It was an unseasonably warm day in late February for Boundary County. Not two days earlier, we had a decent covering of snow (enough that my son was still begging to be pulled around on his long, blue sled each and every day), and through a quick change in the climate and an evening of pounding wind and rain, spring had sprung before third winter was inevitably around the corner. I took this as an opportunity to grab my Goodwin Granger cane rod and go-bag and I was out the door after a quick kiss and hug to the family. I was off to my least favorite fly-fishing river in the northwest: the Kootenai. 

Hey now, put those pitchforks back in the shed and extinguish your torches. I am a fly fisherman 99% of the time that my feet touch the water. The Kootenai is a gold mine of good, healthy, large trout along with a smattering of other species. There are great hatches throughout the year of caddis, baetis, hoppers, and all the other familiar bugs that cause the occasional black outs of sunshine when they hatch and draw the large rises of hungry trout in the evening. Heck, it is a river so kind that a small size 22 midge could carry you throughout the entire year if you don’t want to be a dry fly elitist like I am told that I am. But when I say a gold mine of good, large trout, I am really side-eying the fisherman who has any sort of watercraft. When you have a good bit of movement from shore to shore over the deep waters of the Koot, the river is quite close to a fly fisherman's dream river.  But when you are a wet wading or shore fisher such as myself, it can be tough. The banks along the 66-mile section of the great river that carves out our beautiful valley here in North Idaho has mucky shores, unkempt brush and overhang, and not many shallows as the waters grow deep, quickly. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few good spots up near Leonia, and a few others that I won’t be mentioning here (but if you see me out and about, feel free to ask. I can’t promise you that I will tell the truth, but I may feel generous any day), but compared to the Kootenai a bit deeper into Montana where the freestone river has a bit more stones, it is not the most enjoyable time fishing from the shore. 

Now, as I hope I have convinced you all to let me keep my head for another day, back to the unseasonably warm day. The river was low. Very low. So, I had the inclination to abandon my normal runs and riffles that are within three minutes of my home and head downtown to scramble down the dike and wade my way over to the large sandbar that occasionally shows itself in the early months when the river is preparing for snow melt and springtime rains. I’ve lived most of my 35 years of life in this town, and I had always wanted to fish off the sandbars but I never had a good chance to. 

When my feet left the mud and the water and I was there, isolated on a thin and long island that exists above water for only a few weeks a year, it felt good. The sound from the absurd amount of traffic on the 95 bridge was non-existent when I arrived on the bar, and all that was to be heard were the honks of geese in their v’s above me, the movement of ponderosa branches in the wind gusts, the yell of a single man from the bridge asking what I was doing, and the rush of the fast moving, clear water to the north of me. The water may have been fast but it was fishable, the air was cool but manageable, and the Selkirks were a perfect backdrop for what ultimately would be a great afternoon of casting practice for me. I fished a dry dropper rig with an orange simulator above the water, and a size 22 olive midge about a foot under the water, hoping to entice one of the slow, sleepy trout that I had seen when I was up above on the bridge planning out a strategy. And after an hour, I caught nothing but the classic Kootenai River stickfish that you are bound to pull up with any underwater tackle you decide to use. A disheartening result to most, mainly to bait and tackle fisherman, but for me it is just about getting to the water. The fly cast, especially on a slow action nearly 100 year old bamboo fly rod as the arm extends back with the back cast and forward after you feel it fully load, landing that fly right where you wanted it to go, mending the line a few times in the quick current and watching the fly finish its route before doing it all over again is the therapy that I think most people need after strange winters and times such as these. When I was younger, I would be the one complaining from the front of a canoe about catching no fish and my dad would stub out a smoke into a glass Snapple bottle, put his hand on my shoulder and while looking out at the setting orange sun would say, “We didn’t get skunked, James. We only ran out of time”. So, enjoy the weather, enjoy the day whether it is good or bad. Don’t worry about the poor minutes; there are at least 1400 other ones each day. 

If you feel like you want to get out and enjoy the water during these early months on a fly rod, my suggestion would be a nymph rig with a size 14-18 Hare’s Ear or Pheasant Tail nymph up above and a size 22 olive midge trailing it on 12-18 inches of tippet and pop it into some deep and slow pocket water to bump a couple trout noses and wake them up. Or another option is swinging a wet fly (a Partridge and Orange typically works well this time of year here) If you are a bait and tackle fisherman, do what you do best: tie on a Rooster Tail, slap a worm or some Powerbait onto the treble hook, and long cast/slow retrieve. As the spring starts, the earth warms, and the water starts being more fishy for me, I will be providing much more detailed strategies for the rivers and streams in this wonderful county of ours.

Published by https://9b.news on March 10th, 2025