Down Gold Creek to the Joe

Mid-week adventures are the best! You get to camp in places that on the weekends are packed and mid-week there is no one there! We drove east to St. Regis and then up over the pass down, following Gold Creek, to the Upper St. Joe River. Because we were looking for a camp site on a Monday, we found a great one.  There was shade, it was close to the river, and it had a clean outhouse!  What a find.

Ben and Sherma set up up river and we set up down river in a spot that could have held one more rig.  It didn't take long to get situated and in no time we were eating lunch and getting ready to fish.  We planned on trying to catch some Cuts and talked about maybe even landing an elusive Bull Trout. That would be fun!

Osprey across the river from camp.

Linda and Sherma set up their chairs and relaxed while Ben and I went up river to fish.  We found a spot and climbed down the bank to the Joe.  I had on a Stimulator with a black beadhead nymph as a dropper. I tossed it into the first riffle and boom I had a fish on!  It was going to be a great day!  I caught a couple more fish in that spot and then followed Ben down stream.  We did pretty good throughout the afternoon and returned home with a few good stories.

The stump is a salt lick so this dear visited every night.

Linda and I made dinner and then we all sat around the fire watching the night skies. The space station flew over and we watched its bright progress across the sky.  Stars were out bright and we talked while watching for satellites and shooting stars. Bed came early for the Bennetts, we are such wssies when it comes to bed time.

Then next day we went fishing again, this time down river.  We spent most of the day working the riffles and didn't do too bad.

Back in camp Ben cooked up a chicken dinner and we again watched the skies for space debris. Clouds came in and by the end of the evening we were seeing flashes of lightning.  The thunder lead the way of a couple of big storms during the night.  The second one brought so much rain and hail that we thought the top of the camper was coming in. Linda snuggled up close and we waited out the loud downpours. Once they passed we went back to sleep the sound of the river singing us back to our dreams.

Ben's Dutch Oven chicken dinner!

The next day we fished from camp.  Ben and Sherma went up river and I headed down.  I did real well considering the rain the night before. I used big sculpin patterns as I moved down river.  I imagine I could have done better on real small flies, but I didn't want to fight the tie them on my tippet.