Idaho to Bend, OR
After getting the truck serviced, we decided to head towards Idaho. I fished Idaho once and it was a great experience. It was, just by accident, the first year they opened Salmon season on the Salmon River in fifteen years based upon the lack of returning of Salmon to spawn.
The river was crowded with fishermen. I asked a couple of people whether the Salmon have ‘turned’ by the time they got all the way to Idaho. They said no… But, as I had as I expected, they were extremely dark. The locals who haven’t been able to fish for them in years, thought they were perfect. They were inevitable disappointed with the table fair. I’ve never been to southern Idaho. It was the same high desert area very similar to Wyoming. We stayed the night at Strike Reservoir on the Snake River. Although a beautiful area, based on the lack of fish in that area of Wyoming, we decided to go to Oregon.
We ended up in Bend, Oregon tonight. I’ll probably pull the ‘old guy’ card (55 yrs old) numerous times throughout our travel, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. I fished Bend 30 years ago. It was a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere with incredible fishing on the Deschutes River with a great brewery and food.Now it’s a traffic-laden rich person city it appears.
With that said, we looked up some BLM camping areas for the night. I never get tired of free camping.
Before leaving we visited Fall River Hatchery: