Friday Report

[LunkerB]

Hit the blue ribbon area yesterday morning. Pulled up to the access about 8. The valley was completely snow covered and the river discharge up by the park was running about 230. The first four fish that I caught were browns, Two of which were in the 3# range and the other two in the 2# range. what a start. from there I continued to catch fish. All said and done I picked up about 20 fish in the morning, 10 browns and 10 stocker size rainbows. I then decided to head up to the park and fish form the spring branch down to the hole above the spillway. It started off slow but picked up the farther down I was from the spring. Ended up picking up about 12 more fish on this stretch between 1-3:30pm. Went to the lodge and had some amazing fried catfish and made up my mind that I would finish the day below the cable. Dropped in and started cathcing small rainbows and ended up catchin five more by the time that I got to the second bend with the boulders. All fish were released healthy and a little smarter. It was a great day on the current which was needed, the last two times I was there the fish were not biting and I could see them. Another cool thing was on the levee by the retention ponds there was five wild horses that were hanging out when I was fishing there in the evening, it was pretty cool. Ive got pictures and will upload them when I get home later.

[duckydoty]

Sounds like a great trip. Looking forward to the pictures. I've heard about the wild horses in that area.

[BruteFish83]

230 cfs sound like pretty good levels. Glad you had a nice trip!

[LunkerB]

Here are some shots, didnt get the horses unfortunately but they did leave some evidence on the levee in the form of massive piles, nothin photoworthy.

[duckydoty]

Great pictures. Out of a thousand or so pictures I take, only one or two turn out decent.

[jackalope]

Where did you see the wild horses? I thought the wild horses were down by eminence. Ive been hunting and fishing that area for 15 years now and ive never seen a wild horse before.

[LunkerB]

I parked at the cable and dropped in and fished the stretch right below then had to climb the opposite bank to walk the levee in between the river and the ponds that are right across from the cabins. I started seeing big piles of horse crap and tracks everywhere and just figured that the park ranger had his horse up there but 20 minutes later there were five big horses on the levee. A big black one and a big white one with a couple others. They were only there for a second and they just ran up into the hills. I came home and looked it up and there used to be 2 groups of 35 total horses running the hills down by eminence but now there are 4 groups of up to 50. They capture some and give them up for adoption if the herd gets to big. Wild, we have lions, bears, wolves, horses, and squatches in them woods.

[Outside Bend]

Nice photos!

[Troutnut69]

Last time I camped down at the State Park (in December) I had three horses wandering around the campground each morning , the same black one you saw with two others. I was the only person in the campground so there wasn't anyone around to bother them but I just figured they were owned by a local park ranger or someone in the area. I did get a couple of pics before they headed out but not sure if I saved em.

[XP 590]

Nice pics. My timing bites! I was there last Sunday and only got in about 4hours fishing in the thunderstorm. It continued to rain for about 12 hours and the river had risen almost three feet by the time I woke up Monday AM. I was wondering about the horses too, I noticed several piles of droppings in the campground at Montauk.