Spectacular scenery of the Coeur d'Alene river

During the first week of my trip I went to visit my friend Doug in Idaho. I rented a car in Calgary and drove down to Idaho. On my way through the Crowsnest pass I stopped at Vic Bergman's flyshop in Bellevue. Still as small & cosy as ever. The Crowsnest river was looking fine. What a shame to pass it by... The Elk river near Fernie in BC was looking as majestic as I remember from a trip several years ago. I was supposed to meet Doug at Fernie to float the Elk, but he couldn't make it. I have to do the float one day!

How funny that after having a nice sandwich (rather than the greasy burgers at M) at Subways, I keep looking for the Subway sign when I'm hungry. No problems here, because there is always a Subway along the main road of every town I came across. Eating and driving is so much easier driving a car with automatic gear shifts!

The drive was a long 9 hours drive to Coeur d'Alene. At the US / Canadian border I almost had an embarrassing moment. I told the customs officer that I was going to see a friend. I had Dougs address in my PocketPC but it looked like I had left it at my friends house in Calgary! Good thing I had a print out of the traveling schedule (with the address!) Doug sent me by e-mail! Well, later that day I found my PocketPC in my duffle. Why don't these custom officers just say "Welcome to the US, have a nice time and spend some money" ! :) Boy, talk about money: the high gas prices were definitely the talk of the trip! The folks in the US & Canada couldn't believe the high prices that had to pay for their gas. Don't worry guys, we pay a heck of a lot more here back home... Just an idea: don't get a huge truck or SUV if you don't need one? ;)

I was told to arrive around 6 PM because that's when the T-bone steak was going to be ready. Good thing that the clock goes back one hour in the western RM area! Doug gave me a small tour of the city. A pretty city (looks more like a town to my European view) near a lake. He told me that the past years it has grown substantially. Mainly people who sold their property near the major cities and buying nice houses near the lake. The real estate prices have gone up quite a bit.

Due to his busy schedules we only had one day for an outing. We decided that we try the Coeur d'Alene river. This is a cutthroat only stream about 2 hours drive from the city of Coeur d'Alene. It is surrounded by spectacular scenery of high jagged rocks and spar filled hills. The weather that day was sublime, the scenery breathtaking and the cutts were sparse but as pretty as always.

Doug showed me this river which he likes to fish if he wants to look for solitude. Although that day was during the Labour day weekend, we were all alone on the river. All we heard were some sounds of a overflying hawk or a bull elk looking for his cows.

I mainly fished with nymphs while Doug prefers to fish with small hair wing dries. Doug caught a nice 16 inch cutt in the first pool we came across. The average cutts we caught were around 10-12 inch. Larger cutts up to 20 inch should be swimming somewhere. During that day a huge sculpin did manage to get my attention.

Around 3 PM we decided to head back to the car. Well, instead of walking back upstream we climbed the steep hill along the bank looking for a small trail path. The climb was steep indeed! The view from up the hill was amazing. This path was not for the faint hearted though. The way down was sometimes just a step away...

All together a super day! Thank you Doug.