Road Trip for Brookies

We made a road trip in search of brook trout in a small stream about an hour away from camp. Eric, Stefanie, 13 year old Addison, and Rick & I loaded into Eric's truck for the day trip. We headed off on the dirt road to Selway Creek and soon after arriving we hit the stream. Using small elk hair caddis or a larger 'stimi' pattern, we all hooked our share of small brook trout. Addison got the hang of casting the light-weight 3-weight rods and hooked many fish on her own. The small fish are quick to jump on the hook hoping for a tasty fly. They were 3" to about 9" and no, we didn't keep any for the fry pan. We had a yummy lunch of sandwiches and chips (why does food always taste better in the great outdoors?) and then we were back to fishing for a little longer. The thunder and lightening and rain drove us off the river and into the truck to continue our drive through the trees and over the hills.

We drove on again in search of another stream and it began to hail. Big hail stones the size of cherries, some we thought were the size of ping pong balls. And no where to hide on the dirt road. Thankfully it was a slushy, soft hail or the truck would have plenty of dings and dents. We'd all been in hail storms before, some that have done damage to vehicles and buildings, but this hail was really large. It was like someone throwing snowballs down on us.

Across one of the valleys, at least a mile away, we could see horses and cows, but there was some other animal that Eric said had to be elk. We stopped just long enough for me to get out the Nikon P80 with the 18x zoom and try to focus on the big herd of elk. Oh, if only they weren't a mile away. But they were definitely elk. I wish I had another photo that would show how far away they were. I remember the time we were in Greer, Arizona on a dirt road and came upon a huge herd of elk on the road. They weren't afraid of us and we were able to sit for quite a while and observe them all around us.

As we drove along Addison spotted a deer or 2 in the woods that we scared as we drove by. She also saw a lone elk that quickly made it's escape when it saw the truck. Rick saw a deer and it didn't run away like the others and we were able to stop, hoping to get some photos. What a nice surprise to see that the doe had 2 very young babies with her and they were staying close enough to the road that Rick was able to get these photos. They were so cute with their white spots. This was probably the highlight of my day and I could have sat for hours watching them.