Fishing Trip to the Canyon 6/4-6/6

This weekend (well not quite the weekend) Dylan and I decided that we need to do a little fishing. The goal was to head down to Hell's Canyon Dam Thursday night for some early morning Salmon fishing and then do a little bass and crappie fishing later in the day.

As we headed out of town we hit a large thunder and wind storm. After it passed through, we proceeded heading north in a rain storm. It rained on us all the way to the dam (3 hours). Luckily once we got to the dam the rain slowed down enough for us to set up the tent.

We awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed at 4 AM to a clear night sky to try and beat the crowd down at the dam. For those of you that have never been down the Idaho side of Hell's Canyon Dam let me paint a picture. There is a "trail" consisting of over 250 steps (yes metal stairs) down the side of a cliff to a small area bordered by a portion of the dam and a steep cliff. Unfortunately, we were not the first ones down there and someone was already in my favorite spot. Well it is not my favorite spot, just the place that I have fished previously and the only "spot" I know of.

To make a long story short, we were shut out. Most people around us (there had to have been 30-40 of them) were catching salmon, but we didn't even get a bite. Must have been holding our lips wrong or something. Oh well, time for the boat.



We headed back up river and set up our tent at the base of Brownlee Dam in McCormick Park quickly and then launched the boat in Oxbow Reservoir. The plan was to catch some crappie and bass, use a couple to set a crawdad trap, and generally have some fun. Well the fishing wasn't too bad. We caught quite a few crappie and some small bass. Dylan managed to catch a couple of "keepers", but Oxbow doesn't allow any bass to be kept until July 1.

We set the crawdad trap by a couple of other traps and headed back to camp in the late afternoon before a pending storm. And then it proceeded to rain...

The weather cleared some after dinner so we headed out to soak in a hot spring that is accessible by boat only. It was nice for a while but once again the rain started...



It rained pretty much all night and luckily our WalMart tent seemed to hold up pretty well with only minor leaking. Next time we bring the good backpacking tent! Once we woke up, my thought was to pack up and get the hell out of dodge. Dylan had a better idea to get some breakfast at the Gateway Cafe six miles up the road. Fabulous pancakes and it stopped raining!!

So we headed back and got in the boat to check the crawdad trap. Like always (we suck at this) there was nothing in the trap. The weather wasn't looking too bad so we decided to hit Brownlee for some additional fishing. We spent the afternoon catching (and keeping this time) some crappie until once again the storms started moving in and it was time to head back to the dock. As Dylan was filleting the fish (he likes this for now) it started raining on us once again.

All in all a soggy fun trip, except for the lack of salmon.