Fly Fishing the St. Joe River in Idaho: The Ultimate Trip

The first time that I went fly fishing on the St. Joe River in the panhandle of Idaho, I thought that I’d arrived at a heaven on earth. A real nirvana for the fly fisherman. The water was crystal clear. Cool. Delightful. Not too hard to wade. The scenery. Stunning. Jaw-dropping. The trout. Big, fun, and dumb. Easy to catch. But scrappy, healthy, and gorgeous all at the same time.

St. Joe River: A Fly Fishing Paradise

In other words, I’d found one of my favorite fly fishing paradises in Idaho. And, in the whole United States, for that matter. In fact, I loved fly fishing the Joe so much that I decided to drive all the way out West again on a second western road trip two years later. That’s roughly 34 hours and 2300 miles from my east coast home! And the St. Joe River would be my first stop on my new Idaho fly fishing adventure. However, this time it wasn’t just the fly fishing that would blow my mind. It was a close encounter with the wildlife and something that I’d discover at night that made this the ultimate trip of a lifetime.

Unfortunately, that previous fishing expedition that I took to the St. Joe was undoubtedly superior in many ways. First, I was catching bigger fish. For some reason on this second trip, the fish were a bit smaller and harder to catch. And secondly, the weather was a lot colder, especially at night. In fact, I was having to cook breakfast in my winter clothes on my second trip. Whereas that first trip had been warm and temperate–the kind of weather us soft East Coasters enjoy. And finally, for whatever reason, I kept tripping and falling into the river on this second trip. Not once, not twice, but three DANG times! A new record for me.

As it was, all these smaller fish, the chilly mornings and nights, and especially the constant frigid dunkings that I was taking were really starting to piss me off. Seriously. However, I’d also brought my inflatable raft with me this time. And I’d arranged to float down the river with a guy I’d just met, Rob, who was camping with a large fishing club about three miles downstream from my camp.

Thus, things were looking up for me, as we were planning on putting in for the float at my camp the next day. Around 11 a.m. Which was great, because I’d have the time to eat a nice breakfast in the morning and bask in the sunshine, warming up my Reptilian-like ice cold blood.

St. Joe River: A Fly Fishing Float Trip

So the next day, Rob shows up on time, while I’m sipping some green tea at the Forest Service picnic table in my camp. He’d brought a lightweight Walmart-type of pontoon craft so he didn’t need help moving it. So I just kept at my tea in the sunshine until he was set up and finally ready to go.

Down by the river, I talked with him about a few safety precautions. That’s just because I used to be a whitewater raft guide. So it’s in my blood. But he suddenly seemed put off by me. Still, we launched anyway. And why not? I just wanted to go fishing.

Floating the St. Joe River in Idaho: A Wild And Scenic River

Thing is, once we were on the river, old Rob starts drifting way back away from me. That’s a big no-no. When you go down the river with another guy you’re supposed to stay together. For safety’s sake. Still, I wasn’t worried. After all, I was the former whitewater raft guide. So I wasn’t the one who was gonna get in trouble on the water.

But I did have a minor mishap, not long after I’d left Rob way behind me. You see, in a fast rapid I began to execute a tight eddy turn, so that I could stop along the shore and fish a certain hole. But just at the end of my turn, my boat clipped a submerged rock. Instantly, I got knocked overboard. Headfirst, right into the waters of the shore eddy.

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed, as I popped up out of the bone-chilling water, still waist-deep in it, trying frantically to grab my boat. But it had already drifted off downstream out of my reach.

Now I was just about to swim after it, or even chase it down, running along the shore, when I suddenly heard a tremendous crashing in the brush behind me.

I turned, expecting to see a deer. But was greeted by a huge black bear, standing on the bank about three feet away from me. I gasped. Saw the bear’s jaw drop. But his paw was raised as if he was about to strike. I stared at him in the eyes.

This went through my mind. He can kill me. But he doesn’t know it. This is one staring contest you don’t want to lose.

So, we stood there like that. Me and the bear. Staring at each other. His eyes on me. Emotionless. Those dark brown eyes.

I know what you’re thinking. But don’t even try. I’m the king of the mountain, Mr. weak bear.

The bear leaned closer. Was this strange creature good eating?

My heart beat faster.

Show no fear.

But the sweat on my brow was betraying me…

How much longer can I keep this up?

It’s over, I thought, as the bear stood up higher, huffing and puffing. I saw his paw move back a bit. I was a real goner. No doubt, he was just about to maul me to pieces in the river. I turned my eyes away.

But, to my surprise, the bear suddenly turned and fled up the hillside, disappearing into the pines higher up on the mountainside.

What the …?

Suddenly, I heard some splashing behind me. Turning, I saw Rob in his Walmart-type pontoon boat drifting by me in the fast water, almost like he knew what he was doing.

“You scared the bear!” I shouted at him. “You scared it, man!”
Crazy thing was, Rob hardly looked back at me. It was like he was avoiding me. What was his deal?

“Hey, man! Hey Rob, grab my boat! Will you!” I shouted even louder this time. “I seem to have lost it.”
This time he, at least, looked back at me. Then, he gave me an unenthusiastic thumbs up. At least, he’d heard me.

St. Joe River: Chasing Down My Raft

I watched Rob, as he drifted off around the bend in his pontoon boat. Then, I got out of the water onto the shore and started hustling downstream after my raft.

About 1/4 of a mile downstream, I found my raft anchored to the shore. Clearly, Rob had caught up with it, anchored it, and just left. Now, you would’ve thought that he would’ve, at least, waited for me. You’re supposed to look out for your paddling partner and you check in with them, especially after a spill. Just to make sure nothing’s wrong. That’s just the general etiquette and safety protocols among boaters. Whereas, Rob had just abandoned me and my boat. At that point, I figured that this was something that I’d definitely want to discuss with him when I caught up with him later at the camp downstream.

St. Joe River: Fly Fishing at Last

But for now, I was just gonna get my fly rod out and start fishing the Joe, seeing as how it looked like there might be a few trout right where Rob had left my boat. And, as luck would have it, the Joe didn’t disappoint that day. That said, I was still sore with Rob for just leaving my boat on the river without even waiting for me.

St. Joe River: Arriving at the Take Out

When I arrived at the take out where the fishing club was camped, I first hauled my boat up the bank to the gravel road along the river for easy loading when I returned with my truck. Then, I just marched back to the camp where I found Rob conversing with a few other folks around a campfire. He looked nervous as I approached.

“Hey man, what’s up? So how come you didn’t wait for me after you got my boat?
No one said anything, but a few nervous glances were exchanged.

I went on, “You just left it there. I could’ve been hurt, or something. Don’t you think it would’ve been a good idea to have waited for me? Especially after you saw me having trouble with that bear. That bear could’ve killed me, but you just glided on by like you didn’t want to have anything to do with me. So what’s up with that? Do you just abandon every guy you paddle with? I thought we were gonna paddle the river today and fish. That’s what you said when I met you yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I usually look out for my paddling partner.”

“Do you think you can calm it down, man?” Rob asked me in response.
“I am calm. I just wanted to sort this thing out with you.”

“Well, alright then, Gary. I did want to go boating with you today. So that’s why I showed up at your campsite. But just before we launched, you started telling me that you’d talked with some little green aliens last night and all kinds of other crazy-ass stuff like that…”
“What! What are you talking about?” I exclaimed, completely flabbergasted. “I never said that!”
“You did, Gary. You did!” Rob insisted.
“I never did, man. This is insane!”
“Well, whatever, that’s just how I saw it. So I figured that you were on something. So, naturally, I wanted to stay as far away from you as possible. Because, as you well know, it’s really bad form to go down the river when you’re too high to think straight or be SAFE.”

I was just about to tell him that he was nuts, but he kept going.

“And another thing, Gary, about that bear you said you saw. There wasn’t anything there. I saw you as I was drifting down the river. And you were just standing there, staring at nothing. Nothing but thin air.”
“That bear was right in front of my face,” I gasped, gesturing with my arms. “Right there!”
“Yeah right, my point is that you’re unhinged, or something. So let’s just leave it at that. And while I’m at it, and I think that I speak for everyone else here. I’d say it’s about time that you got back to your camp. And, no, you’re not welcome back here. You’re welcome, by the way, for me grabbing your boat.”
“That’s fine with me. I don’t wanna float the river with you again, either,” I said, turning my attention to the other guys around the fire for a moment. “But I’m telling you all, your friend’s losing it. There was a bear. It was real. Just like you and me. And everything around us.”
And with that said, I turned away and headed back toward the road and my camp, where I’d retrieve my truck for the shuttle.

St. Joe River, Idaho: Camping Underneath the Stars

As you might expect that conversation stayed with me for the rest of the evening, bugging the crap out of me. I just couldn’t seem to make much sense of it even as I laid down to sleep in my tent later that night. The only rational explanation that I could come up with was that Rob was just crazy, or maybe he was just playing some kind of sick joke on me. Still, I was absolutely appalled by what he’d said about me back at that campfire.

First of all, I’d never said to him that I’d talked with little green aliens from outer space in the morning. Never did! Why would I? And, in the second place, I’d seen that bear on the river today. It’d been right there. Three feet in front of me! So it was as real as rain. And, all of this just proved to me that Rob was the crazy one, not me. I mean, he’d seemed a little weird today, but as it turned out he was just outright insane. So I could just forget about the whole episode and sleep sound tonight.

And with that thought, I just relaxed a bit and stared up through the netting of my tent at the beautiful stars suspended above the St. Joe River. The sound of the river flowing gave me a sense of peace. It was enough to make you fall asleep immediately. But, as I gazed up at those stars, I noticed that they were breaking up and falling toward the earth, like giant sparklers in the sky. And soon, I became mesmerized by this stunning cascade of tiny broken star parts, falling down towards the earth, like a snowstorm in July. So that’s all I saw for a while. Just a blinding silver and golden blizzard in the night sky.

“The sound of the river flowing gave me a sense of peace.”

Suddenly, I was reminded, once again, of what Rob had said to me back at the fishing club camp, when he’d claimed that I’d said that I’d been talking with green aliens.
What a pile of rubbish! What a bald-faced lie! I thought. Not only that, but he’d acted like I was completely out of my mind. When, in fact, I was as sane as any good citizen in this state of Idaho.

I really believed that in my heart, even as that flying saucer emerged among all that immaculate chaos in the sky. It was the alien saucer from another interdimensional universe that I’d been expecting for a while. Now, they’d already visited me a couple times in this place and told me that they’d be back for me. And I’d even told a few people about them. But people just thought that I was crazy. But who was really crazy now? I thought, as I watched that beautiful disk, hovering no more than 30 feet above me, humming in the sky.

Then, a beam of white light came down and began lifting me, higher and higher. And soon, I found myself inside the craft, where my little green friends greeted me and smiled. Telepathically, they told me that we were about to embark on the ultimate trip of a lifetime to their home dimension where I’d see things that I couldn’t even dream about now.

But just as we were about to take flight, I suddenly came to. Waking up, startled, in my dark tent alone, right where I’d gone to sleep a few minutes ago. And that’s when I finally realized that Rob had been right all along about the bear and me telling him that I’d been talking to aliens. I had actually hallucinated that bear and had, in fact, told Rob that I’d been talking with some aliens. But I’d been denying these things to myself out of fear that I might be losing my mind. But these hallucinations weren’t real, except in my mind, just like the dream that I’d just had about those aliens and their saucer wasn’t real, either. It was all just a dream that had indistinctly merged into my unconscious reality.

Luckily for me, though, all these strange hallucinations and hyper-realistic dreams that I’d been having lately–right from the very start of this western road trip–all had a perfectly good logical explanation that didn’t involve me actually going crazy. You see, these mental breaks from reality were all just the abnormal results of the CIA conducting some mind control experiments on me in my early 20s. It was either that, or a psychological side effect of the new higher frequency cellular towers that they’d just erected in this part of the country. I mean, it was common knowledge by now that those higher frequencies could create a whole new perceptual false reality for people by interfering with their normal brain waves. So surely this might be what was going on with me, lately.

But that’s just crazy, I can already hear some of you saying. The CIA has never conducted secret mind control experiments on any unsuspecting US citizens. And, for that matter, there’s no evidence that anyone, or any company, is currently installing more powerful cellular towers to impose an AI false reality upon all of humanity so that they can subvert individual human consciousness for their own nefarious ends and reasons. Well, my friends, you are free to believe anything you want to. At least, for the time being…

Subscribe:

Thank you for reading my blog post about my ultimate trip to the St. Joe River in the panhandle of Idaho. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please subscribe so that I can send you notices about my future posts. Subscribing is FREE and I don’t spam or share your email. Also, please share this post with your friends, family members, and co-workers on the usual social networks. This will help support this blog and grow my audience.

Gary Alan

After a long career in the publishing industry, Gary Alan left his corporate job to pursue his next adventures in life as a blogger, writer, investor, fly fisherman, hiker, and traveler. He is the author of the adventure fiction book, 'Big Thunder-Hearted River'.