Backcountry Fly Fishing

Yesterday was awesome but today was phenominal. the morning drive consisted of a lone cow elk walking acrossed a field, a lone coyote just off the road in another field and in yet another field were 3 whitetail bucks of equal proportions chilling along a fence line till i drove by then they galloped to the woods edge. i love to see wildlife so this was a good start to a tremendous day. just like yesterday i was fishing a section i had not seen before so didn't really know what to expect. once i had hit the river and started my journey upstream, it didn't take long for me to notice one thing, how pristine this river is. other then a couple of fences and some ranch/farm structure, there was hardly any sign of man. i mean i got used to fishing waters in utah for the past 6 years and although i will truly miss some of them, there was no trash what so ever that i saw. no beer bottles, cans, wrappers, worm containers, etc. i started with a brown streamer which only lasted about a half hour of fishing before i changed to an olive and yellow one and once i did it never gave me a reason to change it. i think today was the only day that i have ever fished the same exact fly the whole day. never even had to re-tie the knot. i think if today had been jack dennis's one fly contest, i would've won. i stopped several times along the way to just sit and look at the river, the large piles of logs caused from the high waters, the trees, the mountains and watch the occasional fish taking a helpless insect floating by. it was awesome just to sit and soak it all in. in some ways it reminds me of some of the rivers back home, particularly the s.f. nooksack where the family property is located. when it floods and recedes it leaves piles of debris/logs and sometimes very large shorelines and always a new look. rivers that aren't under dam control tend to do that. i had fished way up once before and only landed cutts and i had fished down a ways once before and landed mostly bulls. today was filled with strong, thick and aggressive cutthroat, with a couple of cutt-bows mixed in. quite a few of the fish were extra thick and in the 17-18" range. i really don't think that any of my pics do the fish justice. the over all health of these fish was incredible, at least better then i for some reason thought it would be. i ventured quite a ways up stream to a point where i though one more good hole and i think i will call it quits. as it turned out it seemed as though each time i thought i was done, the water up above look enticing and it was hard to not to go and check it out. i got to one spot where i thought i would be done after making a few casts in it when on my 2nd run through my fly got nailed and right away i could tell that that fish felt even stronger then the others before it. it raced to the other side of the river, it's nice to actually have a fish rip line from my reel once in awhile. once i managed to get the fish back on my side i noticed that the fish didn't look like the others then i saw what i thought were white tipped fins and i started to think. right on this could be my 1 bull trout for the day. sure as shit, it was an impressive bull, at least to me. tapped at a solid 19". a couple of snaps and off it went. i thought about ending my day there but i wanted to get into a few more fish so i kept going, each hole seeming to be my last. a few more fish down and i was truly done. i was getting hungry and had a helluva walk back to the jeep. i picked up a couple more fish on the way down and after 6 hours on the water i was finally back at the jeep. man, what an awesome day and an awesome river.the only regret i had was not packing my floating line and a few dries. it's always fun to take nice fish up top as well and it only would've, if at all possable, made my day that much better. on the way home though i was passed by an ambulance and when i got a ways down the highway, traffic came to a stop for about 20-30 minutes. i was stopped just shy of the crest of the hill, when all of a sudden a life flight helicopter arose from the middle of the highway and shortly after traffic was finally moving. unfortunately a motorcycle and car collided. i'm assuming the motorcyclist is the one being helo'd out since his bike was demolished. to many times that's the cost of poor decisions and/or not paying attention.