My wife Liz and I just returned from our annual week in Idaho, fishing the St Joe River. I fish and she sits in the river on a lawn chair reading, we have wine and snacks precisely at 5: 00 pm followed by a fine meal then a little more late evening dry fly fishing. This is about as good as it gets in this life. Amazing in fact. For you not familiar with the St. Joe, it is a gin clear masterpiece flowing though a cedar forest and is full of west slope cutthroat trout. These are particularly beautiful fish and I find myself tempted once in awhile to take a couple back to camp and roast them over the open fire. The fishing is easy; my tackle is a spool of 4x tippet and six dry flies fitted nicely into a shirt pocket, wading boots, shorts and a hat. My fishing strategy is get out of the truck and start walking up river, all the places there should be fish there are fish. Its tiring work but I’ll take it, I need this kind of fishing once in a while, its why I started fly fishing in the first place. So many times we find our selves in the Serious Big Fish water trying to figure out the right combination to catch fish were going to release anyway. It can turn you into some weird kind of Zen monk/philosopher/bonehead scientist, which is not all bad but I need some contrast in my fishing. After a week or so I’ve had enough of the Joe for another year, grateful that such places still exist. Amazing! You would think a fishery of this caliber would be crowded with anglers, and on the weekends it is busier but there are still miles of water to fish alone. Sometimes when your deep in the shade of the cedars casting big flies to willing trout it might be nice to have some company, but probably not. This is the kind of place that one can recalibrate the boundaries of there fly fishing journey and for me fishing is still big fun, best done alone.

Do I have any fishing tips for the St. Joe? Take some flies, any flies. When we got back home there was of course a big pile of mail on the table and in among the garbage was a postcard from my daughter Anna and her husband George, it was cutout Mickey Mouse and on the back she wrote,” Dad- I just wanted to send you a little mouse to say Hello! We are having a great time and I’m so glad that this is my first time here (so a great big thanks to you) I love you. Annie” So trout bums remember when you do the right thing it always works out. Amazing!