
• Middle Fork Salmon - Arrange a fly-in to Indian Creek or Middle Fork Lodge area and float the Middle Fork in October. Pick up a river permit on recreation.gov. I've done solo one-boat trip on the Middle Fork in October with Wendy, and also smaller group trips. Fly fishing for cutthroat trout really turns on in the sunny afternoons. Also can hunt chukars. Here's a previous blog post on a late-season Middle Fork trip. Keep an eye out for black bears! A floater got attacked in the last week by a hungry bear! We saw six black bears on our trip in Hells Canyon.   
• South Fork Snake River - Put in at Palisades Dam for the long version of the float or at Swan Valley and float to the takeout at Heise. The South Fork Lodge in Swan Valley does shuttles.  Check with the experts on what kinds of flies the fish are taking. The cuts on the South Fork get fished very hard by a steady stream of outfitters every day. By this time of year, it's more locals than outfitters. Here's a blog post I did on the South Fork two years ago. The South Fork is also good for seeing moose and bald eagles.   

Have fun and enjoy the fall!
- SS

It's not too late! Celebrate Idaho's rivers by planning a "staycation" on our four best rivers

Ah, rafting on the Salmon River! Life is good! 

Kids reading books? No electronics to divert their attention ... 

The historic Jim Moore homestead on the Salmon River near Campbell's Ferry. 

Dutch oven cooking! 

Happy people! 

Hiking! This is Amanda Damon from Rhode Island. She'd never seen so many mountains ...  

The kids love paddling the double ducky. Thanks Mark! 

Hi all,

After posting pictures from our recent trip on the Main Salmon River - River of No Return, I heard some people say things like "jealous!" and "wish I could go" and of course "beautiful!"

We are blessed with a bounty of awesome, wilderness river trips in Idaho, and the Main Salmon is one of the crown jewels. I also heartily recommend doing a trip on the Salmon, the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, the Selway River and Hells Canyon of the Snake.

It's not too late! There's still plenty of time to plan or book a whitewater wilderness vacation with your friends and family. Given how dry it's been this spring, the experts are predicting a big wildfire season in late summer. You'd be smart to plan a river trip in July, if at all possible.

Who go? The Main Salmon is arguably one of the best family wilderness whitewater vacations in America. And it's located right here in our home state in Central Idaho. You camp on spacious beaches with lots of shade afforded by tall stately pine trees. You get to play on the river during the day, and then you can set up the volleyball net on the beach, play bocce ball, hang out and enjoy the scenery, and more. Plus, there's hot springs, history, and Buckskin Bill's and Mackay Bar, where you can buy fresh ice cream for your kids.

River trips are one of the cushiest forms of camping you can imagine. Instead of hauling all of your food and clothes on your back such as in backpacking, the raft carries all the weight. You can bring iced coolers with just about any food items you want, plus you can carry plenty of favorite beverages for the kids and adults.

As you're enjoying the float trip during the week, the members of your floating party bond and get to know each other on a much more personal basis. You will make lifelong friends on the river. And you will fall in love with the river canyon.

The Main Salmon is best suited for families and novice boaters because the rapids are not as hard to navigate as they are on the Middle Fork, Hells Canyon or the Selway. Follow an experienced boater down the river, and you'll learn a ton. My cousin from Rhode Island learned how to row a raft on our Main Salmon trip, and by the time he reached the end of the trip, he had learned a ton, including how to self-rescue in the middle of a rapids! (Chittam).

For the do-it-yourself boating community, the hardest part of getting on the Main Salmon, Middle Fork, Selway or Hells Canyon is drawing a permit. I picked up a cancelation for June 10th in April from recreation.gov, so I had plenty of time to plan a trip and pull together a diverse party of 16 people.

If you still don't have a permit for this summer, watch the recreation.gov web site for last-minute cancelations, and grab a date that works for you. It will likely be easiest to find cancelations on the Main Salmon or Hells Canyon. The Middle Fork will have some cancelations, particularly in later summer, and the Selway is unlikely to have any cancelations, as only 1 launch is allowed per day.

The second way to book a river trip is to go with an outfitter. Idaho is blessed with a multitude of quality outfitters. As longtime businesses operated on Idaho's best rivers, the outfitters receive an allocation of permits for their trips. So you don't need to draw a permit to go with them. You just have to pay the trip fee, which is usually about $1,500 per person. Go to the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association web site, and shop for an outfitted river trip.

Other options are to float the Lower Salmon River below Whitebird to Hells Canyon. This section of river is a great trip for kids and families, and nothing more than a self-issue permit is needed. This is a 4- or 5-day trip, depending on how fast you want to go.

Other possibilities would be to float the Grand Ronde River or John Day River in Eastern Oregon, or the South Fork of the Snake River in Eastern Idaho.
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Reminder: the SWIMBA Trail Rendezvous runs from 3-9 p.m. on Saturday at the Eagle Cycle Park.
This is a fund-raising event for SWIMBA's quest to purchase a singletrack trail-cutting machine. They are only $9,000 short of their goal. Sockeye brewing is donating all proceeds from beer sales to SWIMBA. Sockeye has created a new beer called "Trail Digger Pale Ale." I'm going to head over there to drink some beer and support the addition of more singletrack trails in SW Idaho.

Also, see Roger Phillips rundown in the Statesman of a bunch of must-see, must-do cycling events coming up this summer. Thanks Roger!

One of those events is the Blue Cruise, a road ride of 15, 30, 50 and 100 miles, starting in Meridian. The ride this year will benefit low-income kids who need bikes. Donate your old bikes to Blue Cross or the Boise Bicycle Project, and BBP will recycle them for the Bikes for Kids event in late July. More information here.    

Outdoorsy folks in Cascade are getting quite creative with a new event called the Payette River Games. There are all kinds of competitive events going on in Cascade at Kelly's Whitewater Park and other venue, including a kayak competition, beach volleyball, bocce ball, golf, lumberjack, fitness, yoga, you name it! It starts on Friday and runs through Sunday.

Have fun!
-SS

Try Hells Canyon for springtime hiking, backpacking, camping and sight-seeing

Denise Lauerman (all photos provided by Denise)

Peggy Jordan

The Snake River in Hells Canyon

Kirkwood Museum

A few creek crossings are required ...

A snail. Denise said she saw lots of them.

Elk!

The trail on the Idaho side

Overview map (click to enlarge)

L-R, Teri Stiburek, Peggy Jordan, Denise Lauerman at Lower Pittsburg Landing

Hi all,

It's been a long winter. A lot of people have cabin fever. We're all eager to get outside and enjoy some spring activities. The only problem is, the weather doesn't want to dry out. We're lucky to get even two days of nice weather in a row in SW Idaho and then it rains again.

People in Seattle would probably say "get over it!" Put on your rain gear and go.

Well, another possibility is to go hiking, backpacking and camping in Hells Canyon. A friend of mine, Denise Lauerman, and two of her friends backpacked 6 miles from Lower Pittsburg Landing to the Kirkwood Historic Ranch recently, and came home with lots of great photos. Many thanks to Denise and her friends, Teri Stiburek and Peggy Jordan, for sharing their pix.

"It was a great trip -- I can't wait to go back," Denise said.

Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America at over 7,000 feet, stradles the Idaho-Oregon border for more than 100 miles. The mighty Snake River flows through the heart of Hells Canyon and continues on to Lewiston. Hells Canyon is usually the warmest spot in Idaho, and it's also drier than many areas, so it's a good bet for a spring trip. Ditto in the fall. In the middle of the summer, it gets sizzling hot; hence, the name.

I've written about floating through Hells Canyon, certainly the cushiest way to visit the area, but not everyone has all of the whitewater gear. So hiking, backpacking and camping are universal activities that anyone can enjoy there.

The trip starts with a 4.5-hour drive from Boise to Pittsburg Landing, the trailhead, via ID 55 to New Meadows, U.S. 95 to Whitebird, and then a well-maintained gravel road from Whitebird over Pittsburg Saddle to the trailhead at Lower Pittsburg Landing. Signs will guide you the whole way from Whitebird. Four-wheel-drive is not required to get there.

It's 6 miles from the trailhead to Kirkwood Ranch. Denise and her friends drove in on a Friday, backpacked to Kirkwood in the afternoon (allow 2.5-3 hours travel time) and base-camped on the grass next to the Kirkwood Museum, where former Idaho Gov. Len B. Jordan and his wife, Grace, ran a sheep ranch in the 1930s.

The museum is definitely worth visiting. Behind the ranch, there is a two-track gravel road that climbs Kirkwood Creek for more than 3,000 feet to a high saddle. This is a great side-hiking opportunity that Denise and her friends climbed on Day 2, seeing all kinds of cool wildlife and landscapes along the way.

On Day 3, they side-hiked to Suicide Point along the Snake River, came back to Kirkwood, strapped on their backpacks, and hiked out. Suicide Point provides great views of the river canyon.

The cool thing about Hells Canyon is that it has many sloping ridge lines that climb up to the mountains above. I have side-hiked many of them over the years, sometimes chasing chukars. The big benefit is that you get to see how the landscape changes in Hells Canyon -- from the dry environment with cactus, poison ivy, rattlesnakes and hackberry trees down by the river to much wetter environments higher up, eventually giving way to a forest environment, rocky peaks and high mountain lakes.

I don't mean to scare people but you should watch out for snakes, depending on how hot it is when you go. I've almost stepped on rattlers bird hunting along the river in the late fall, so they do hang out in the rocky talus slopes and basalt rocks.

One of the highlights of Denise's trip was that they had a bobcat in camp. "On the second night, it was outside our tent. Some other people heard it and saw it." The caretaker at Kirkwood Ranch saw the critter, and another party camping there had a dog, so it knew something was up. Guess Denise and her friends were tired enough from their hiking activity that they slept well.

To see Denise's full reel of photos on Facebook, here's the link.

For more information, go to the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area web site. You can purchase maps at the Hells Canyon NRA office in Riggins.

Enjoy!

- SS

Steve shares his weekly outdoor tips with Ken and Tim on 94.9 FM The River each Friday morning at approximately 7:10 a.m. If you miss the program, you can hear the segments on River Interactive.com.

Don't miss out ... go catch a steelhead!

Rick Gerrard with a fresh Hells Canyon steelie

Steve and Quinn with B-run Clearwater River steelhead (it fed 12 people)

A wild Middle Fork Salmon River steelhead (this fish was released)

We had a great float trip on the Snake River in Hells Canyon recently, and we brought home a gorgeous steelhead on Sunday afternoon after I guided my friend Rick Gerrard into a perfect fishing hole with my 16-foot raft, and he nailed a nice one.

We had been catching rainbows and small-mouth bass frequently, so Ricky wasn't sure what he had at first ... Then after about 30 seconds, he whispered "this feels like a big fish, Stueby," to which I leaped from the captain's chair and grabbed our fish net in the bow. We brought more of a trout net than a steelhead net, so when I had a chance to net the steelhead, I scooped it up and brought the fish into the bow of the boat, only to have the dang thing leap out of the net!

Luckily I had these neoprene gloves on with special grips in the palms, so I was able to grab that thing like an oversized football and wrestle it to the floor of the boat.

We checked and it was a fin-clipped fish as expected (no wild steelhead venture into Hells Canyon anymore to my knowledge), so we kept it and ate it for dinner with about 8 people a couple days later. Yee-haw! Great way to round out an awesome cast-and-blast weekend in Hells Canyon.

My outdoor tip this week is to urge everyone to reserve some time in your busy schedule to go steelhead fishing this fall. The steelhead run this year is more than 2x the 10-year average, with 200,000+ fish forecast to move into Central Idaho to spawn the next generation. The mighty steelhead -- ocean-going rainbow trout -- are found on the Snake in Hells Canyon, the Salmon River from Riggins to Salmon, and the Clearwater River in the Lewiston-Orofino area. Go bank fishing, take your own boat or hire an outfitter and guide.

I personally am not too proud to hire a guide. It definitely can increase your chances of success. I booked a trip with the Guide Shop in Orofino a couple years ago and brought home a beautiful B-run Clearwater steelhead. I'd always heard that the B-run fish are huge (they stay two years in the ocean), and put up a great fight, and there's no doubt about that!

When I was working on my book Salmon River Country with Mark Lisk, we went steelhead fishing with Jerry Myers and Mark Troy from Idaho Adventures, and we caught a bunch of fish on a five-day trip from Corn Creek to Mackay Bar ... big Middle Fork wild steelhead that were nearly as big as the Clearwater fish I caught.

The guides are out on the river every day. They know the exact holes where they caught fish the day before. They know what kind of lures, bait or flies are working. Put some friends together and book a trip of a lifetime.

On the Salmon River, near Riggins, you can book a trip with a jet boat or a drift boat. The jet boats can go upriver or downriver and cover a lot of ground in a day. They often will pull plugs or "hotshots" and drag them on the bottom of the river in deep steelhead holes, and that often can be a very effective technique. Drift boats are very maneuverable and can fish practically every patch of fishy water as you move downstream.

Fly fishing for steelhead is another possibility for those so inclined (more skill required). Here's a web site with some tips on what kinds of bait/lures/flies to use.

So I say go for it and celebrate one of the finer things in life as an Idahoan. Even if you don't bring home a steelhead, maybe someone else in your party will, and it will be a memorable day on the river no matter what. - SS