Preparing to Fish New Waters

by Les Albjerg
(Caldwell)

My good friend at work Megan who is an awesome fly fisherwoman hiked up to several of the lakes I was planning on fishing when I am off work in 10 days. Her pictures were beautiful, but she wasn't able to fish because the lakes are still frozen solid! So it is now Plan B!

Here is how I prepare for new waters. There is a very wild stream down in the high desert that I've wanted to fish since I crossed it scouting for antelope 7 years ago. The first thing I did was talk to the biologist at Idaho Fish and Game. He told me that there are fish in the stream. Several native species and in the lower section I am thinking about fishing, smallmouth bass. So, it is worth the effort. I have spent a couple of hours pouring over Google Earth exploring how to fish it. My first impression was there isn't enough stream to fish, but I have now mapped out 5 miles of very fishable waters. I've also used Google Earth to figure out the rods I am going to take. For sure I am going to be using my bait caster. However by using the ruler feature on Google Earth, I realized that the Fine Power 56 is worth taking along because I want to fish fixed line as well. Several of the pools I measured are 60 feet across, and the majority of the stream is 30 feet across. Google Earth also allowed me to plan several routes to get me fishing sooner in better waters before I even get there.

This week, I will be preparing my fly, spinner, and plug boxes to make sure that I have what I need when I go. I will be over 100 miles from the nearest town. According to the biologist, I should have the stream pretty much to myself, as it isn't known for being a great place to fish. He said a 16 inch Redband Rainbow would be a trophy, but I should expect many 8-12 inch fish. One of the reasons I love Finesse Fishing is that those 8-12 inchers give a very nice fight!