NF Clearwater / Kelly Creek Report

Dry flies, cutthroat, and canyons.

Mike and I took a drive over to the North Fork of the Clearwater River drainage yesterday to see how the season is shaping up. As expected based on the low flows, the fish have been doing well and fishing was pretty good to say the least.

Everyone's biggest question this time of the year is... "Is the pass open?" Yes, the pass is open and has been. Snowpack melted quickly this year. Road conditions are fine and no major landslides. The only complaint is there are a lot of potholes and traveling with big trailers is not advised by the forest service. A small, more nimble trailer is fine. Hidden Creek Campground had a work crew in there so the campground is closed until 6/30, plenty of other options though for those spending the night.

Yesterday's stormy afternoon weather put an early damper on the hatches, but there were some good PMD hatches prior and in between storms. Golden stones, yellow sallies, and caddis are also out. Throwing a chubby or stone will catch you plenty of fish currently. Add a dropper if you want to catch more. Matching the hatch of course can be fun if you want to play that game. We did streamer fish a little, which wasn't productive and Mike did try euro which was also slow.

No big cutthroat to report or gloat about, but tons and tons of small-mid sized fish all day long. Of course the scenery never sucks here either.

We didn't make it all the way down to Kelly Creek due to a large thunder / rain storm late in the afternoon shutting the fishing down so we just headed back. We did make it as far as Pete Ott Creek and my educated guess is that Kelly Creek is fishing about the same... cuz it usually is.