I’ve only floated the North Fork once this summer, and looking at the calendar and my work schedule, as well as the impending arrival of fall teaching duties, I’ve been forced to accept that once is all I’m going to get this year.
If one float is it, at least this was a good one. The drastic drop in river levels was briefly arrested by a late summer storm. Before the rain, both the North and Middle forks were nearing the point where floating and fishing gets awfully tough. But after a Friday in which the rains came and didn’t leave until Saturday, the forks spiked about 500 cubic feet per second and the game was on.
The float marked the return of old friend Freddy Spaghetti to the Flathead. Fred was in town spending some quality time with his daughter, and floating the North Fork is about as good a place as there is on the planet to do that. Emily had a friend along, and one of my girls, Zoe, joined us. The river had started to drop again. As long as the bottom hasn’t fallen out so that the drop remains gradual, that usually means good fishing. So it was on the North Fork that day. We were in Freddy’s raft so he naturally took the oars to start. Zoe got the choice seat up front while I brought up the rear. The younger girls followed behind in a pair of inflatable kayaks.
As always, we picked up some fish on that long sweeping run where the river curves just under the North Fork Road only a quarter mile downstream from Big Creek. I don’t know what it is about that piece of river. It’s not the fishiest looking spot with that long steep bank sloughing off above the water. But it does form a nice pool toward the end of the run.
I call that spot the Pool of Limitless 6-Inch Trout, because that’s just about all we pull off that bank. But even that’s OK. When I used to guide that stretch of river and I had a pair of novices in the boat, the countless rises from those little fish helped school my sports, preparing them, at least in theory, for better things to come in deeper pools downstream.
Some folks aren’t comfortable fly fishing while seated, but I’m just fine with it, especially when I’m in back. I love fishing off the tail end of a raft, dangling my feet in the creek while I work pocket water missed by the dude up front. Given my choice of where to fish I’ll usually take the back seat, especially if it’s a raft with a seat strapped precariously to the rear tube.
I fished my North Fork fave, a No. 12 orange X-Stimulator. Cutthroat are suckers for just about any dry fly, especially any orange dry fly. Add those sexy brown rubber legs shimmering in the surface film, and you’ve got a bug no North Fork cuttie can resist.
Just below the Limitless Pool is the first of a handful of small rapids on the lower river. That’s a great place to fish from the back of the boat. Since the water’s all chopped up by the current the fish can’t get a good look at the boat as you bounce past in the wave train. I like to drop my fly into every pocket as we rush past.
I hooked a decent cutthroat halfway through the rapid, and that meant it was moving day for the fish. Fred can put it to the oars with the best of them, but there’s no stopping the boat until you eddy out in the pool below. That’s where I finally had a chance to net and release the fish.
But the kid up front had the big day, out fishing the lot of us, and showing signs she’s taking this fly fishing thing seriously. After a dozen or so typical North Fork cutthroat, she announced she was tired of small ones and wanted a new challenge.
That’s what I mean about a good day. The kid got bored catching too many fish.