# Idaho St Joe Cuttthroat's



## Marshman (Jul 24, 2008)

I'm returning to Houston today after being in Idaho for almost a week, most of which was business, but I did manage to fit in a couple days of flyfishing the St Joseph river.

Booked the trip thru a local river company, they have most of the permits for the SJ, so the river was VERY un-crowded. It's pretty remote, takes a couple hours plus from Spokane to get there, I stayed in Cour D Alene, and drove in each day, about 1 1/2 hours each way. Dustin, a flyshop owner from Kingston Idaho, was my guide, I really enjoyed fishing with him. If you are in the area, visit his shop, he's OK!

Both mornings we fished, we put in at the same bridge, about 7 miles above the Huckleberry camp site, where we took out.





We fished primarily streamers that Dustin supplied, an olive and black the first day, and a combo of that one and a flashier version called a Mr Creepo the second day. Day was was mostly cloudy, high temp of 70-ish, mild breeze. Caught well into double digits, missed more than I hooked on day 1.

These fish are so pretty!





I managed to break a Sage reel near the end of day one, something let loose in the drag, when I stripped line, it freespooled badly and backlashed, I ended up using my little finger to drag on the spool when stripping. Since Dustin has a flyshop, I asked him to bring a reel, spooled with line for that 6 wt I had brought for day two. He brought a nice little TFO reel, with ARC line on it - I liked that line a lot, better than the Rio I had already. 


Day two was sunnier, we had a second rod rigged with about 6' of sink tip, helped a lot getting the streamer down in the deeper runs, and didn't have to re-rig, I just switched rods from the deep rig to the regular one as conditions changed. Once we had the pattern down, it was pretty automatic - "Oh look, shallow off into deep shelf in the shade, with plenty of current, get ready" and bang another fish. One spot, we caught five with moving the boat, that's a lot for this kind of fishing.

Just as we were getting out day two, a bunch of bugs came out, but no dry fly thing happened.




Ah well, back to the city today, flying the rest of the day.


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## Alumacraftbassin (Nov 13, 2012)

looks like a nice trip. Love feeling the bite while stripping a streamer.


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## flyfishingmike (Nov 26, 2010)

very good report . . . . you put us right there in the river with you


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## Unbound (Jul 12, 2004)

Gorgeous fish. Pretty looking river too.


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## skinnywaterfishin (Jul 1, 2015)

My Dad and I spent a week up there a couple years ago. Fished the Couer dAlene river a few days and also spend a day on the St. Joe. We got some flies from the fly shop right there on the river. What an incredibly beautiful and remote river. So healthy. 

We were lucky...we stood in the river and hardly moved for hours. The trout were sipping flies on top and we probably caught 40 in a few hours on big dries. 

That day with my Dad is a day I'll never forget. I'll try to dig up some pics.


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