Fishing

Our original post is below the dashed line. We started reporting on the Halstead Fire Thursday due to interest here from BFT. Well, both the fire and the article got legs. The fire's way past 58,000 acres reported at 2 pm today. Go to the article to see this afternoon's smoke plume. Old Sawmill Station got ashed last nigh. Today they said the sky is black toward Stanley and the smoke blotted out the sun. Salmon got ashed last night and they aren't even letting the HS football kids practice in the smoke. Its looks like the fire is on a run down Basin Creek. If the NW winds pick up tomorrow, the fire might make it to the river. Anyway, it's the biggest news item on the river, even bigger than the thermal block that's holding up the steelhead below Ice Harbor. We're updating the article 3-5 times each day now. Something tells us this story is gonna get a lot bigger real soon. Ironically, my wife and I were planning on going to Stanley next week but now all bets are off.

http://www.salmonriveridaho.net/...ion-with-salmon.html
----------------------Below is the original post--------------

There was a question posed recently about how the Halstead Fire might affect a visit to Sawtooth Country. We've had some other questions roll in from non-BFT-related sources. We figured we might as well do an article on how that fire might impact Upper Salmon Country since there's a lot of good fishing left in the new few weeks. There's virtually no doubt the fire is being managed to burn until rain or snow puts it out. We wrote an article that's way too long but here it is:

http://www.salmonriveridaho.net/...ion-with-salmon.html

Hope it helps anyone heading up to fishing The Salmon River in Sawtooth Country. Bottom Line: we don't think it's going to affect most of Sawtooth Country but be minble and stay alert!

Happy Fishing, jp

thanks for the info jp

I think that's the case every year.

The smoke is settling in Challis right now, like it does almost every evening. I can hardly wait for...

Tuesday October 16th, 2012 approx. 12:00 AM

when they plan to put it out.

Today in the Sawtooth Valley we awoke to a beautiful crystal clear morning! It was great and the first time in weeks to have such visibility. Then the wind came up around noon and the entire valley went to crap, visibility 2-3 miles if you are lucky. However that smoke did not come from Halsted, it came from the rapidly growing Trinity Ridge fire between the valley and boise. It grew in size 400% since yesterday and is up to 24,000 acres!

Hope you have great fun at BBR today in spite of the smoke. If there's any chance you could send me a photo or two, I'd sure appreciate it. Here's an address:

newsphoto@salmonriveridaho.net

I suppose there was teh typical thick layer of smoke in Round Valley this morning. They say it's supposed to lift up by mid-day so many it won't be too bad for the BBR today.

GOOD LUCK!

Thanks, John Parsons, Idaho Falls.

I've never been to BBR, that's for the turistas. I stay at home and listen to the dogs sing along.

There's smoke this morning. If you just got here you would say it was smoky. If you have seen real smoky, you would say it isn't too bad.

JP saw your latest update on the halstead fire on the redfish lake lodge page on fb. thanks for the update.
http://www.salmonriveridaho.net/

Thanks, Jigs, I didn't know it made it to the RF Lodge FB Page. It's been getting repped by the Stanley, Idaho FB--they called it the best web coverage of the fire. That's nice but all it means is there's so many fires burning the media can't focus on just one of them like we are. The danged fire has cost $5.2-million so far as of this morning. Geeze.

Anyway, the big news today was the wind gusting into the 20's and the fire going on a run in Upper Basin Creek. Tomorrow could be worse if the winds kick back up. The "moment of truth" of this fire is what happens if and when it gets down to The Salmon River. If it spots across the river, it's off to the races. The fire bosses have been laying off direct attack for safety reasons but they haven't called in heavy air support either. We kinda think that would change if it went on a tear through the SNRA. After all, next Wednesday is the 40th Anniversary of the SNRA's creation. That would be pretty ironic if the place was on fire for its 40th anniv.

It's really getting interesting with that fire the last couple of days. Thanks so much for getting me started on covering it.

Many Cheers! jp

http://www.salmonriveridaho.net/...ion-with-salmon.html

I have also been keeping track of the Mustang fire down river. it sounds like they shut traffic down from the northfork guard station, and have evacuated colston creek are, up almost to poverty flats! If this fire continues like it is it could realy hamper steelhead fishing this fall

SALMON -- An estimated 200 rafters were stranded Tuesday after wildfires forced the closure of the only road available to return them to civilization once they've ended trips on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
Officials with the Salmon-Challis National Forest closed portions of Salmon River Road on Monday, then closed it entirely Monday night after the Mustang Complex fires tripled in size, sending rocks, burned trees and debris tumbling down onto the road.
Several of the fires in what once was an eight-fire complex have burned together and merged, officials said.
Government crews worked Tuesday to remove the debris and reopen the road, U.S.
Forest Service spokeswoman Karen Dunlap said. The goal was to reopen Salmon River Road sometime this morning, she said.
In the interim, an estimated 200 people were left without a way to return to their vehicles, many of which were parked in Salmon. The rafters were forced to camp at Cache Bar, the chief take-out point for Middle Fork boaters.

they said it reached the colston creek guard station yesterday which is about a half mile up colston creek from were our campground is

We checked with the North Fork store and North Fork Ranger Station. They both said the same thing--the rafters were evacuated today and then the road was closed again. For those 200 people, that sure added a whole new spin to that "River of No Return" thing as they made an expected camp last night as Cache Bar!

it sure would have put a sick feeling in your gut as the further you floated the thicker the smoke.

You should try being in east Boise right now. The smoke from the Trinity Ridge fire has been drifting down the Boise river corridor right into east Boise and spreads out over the valley. East Boise has been smoked in for days now. It's a bit like being inside a smoker.

Stick a fork in me. I think I'm done.
Keep your gunpowder dry and your hooks in the water. ><>J

Sounds like most of Idaho is covered in smoke. Lava, mccammon,downey,inkom,pocatello,ft hall, soda, grace, boise, challis, salmon, and the list goes on. Just think with all these fires once there out and within a couple years them places with be covered in new life.. Lots of green. But the bad is its on fire and the world is burning.
JEREMY R PEACE
Lava Hot Springs Idaho
83246.. and by the way reader advised there is a very good chance I am writing from my phone so there is a 99 percent chance for punctuation and spelling errors thank you for bearing with me..

Here is a picture from one of the building at Micron from a few days ago. It isn't this bad all the time, though. Kind of comes and goes.


Keep your gunpowder dry and your hooks in the water. ><>J

Lovely stuff.

That's why I am currently in Western Washington!!

Pierce dont fool your self you can take the I out of Idaho but you cant take the Idaho out the boy... If it wernt so you wouldnt checking up on us daho's

Yeah, you really can't take the Idaho out! .... Looking forward to being home. But I am enjoying visiting old fishing haunts and friends over here. I just hate the Washington traffic now!!

What really hurts is watching some of my favorite country there in Idaho burning up! What a nasty fire year this has been, and it isn't over yet.

Hope some of it slows down so you can get to the fishing this fall.

The fire managers for the Big Three (Trinity Ridge, Halstead and Mustang) are all basically saying the fires won't go out until it snows. The only fire I'm following closely is the Halstead and it has an official containment date (no kidding) of October 16 at noon, no less. I wonder how they figured lunchtime that day?

Meanwhile, as of yesterday, they've spent $5.8-million on the Halstead and it just keeps adding up daily acreage and doing and going pretty much where it wants to regardless of how much money gets spent. If snow is late in coming, who knows how much this one fire is going to cost?

There might be some rain maybe Tuesday but it may or may not come and it may or may not be much more than a spit from the sky. But one thing's reasonably sure, it's going to bring lightning along with it--so we could easily be looking at yet more fires that will burn until it snows.

One article I read said the Forest Service is going to toast $1.4-billion fighting fires this year.

I'm not sure if I posted here about the "back story" on the "rescue" of the stranded rafters. If you read between the lines in this story, you will definitely get the drift of what really went on. I wish I could have heard the words exchanged between the Sheriff and the USFS. Meanwhile, the USFS has wisely decided to keep the Salmon River Road open to jet boaters and rafters. http://goo.gl/l7WUn

We got a little bored writing about The Halstead today and messed around with some steelhead numbers at four dams. You can read our rambling on that subject here:

http://www.salmonriveridaho.net/p/fishing.html

We're heading out at 5 am tomorrow for the East Fork and then going up to Stanley Tuesday-Wednesday and then down to Challis, Ellis & Elk Bend Thursday-Friday.
We won't be posting much while we're on the road but will have a pile of new stuff when we get back.

Well, Happy Fishing & Many Cheers! John Parsons