Pend O'reille River Report 11.9.16

As deer season nears closer and closer to the peak of the rut, finding time to fish (and not hunt) is harder than finding an albino Sasquatch. However, my inner fisherman was getting tired of being pushed aside this November, so I finally took him fishing.

The Pend O'reille River was the destination this go around, with hopes of hooking into a few smallies, and the occasional brown trout. Earlier in the week, I heard a couple good reports of browns showing up in the Pend O'reille River near tributaries. I brought my trusty Sage 8 weight with fast sinking line for deeper fish, and my TFO rigged with intermediate line for those close to the surface.

Need to stock up on flies? Check out our fly selection here

The skies were blue, water clear, no wind,  and temperatures in the mid 40s. There isn't much better conditions you can ask for when fishing in November. Zach and I hit the water at 6:45 am and fished until 9:50 am. After 3 hours of consistent fishing, I can confidently say fishing was slow. I caught one nice Smallmouth, and had a handful of aggressive grabs on a Halloween Cheech Leech. There was the occasional disturbance of bass and trout slashing under the surface.

I would have stayed out longer if there was more action, but my "I should be deer hunting right now" guilt got the best of me, and I called it a day. Not to mention, the wind picked up around 9:30, and sent us drifting with the current. The combination of current and wind got the boat moving at around 3 mph. We loaded up the boat on the trailer, and I went deer hunting.