Ghost Towns and Fall Fishing on the Kootenai Sept 18, 2020

This week I took a side trip with a friend. We took our Kayaks and parked under the old Leonia Bridge, enjoying a very easy hike up to the cemetery of the old mining town of Boulder City (sometimes called Ruby City.) The road switchbacks up the mountain side on the south shore of the Kootenai. If you are the type of person that counts (I am) there are six switchbacks before you break out onto a bench clearing. Follow the road to a turn out on the right and you will see the remains of the cemetery. Two miles down the road you will find the remains of the schoolhouse, the foundation of the general store and a few of the miner’s home foundations. The town had 150 residents during the mining operations in the 1910’s and 1920’s. The forestry department has been working hard up in these mountains, building an interpretive area. Follow this link to my face book page. Now, if you don’t fancy a walk up the side of the mountain or leaving your watercraft on the banks for 3 plus hours, you can drive around from Bonner’s Ferry. Contact the forest service Admin office in town for directions.

Link to my Facebook entry- https://www.facebook.com/leeanna.young.77/posts/147662623675846

Now, on to fishing. It’s a unfair to have shorter days and slower currents when the fishing gets AMAZING! The current flow at the Montana/Idaho state line is 6445 CFS. The water temps are hanging between 57 and 60 degrees. Give yourself more time to fish so you don’t come in with the bats. We floated the day the river dropped nearly 2,000 CFS and found the afternoon slow, probably due to the water dropping so quickly. Then I went out again on Wednesday and it was a different story. The trout have settled into their new homes. I saw October Caddis bouncing on the water. Darker colored mayflies rising and the fish were looking up! Purple haze, purple chubbies, rust colored stimulators, brown caddis all did very well. Some like to use a dropper below the larger flies but I find myself accidentally snagging a few hungry trout so I switched to a single fly. Enjoy the cooler days and the lower flows.