That lead me to this week's short fishing trip, originally planned for a two-day trip on the St. Joe River in North Idaho. The Joe is a tributary to Lake Coeur d'Alene and is renowned for its Westslope Cutthroat fishing. I hadn't been on the Joe since last September and sunny skies greeted my fishing partner and I when we arrived on the river this past Wednesday.
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| This 18" Cutt fell for a Stonefly Nymph. Caught by Dustin Bise. |
The intense heat and cloudless day was not great for hatches (sparse PMDs, Golden Stones, and Caddis) but fish were still active. Combining nymphing slots and buckets and throwing attractor dries, we quickly got into fish. In fact, our first fish of the day was actually one of two on the same cast. Yes, my first one-man double... a 16" Cutt on the stonefly and a 6" Cutt on the Prince dropper. The day was looking solid until an incident on the next hole.
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| Two Fish = Win! |
While I was hiking down a trail to a boulder that created a huge eddy, I reached forward to brace myself (going downhill) on an old tree stump. I looked at the stump before I reached for it, and saw nothing unusual. As soon as my hand touched the top of the stump (and my fingers reached over the edge of it) I felt a sharp prick and heard an odd screeching noise. A small creature of some sort fell to the ground and started crawling around while I quickly jumped down to the river bank, scared to death. I looked at my finger and saw two small puncture wounds (practically superficial) and looked on the trail to see a small bat (silver haired bat) hissing/screeching at me.
Now, I was scared, didn't know what to do, and in hindsight I should've captured and killed the little bastard, but instead I went to the river, got out my soap and began washing the wound out continually. We continued to fish for the rest of the evening and set up camp that night. I figured/thought that rabies took some time to set in and the bite looked mild enough that I'd be fine if I waited till the following day to trek back to Spokane.
We fished through the night, netting 20 fish between the two of us, mostly Cutthroat with a few Whitefish thrown in for varieties sakes. The following morning, we fished for a few hours working fish on dries and nymphs in the nicer buckets on the river. Even a big pool produced fish for us, which was shocking considering how much pressure these fish had seen recently.
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| Great Cutthroat from the "Bat Hole." |
It turned out to be a near 40 fish trip for us, which is phenomenal considering the chatter from most anglers on the river was that fishing was terribly slow.
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| Nice Cutthroat following release. |
Wrapping up early, we drove back to Spokane where I went immediately to the hospital. It was determined that I needed to get a Post-Exposure Rabies treatment (series of 5 shots, plus an EXTREMELY expensive anti-body shot to start off with)... the bummer is that insurance will barely cover any of it (read none... just adjustments... they say it's not a preventative thing but rather an injection) and the average bill for people bitten by bats who need the treatment is $10,000. No joke. In fact, that first day I had 11 shots at the Hospital including 6 of the anti-body into my fingertip... painful freaking stuff.
So a trip that went from being a cheap, camping overnight for Cutties, turned into the most expensive and frustrating ordeal of my life (wait... maybe college takes that title).
I won't be posting too many fishing reports in the near future as medical appointments, work, and packing for our move will occupy most of our time. I do have a float planned for next week on the Spokane and will have a full run-down on that.
So next time you're out fishing/hiking/exploring in North Idaho, be aware of bats and stay the #%#@ away from them. They do have an important role in our ecosystem but they sure can be expensive and possibly deadly.
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