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| Dave Dozer's BAMBOOPURSUITS |
Synonymous
Dave is certainly a fine fellow, an excellent angler and he's a bamboo rod builder. Having cast one or two of his rods, I can tell you, though they're "pretty", Dave makes fishing rods out of bamboo, not pricey collectable trophies only to be admired. His angling skill carries into his craftsmanship.
We carpooled to our destination: Bear Valley Creek. Along the way we spotted Sandhill Cranes, a novelty for Arizona desert dwellers.Bear Valley Creek is a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. Catching Westslope Cutthroat was on our agenda, but there were other interesting prospects.
Dave in action
Dave with signature bamboo rod.
Truly talented and a pleasure to watch, none-the-less Dave wasn't fishing solo. We were there, someone had to take the pics....
Not early morning mist, smoke from the Halstead Fire.
We had a lot of fun catching feisty brookies and small aggressive fish Donna and I at first couldn't identify. We finally would yank our fly away from them before they hooked up.
Dave told us how the circling sallows, trying to feed their young under the adjacent bridge, inadvertently fed nice size cutthroat waiting below the nests.
Bear Valley swallows.
Babes going hungry, while trout below get fat.
I hooked a nice cuttroat and unprepared, the first violent head shake snapped my fly clean off. I thought Dave might retrieve my fly... all the cutthroat he caught, 1 of them must have previously been mine ; )
Further downstream, the fishing was not active - not at all, but the scenery was every bit as grand. We encountered an elk cow, looking very confused and in quite a hurry. And for the second time in 1 day we encountered something I never expected.
Dave is from Washington and fishes Washington and Idaho regularly. He easily identified the little fish we'd been catching earlier, no puzzle at all to a northwest angler.
For those as intrigued by Bull Trout as I am, this sign captures the imagination.
This wasn't the first time Donna & I came upon the Bull Trout sign as we advanced to a new fishing spot. But what captured me wasn't Bull Trout. It was salmon. Along with brookies and cutthroat, we'd been catching salmon fry.
Natal streams were a vague idea to me, but I'll tell you my experience of salmon returning to their home stream to spawn.
© Marian Tallon, September, 2012
THINK SALMON, "Salmon Life Cycle Egg and Onward". Accessed September 5, 2012 available online at http://www.thinksalmon.com/learn/life_cycle/salmon_life_cycle/