Fishing With the Moose

By: Paul Fender                                                            

Fishing With The Moose

While living in Spokane, WA in 1993 my brother Chris came up for a fishing trip.  I had talked with several area fly fishermen about good places to go.  After much discussion and investigation I decided that we should explore the tributaries of the Clear Water in Northern Idaho.  The time of year was early September.  The weather was in the sixties during the day and the night time temperatures were still above freezing in the mountains.  Our plan was to leave Spokane on Friday morning and drive through Northern Idaho on I90 into Montana then back over the mountains through the Hoodoo pass back into Idaho and down to the confluence of Moose Creek and Kelly Creek where there was a camp ground.  We would make our camp site there and fish Moose Creek, Kelly Creek, and Cayuse Creek.  We would be fishing for trout.  We would be wading the creeks fishing with five weight fly rods, floating lines and 3lb tapered tippets.  The dry flies that were suggested for the area and this time of year were Yellow Humpies, Renegades, Stimulators, and Wooly Bugers.

The construction project that I was working on had been completed and we were just finishing the punch list.  I had workers on site so I could take off Friday and Monday. Everyone had been lined out so all was in place.  However, as usual I get a call earlyFriday morning that there is a problem with one of the new Chillers installed and it was leaking gas.  This was a federal project so anything leaking into the atmosphere was a big deal.  The mechanical room was actually located three stories below ground level with a specially designed venting system just in case this type of leak occurred.   This was the only project in my career that even had this safe guard.  Leave it to our government to waste money.  I had to be present to analyze the repairs.  I called the company responsible and they provided a tech that morning.  When we left before noon all was ok. 

We are now several hours behind schedule but being the adventurous souls we were, we pressed on.  We headed east on I90.  I had scheduled a few stops along the way so that my brother could experience some of the local ambiance.  Our first stop was the Snake Pit in Catalpa, ID.  The Snake Pit is and old two story western bar and whore house back in the day.  It dates back to the 1880’s.  Looked like it belongs on a movie set.  It is a favorite stopping off spot for bikers touring along I90.  We stopped for burgers and fries and a few adult beverages.  We continue along through Kellogg and Wallace.  These are two towns that were mining towns in there day.  Kellogg is where Hemmingway lived and where he is buried after his suicide.  Wallace is famous for their Sheriff.  He had been indicted three times by the feds but all three times the jury acquitted.  They could not get a jury to convict the sheriff and the federal judge would not change the venue. The sheriff was the man who controlled illegal gambling, prostitution, and other trades the feds frown on.  You need to remember this is still the old west.  A lot goes on in theNorthwest woods and that will take another story.  We press on.

We make another stop at the $100,000 bar for some additional reinforcement.  There actually is a $100,000 dollars in silver dollars laminated into the bar top.  My dream has always been to own a convenience liquor store in NW Montana with the slot machines allotted, with a small no tell Motel out back with illegal gambling and fancy ladies. Never happened.  When we leave it has begun to drizzle and it is getting dusk.  Superior is a little further East on I 90.

At this point I will write out the directions we were given by my friend who now lives in Anaconda, Mt.  They go like this:  “Go to Superior and take the exit off I 90.  You will need to get back to the other side of I90 so go West until you come to the creek and turn left under I90 you will see a lumber yard.  There is a drive between the lumber yard office and the storage barns.  The drive is really a road up the mountains.  It is unimproved but it is really pretty good.  As you go up the mountain the roads splits many times but always stay to the right except for one spot about half way up where you go left.  You will be able to tell as it is the most used.  When you go over the Hoodoo pass into Idaho the road becomes paved.  Go down the road until you come to the camp ground.  You better by gas in Superior before you start up the mountain because there won’t be any where you are going.  If you have an emergency  there is a Ranger Cottage at the confluence of Kelly Creek and Moose Creek and there is a phone.”

We buy gas and start are trek up the mountain.  It is dark now and the drizzle has turned to a light rain.  This road up the mountain starts out like many country roads but as we go up it winds around.  There are many switch backs and as we continues to it turns into nothing more than an old logging road.  We continue on.  My brother begins freaking out as the downhill side is very steep.  You can really see it with all the lightning strikes going on.  There are no markings along the road.  We keep going right at the Y’s in the road and after a good hour and a half we are at Hoodoo Pass.  It is raining harder now and getting colder.  We are now at the Idaho border and the paved road.  We are home free now.  Just have to find the camp site.

At this point I think it would be nice for you all to see a more accurate set of directions to the camp site.  You have to remember back in the 1990’s we didn’t have GPS or Google maps.  I used Google maps and followed it up the mountain.  It goes like this: Take I90 East to exit 47 at Superior, MT.  Turn left onto State Road 257, turn Right ontoRiver St. and then left onto Diamond Road.  Diamond Road still goes through the lumber yard.  Diamond Road becomes Trout Creek road.  Trout Creek Rd. is also named County Rd. 250 as you go over Hoodoo Pass.  Up to this point it is still an unimproved road. County Rd. 250 is improved and is also named Moose Creek Rd.  As you continue on the name changes to Black Canyon Rd. but it is still County Rd. 250.  Continue on to theHidden Creek Camp Ground.  Now the camp ground has a name.  This is where we stopped.  If you continue to follow the road on down you will run into the confluence of the North Fork of the Clearwater River.  If you continue on down the river and take the progressively better road you will take Hwy. 11 to Hwy. 12 to Orofino, ID.  If you check this out it is a very long way and you are still 100’s of miles from Spokane.  However, this a beautiful drive.  So our trip home will take us back over Hoodoo pass into Montanathen back west along I90.

We arrived at the camp site about 11:00 pm.  There is only one other group in the whole camp ground.  It is raining  pretty hard now and a lot of lightning and thunder.  By brother suggest that we sleep in the truck until morning.  I am not for that as I absolutely hate to sleep in the front seat of a truck.  Being the older brother I get my way.  Naturally we have a new tent that has never been erected before.  I open the box up and get the directions  and get back in the truck to read them.  Simple enough we can do this.  My brother again suggest that we sleep in the truck.  I get my way.  So we dawn our rain gear take a swig of Patron and we head out into the elements like true mountain men. Jim Bridger and Jeremiah Johnson had nothing on the Fender Brothers.  After we struggled with the tent for an hour we had it up including the rain fly.  As the years went by my granddaughter and I could erect the tent in about 15 minutes.  Must have been the Patron.  I remind my brother to leave the food locked up in the truck as there are Grizzly bears in this area.  We put our gear in the tent and we immediately fall to sleep listening to the rain fall gently on the tent.

About 3:00 am my brother wakes me up.  “Do you hear that?  I think there is a bear out there.”  It had quit raining and you could hear a crunch crunch like a cow eating corn. My brother is sure it was a bear.  He gets out his hunting knife.  I ask him what are going to do with that, slit your wrists, because you come after a bear with that knife he will eat you and I’ll laugh.  We hear the crunching sound continuing then the animal begins walking towards the tent.  I could tell that whatever it was it was on all fours.  It came up alongside the tent and stopped.  My brother is getting really nervous at this point. Then all of a sudden the animal begins pissing on the tent.  It smelled really bad.  At this point I had had enough and curiosity was getting the best of me.  The animal had begun walking on.  I came out of the ten with my big Mag Lite.  I shined the light in the direction of the animal.  It was a huge Bull Moose.  He just looked back over his shoulder at me and wondered off.  It was a big Moose close to 1,500 lbs.  All this time my brother was still in the tent and I was  outside being quiet.  He kept calling my name and I crept back over by the tent and started pawing at the tent with my hands.  He came roaring out the tent in a rage.  It was hilarious.  The other group of campers had been watching all this and we all roared with laughter.  My brother was not a happy camper.  We went back in the tent and went back to sleep enduring the smell of Moose piss.  Over the years when I and my grandkids would sleep in that old tent they always asked what that smell was.  It never went away although lessened over the years.  So at night after the kids were tucked in I had to tell them the Moose pissing on the tent story.

The next morning we found out from our neighbors what the crunching sound was.  The Moose had been going from camp site to camp site eating the wet coals from the fire pits.  They had also heard the crunching and began watching the moose.  They were a group of college students from Idaho State out for a weekend of trout fishing.  We built a fire with the dry wood we brought with us and cooked breakfast.  After breakfast we went fishing back up the creek from where we had camped to an area the students had suggested.  On our way up the creek we heard a bull elk bugling and the a cow answering.  The bull really began bugling up a storm.  My brother being the outdoorsman he is says, “Is that some ones car alarm?”  Enough said.

The fishing started out slow.  I wasn’t catching anything and brother who is an excellent fisherman caught a few.  We fished for three or four hours and went back to camp.  We noticed one of the students fishing way back up in a notch a long way from the road.  He was facing into the current casting up stream and stripping line as his line came back to him.  He was catching a lot of fish.  He came back to camp soon after we had.  We shared some beers with him and he told us what he was doing.  He was getting back away from the road where most fishermen would not make the effort and was stripping Stimulators with the current.  The bank on the road side of the creek was extremely steep with the road about a hundred feet above the stream bed.  You would have  to hike along the road and find an accessible way down to the stream.  Then wade the stream back away from the road back where it cut back into the mountain.  We caught a lot of cut throat trout.  Fish is good.  The weather cleared and we fished till Monday, broke camp and headed back over Hoodoo to I90 then West to Spokane.