Clearwater with Camille

Last weekend Camille and I headed South to go swing flies for steelhead. This time of year can be stellar on the Clearwater. The river is full of aggressive steelhead that are very willing to come up to a dry line and well presented fly.

Last year I convinced my wife to come down to the Clearwater for some fishing and I told her it would just be the two of us and maybe we would see a few friends along the way. Well, seeing those friends along the way turned into a midnight, rain-soaked, lighted plug trolling session with some of my old friends and a few new ones. After finally making it to bed at 2:00am then waking here up at 6:00 for a full day of fishing, I quickly realized that I had dropped the ball on our fishing trip. It was very hard to convince her that this year would be different. I really had to bring my A game.

This year we headed down to the Clearwater without making any other plans with any other friends. We took our time driving down the Lewiston, stopping in Moscow to have a dinner and beverages at The Fire House. Arriving in Lewiston I had made arrangements to stay at an old friend's house who had a warm bed for us waiting. Camille kept asking ''what time are we getting up tomorrow?" My answer, of course was ''whenever you want honey." The next morning came for me at 5:30am. I had set up all the rods, organized the boat, took a shower, and loaded the cooler. I was ready to go. I kept checking in on my wife sleeping so peacefully in her bed. At around 7:30 we headed out to go have breakfast at the Waffle House. It was amazing, but of course I was extremely antsy to get on the river. We finally made it on to the river around 9:00 and ran our sled up to the first run. I was surprised to see that we had the river completely to ourselves. It as high overcast and air was already starting to warm was going to be a perfect day.

We started swinging flies and within minutes Camille had a nice jack Chinook on. The ice had been broken and a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. After we landed the fish Camille started casting again, moments later she had another fish on. This time it was a steelhead around 27 inches. We quickly landed the wild fish, snapped a few pictures and let it go. We continued to fish down the run and hook a few more fish landing two B-runs and a couple more A-runs. Camille ended up landing a nice fish pushing 35 inches. It was a huge change of pace for me only fishing 6 hours in the day and trying not to cram in 180 days of fishing into 2 days&hellip' It was a perfect day spent with my wife swinging flies for steelhead, just the two of us.