Once again proving yourself no idiot Coley.

Keep the pics and story coming please.

Nice stuff as always, Coley. Cool seeing Lara out there!

I'm loving the eye and cheek of the B&W photo.

The main reason to visit this board, photo and story essays from Coley! (and some others)

Thanks a ton for sharing your awesome trips!

Coley- How much to drag you and that camera along on a fishing trip one of these days. There are some good photographers on this board but your artful angles are incredible! I had to show Meadow and she was super impressed too.

Always love your photo posts!

How much Danny? I am a fairly simple man but I could probably scrape together a few hundred bucks for you if you'd accept it. I'd be honored to take photos of your fish any day, though I'd have to do a fair amount of photoshopping on the guy holding them to make them somewhat tolerable Meadow on the otherhand, would need no improvements!

Jerry, green indeed, but spruce bows go up like gasoline and can be just the thing to get a pile of wet kindling to go off.

Charles, the whole story is never told and probably shouldn't be, but if nothing else I try to be honest and the pit in my stomach and heavy responsibility of carrying this trip out while trying to keep my wife alive and relatively happy were significant aspects of this particular adventure for me. Drowning AP or Stam, well that is another matter entirely. Again, more on this topic later.

The fishing at the first major tributary was mediocre, by comparison at least. A few small trout and relatively uninteresting water. I hiked a ways up the trickle that passed for a creek and saw but a single lonely king lingering in a tailout. For his sake (and all of our I suppose), I hoped he had more friends higher up. So down we went. The river miles are divided fairly evening between the good camps and the good fishing on this float, which is nice. None of the days were too long or too short, all allowing for a decent chunk of rowing without the need for an early rise or late night all while leaving plenty of time for stopping to pick the cherries and probe the A+ water along the way. To fish every bit of moderately fishy water on this creek you would need months to float it.

Our second night on the river was at the next major tributary and the camping was on a big beautiful beach, surprisingly lacking the ever present bear tracks that seem to follow concentrations of salmon on nearly every river up here. As I rowed across the seam between the main flow and the small tributary towards camp, red kings scattered everywhere. They were corked up at the mouth of the small creek, no doubt waiting for a bump in the flows to run the skinny gauntlet of water threading its way between giant granite boulders.




Kings holding on the seam.




Their path ahead.





As tends to be the case, there was an angry hoard of rainbows lurking behind the kings, waiting for their eggs to start dropping.












This rainbow kinda looked like a chinook-humpy-rainbow hybrid. Very atypical markings and spots for this system at least.






I love the detail in these fish. The closer you look, the more you see.






This guy was hanging out in the shallows waiting for an easy meal and he let me sneak up pretty close before bolting off.




















While I was happily fishing away for troots, a perfectly good coho interrupted my session by eating my bead, so we decided to make him dinner. Eat him that is, not invite him over to sit by the fire for a plate of noodles with us.





















Got a little more up my sleeve here, but I'll wrap it up soon, I promise.

The next morning, after fishing a while I put the rod down (that was close, I almost said “pole”) and just wandered around for a bit, taking in the setting and staring at the local inhabitants, smelling the roses so to speak, something I don't do often enough. In the first and only deep spot in the tiny tributary creek, a few kings and a handful of humpies were nosed into the bottom end of a riffle that was more shallow than they cared for, and so there they stayed. Every now and then another king or two would bust out of the relatively comfortable holding water at the mouth, charge into the shallows, and turn just as abruptly after not liking the looks of the path ahead.

While wandering about, beer in hand, wife happily reading a book on the beach, and with not too many worries close at hand, I happened upon a pair of very special fish and a moment that was unique to me, something I had never seen before. There were quite a few larger kings in the mix jockeying for position here and there, but a pair had split off from the main group of seemingly anxious fish and had begun a dance of sorts. Kings don’t “dig” reds in the same way that other fish do but rather they settle in. I am sure many have seen the way some (dare I say lesser) fish turn their bodies sideways in the water column, parallel to the substrate and use their gyrating tail to excavate a convexity of sorts in which to do their deed. More often than not, kings drop their eggs and milt directly into the medium to large size cobble over which they hover in their spot of choice, usually in the fast water/riffles below the classic tailout in a given run. It is hard water to describe but you know it when you see it and after floating over pods of spawning kings in exactly these same spots time and time again, it become as apparent as day is from night. Again where the kings lurk, there behind lie the rainbows.

Back on topic, the pair that had split off were obviously and without question the alpha male and female of the lot, larger substantially than all of their counterparts and cohorts. Forty five pounds a piece easily. They each seemed to know it and had found each other in the fray. I forgot to upload the short segment of video that shows them engaged in their dance, but something about the moment, the place, the time, made it very special. Though I have seen too many kings their reds to count, I have never seen two behaving in this manner, dancing, mimicking each others every move, and so perfectly in tune with the other. Believe me, I am the last to border on the edge of sappy or romantic and have often been accused of being dangerously absent of emotion, but this was neat. So cool in fact I rousted Lara from her comfortable reading position farther down the beach and gave her a piggy-back ride across a few braided channels so we could watch the pair going about their routine as if no one in the world was watching.





I really can’t do the moment justice with photos, but the video gets a little closer. I’ll try and get it posted before too long.

So, by now you guys are probably sick of reading me talk. Though I could probably wander off on a few more tangents about the rowing, the miles of boulder gardens and class 3-4 whitewater that wore me out, the scenic camp spots and really good silver fishing in the lower river, I’ll let a final batch of photos spell most of that out and hope that your imaginations can do the rest. Remember, be honest.






Rainbow parts and pieces









































































































































































Back to the big muddy.

This trip was special in a number of ways. Foremost, it was the first time that I made the time to share this type of adventure with my wife. I had put that off for far too long and I am not sure why. It meant a lot to her to get to see what it is I do when I leave her for weeks and sometimes months at a time and it meant a lot for me to get to show her some of the deeper meaning behind being in these special places. Second, being in wilderness is, unfortunately, becoming a hard thing to accomplish by the day and solitude is a very special thing. Not that we were completely alone, but just about as close to it as you can come these days and that means a lot, to get to engage nature on your own terms. Finally, this was our first fishing trip as a family. You see, we have a new fishing partner on the way, our daughter is due late January of next year. Being the moron that I am, one of the first thoughts that pops to mind is that her birthday will be a pretty decent excuse for a trip to the PNW coast for early nates, gotta get her dialed in sometime












The latter half of my life and a good chunk of it before that has been defined by adventure and this will no doubt be another one on a scale which I have probably yet to experience. I welcome it, I an excited about it, but I am scared just the same. Not so much scared of the obligation, lifestyle changes, or additional responsibility, but more fearful of the enormity of unrealized potential and the chance that I have to help a new person either succeed or fall somewhere short of success in life. That's heavy stuff man. I hope I can be at least half of the father my father was (is) and in doing so show a new life the beauty that exists around us.

I am not quite sure why, but in writing this last bit, some lyrics from an oldish (for me at least) song popped into my head.



True Reflections
When you look into a mirror
Do you like what is looking at you
Now that you have seen your true reflection, what on earth are you going to do
Find some inspiration
It’s down deep inside of you
Amend your situation
Your whole life
Is ahead of you

In this case her whole life is ahead of me, ahead of us, but she has given me a new perspective on life as well, and perhaps things are just getting started after all.

Find some inspiration and go get after it while you can.

Happy fishing.

Sweet, I'm the first person to say congrats.

Cool trip, that end part is the coolest, however.

I'm spooling reels and playing with B10 stuff while my little guy is baby snoring, and mom is catching a brief window of sleep. It's good stuff

I hope you have been taking good notes dude. I am goin to need some help

A new saga unfolding.
thanks, Coley. Gr8 stuff, as usual.

How can a person not be honest after being in the wilderness with you. Class 4 rapids are nothing compared to being a great parent. You will do great as a father.

Well done- and congrats- being a Dad is the best adventure

Wow outstanding thread CG.

That is some next level sh!t compared to everything else around here.

I have 3 daughters myself. Ages 1-8 are like the best thing ever, after that ... lol.

Congratulation Coley on the addition to your family. Father hood is fun. I think when we are older, and maybe wiser, we make better parents than if we're young and stupid. I have two children, 8 years apart, and In many ways, I appreciated the 2nd child more. You have a lot of experience to pass on to her. I agree that it can be overwhelming at times. But, it's worth it.

Sure nice to be able to share the wilderness with your Wife before having a child. When she, baby that is, gets older, I hope you can share that experience as a family.

A damn near perfect thread.

Congrats Coley! Thanks for sharing the great story about the float trip with your wife. Fear not the responsibility that comes with having a family. The rewards are worth it, and always remember to keep it entertaining. "If we ain't having fun, it's time to backtrack and take a different approach." It must have worked. I just met up with my two adult daughters weekend before last for a backpack hike in the Desolation Wilderness near Tahoe. They love hiking and the wild, natural environment and thanked me again for raising them with this appreciation. I don't doubt for a second that your child will grow up assuming everyone loves and appreciates the wild lands. Again, congratulations to you and Lara!

Sg

Coley!!!
You never cease to amaze me with your pics, and true insight on what feeds your soul!!! Sharing these things with your wife, is paramount, and it'll give her clearer picture on what drives you if she doesn't already know it.
About the part about being a Dad I hear you!!! My Father is no longer around, but being his first born son, he shared everything with me. I'd like to think I'm doing same, today with my kids, and grand kids!!!
You'll do just fine brother!!!
Thanks again for sharing, and Congrats to you and the Missus!!!
Joe

Congratulations. Really beautiful stuff.


Love the 7th photo on page 2.