Confessions from St. Joe

The St. Joe River in northern Idaho was on the bucket list this summer, and I had the good fortune of visiting the stream accompanied by friend and incomparable fly fisher Jake Waterstreet.
We set off for the Joe in early July not sure what to expect but had heard good reports on the fertile stream.
We pulled into the small town of Avery at about 10:30 at night, surprised to find the fly shop still open. The proprietor gave us some indication of what would work and what would work less often. On the go-to list was a big, ugly purple fly that looked like the mutant offspring of an unfortunate coupling between Madame X and the Chernobyl ant. I snatched up a couple of them immediately, along with a few stimulator, hopper, and humpy patterns.
After setting up camp in the dark, we enjoyed a couple cold beer and plotted out our plan of attack.
Awaking the next morning we were surprised to find the stream flowing quietly six feet away from our tent. We never realized it under the darkness of night, so without much consideration of the previous night planning, we geared up and waded into the Joe.
Jacob was into a sizeable trout immediately, but it shook loose before he could land him. However, he followed that up with a couple small cutthroat on the hopper pattern.
My plan was to start nymphing in the early morning than change over to dries as it warmed, but that didn`t stop Jake from drawing the cutthroat to the surface.
Nevertheless, I persevered and was soon rewarded with a nice 17-inch cutthroat. The fishing was good in the morning, and slowed in the mid-afternoon before picking up again in the evening.
We fished the stretch of River just past 50 mile and found good water above and below our camp.
The next day we journeyed up river about 10 miles and peered into the depths of the canyon and some very fishy looking pools.
Rather than throw ourselves off the edge of a precipitous embankment, I was able to talk Jake into approaching it from a downstream access less severe and intimidating.

We generally landed one or two in every pool, Jake had good action on a hopper while I hooked up a half dozen times with the purple people eater, as we`d dubbed it. The evening hatch came on with vigour, and the trout rose happily to mayfly patterns.
We landed quite a few but not quite as big or as many as we were hoping, still throwing string over such a pretty stream was very satisfying.
As RHB said, ``There will be days when the fishing is better than one's most optimistic forecast, others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home."