Steelhead and Chukar Partridge, Salmon River, Idaho

On this, the second week of October, guide Dave Bicandi was convinced that a tremendous surge of steelhead was was somewhere between Riggins, Idaho, and Oregon’s Lower Granite Dam.  Known as “The Wall” one hundred and eighty thousand steelhead had crossed Lower Granite’s fish ladders. Exactly where the run was now, however, was anyone’s guess. As far as Bicandi knew, they could be thirty miles downstream.  Or, holding in the next deep hole.

“You’ll know when we hit it,” he promised Dan Serritella and me. “It’ll be slow like this, then “WHAM!  A steelie will hammer a plug and you can count on 10 to 25 hook-ups a day.”  

As if on cue, Serritella’s rod dipped toward the water.

Line poured off the level wind reel as Bicandi eased the boat into midstream. Thirty feet downstream, a steelhead tumbled across the surface in frantic splashes of rose and silver. Watching Dan pump and reel, it seemed a miracle that this steelhead had crossed eleven dams in its 1,000-mile migration from the Pacific. Just as surprising was hooking it beneath this arid, two-thousand-foot canyon that cuts through western Idaho’s rolling wheat fields. Looking up at the sheer black basalt walls, it appeared as if we were floating through a mountain range, not a river canyon. Above us, dry hillsides blazed with yellow aspen, red rose hips and deep green stands of Douglas fir. It is the canyon’s dry grasses, however, that support the birds. As Dan lifted the rod tip and Dave slipped a net beneath a six-pound steelhead, a chukar partridge called from the near shore.

This is one of the few areas in the West where you can both fish for steelhead and hunt for Chukar Partridge and when Olin Gardner, an old friend who owns Idaho Guide Service, called to ask if I’d care to float from Riggins to Eagle Creek, I only needed the launch date.

The chukar called again and, settled in the bow, Scooter, my black Lab swiveled to fix the sound. Twenty seconds passed before the bird called again. This time, it was answered by another farther uphill. The calling chukar offered a difficult choice. Do we continue to work this deep, productive hole or load the shotguns and chase a covey of feathered phantoms across the rimrock? With his ears squared to the hillside, Scooter feverishly tested the swirling wind.  Birds were moving on the far bank, and I tied Scooter’s lead to the bow cleat to keep him from diving into the swift river and swimming for shore.   

Bicandi’s reputation and income depended on finding fish and he now studied the deep hole and said, “When the fish are on the bite, keep the plugs in the water.” Glancing at my over and under .20 gauge, he pulled on the oars and added, “You can always hunt birds.”

Another chukar called, Scooter whined, and I was ready to vote for the birds when my reel shrieked. Grabbing the rod, I set the hook, felt weight, then nothing. The plug skittered across the surface.

“Missed it,” Bicandi observed as I untangled the trebles. “You need to let the fish hook itself.” New to pulling plugs, I nodded.

High above us, a chukar called. Two more answered.   Scooter shivered and whined.  While hunting Chukar, it was ordained that as soon as I slipped on a steep hillside or knelt to pluck the cactus spines out of Scooter’s feet, the birds would explode into flight.

“Next covey, you can put me ashore.” I advised Bicandi over my shoulder.  

 On cue, Dan’s rod bounced violently against the transom.

 Serritella lifted the rod tip and it seemed as though we indeed had hit the wall. I was sure that this was the run’s advance guard—the first of thousands that would swim by, or hammer our lures. Dan started to reel, the rod bent, and then the line went slack, and the plug tumbled onto the surface.

Dan shook his head in disgust.

“Nothing you did,” Dave said, taking a disappointed pull on the oars. “Just bad luck.”

Bad luck haunted the day.  By late afternoon, we had only boated one fish and when Dave beached us below the campground at China Bar, I laced my boots, grabbed my shotgun and followed Scooter up the north-facing hillside. In the late 19th century, the area had been worked by Chinese miners, but all that remained of that hard rock decade were a few silted-in shafts and faded tailings. Scooter hit a scent trail as soon as we left the river rocks. From the sign, it was clear that birds were running just ahead of us through the cheatgrass. Scooter trailed them up a steep face, through a narrow gully and onto a small plateau.  As soon as the steep hillside leveled out and I heard shots from an adjacent draw. A second later, a string of Hungarian partridge whistled by. I threw the barrel in the general direction of the first, missed, led another and shot behind it. I was slipping shells into open breech when the chukar burst out of the rocks and arced around the hillside.

Slipping on the steep trails, we side hilled into a deep gully, then up beneath a rock outcropping where Scooter started casting over the sparsely grassed shale. Forty yards in front of him, the birds flushed wildly, diving downhill and out of sight before I could get a shot. Above us, twenty mule deer led by a large buck watched as we hurried over the rise and started across an open face. When chukar flush wildly, it’s a sign that they’ve been overhunted.  In this case the coveys were too large and the campsite too inaccessible. We’d surprised the Chukar on their way to water and as the swept around an adjacent outcrop, could not see where they landed.  The sun sank beneath the canyon rim and the October dusk followed shortly after.

We were down climbing a steep face when Scooter jumped a covey of Huns. The birds erupted well in range, and I tumbled a straggler as it soared downhill. A moment later, Scooter returned, panting proudly around the bird he held in his mouth. Earlier at lunch, Bicandi had told us that the party before us had seen two hundred birds a day.

Scooter insisted tracking scent paths back toward the rim. Sliding downhill through the shale toward the blazing campfire, I whistled him back in.  During those days on the Salmon, we had watched mule deer move through red and yellow quaking aspens, otters keep pace between holes; and listened to the sounds of rapids, Kingfishers and Peregrine Falcons. We had run white water hooked steelhead, chased chukar and shot Hungarian partridge. And with distant laughter and the smell of barbecued steaks eddying up from below, my only regret that was if I had booked the trip for four days instead of three, we would have hit the wall.

For More Information on Dates and Cost Contact:

Olin and Shelley Gardner

Idaho Guide Service, https://idahoguideservice.com

208-734-4998