Fishing in Washington by Going Through Idaho

I am exceedingly blessed to have married someone with lots of relatives and many of them enjoy fishing. What is singularly amazing is that the two brothers Wayne is most connected to live in Washington State, but to get to their homes we have to drive through Idaho first.

Wayne and I at the undisclosed beaver pond.

Yesterday we connected with brother Mick and his wife Lisa and began a trek that lasted well into the afternoon. I cannot tell you where the fishing hole is because we took such a circuitous route to it that even leaving breadcrumbs on the dusty road was ineffectual.

The light on the beaver pond at mid-day.

And what a gorgeous day! Sunny, but not too warm, a slight breeze but sadly not enough to keep all the deer flies and other biters off our skin... scratched a lot when I got home.

We left the fish with Mick who was going to smoke them.

And we almost left Peaches at the pond because her hearing has gotten so bad that she was sleeping when we started to leave and was unaware we were packing up.

Mick moved over to another edge for a better cast.

The location is a beaver pond deep in an area called "The Bear Paw" which is sort of south of Priest Lake (the gem of Idaho lakes) and near some of the rivers that either flow into it or out of it. Found it on a map yet?

Lily pads probably make nice shade for the fish.

Before we headed out on this trip, I bought myself a fishing pole and got to use it for the first time. I only caught one fish, about 8 inches, but Wayne caught at least six. Lisa caught a couple, too. Mick spent so much time putting worms and bobbers on my pole and Lisa's that he was way behind in the totals.

There was a lot of brotherly rivalry about the achievements and plenty of ribbing making it a fun day.


Along the way back, we saw some interesting mushrooms and some moose droppings. I kidded Wayne that perhaps that was as close as he was going to get to a moose this trip.

Wayne is pointing to the pile of moose droppings.

It was an interesting drive from the secret pond to the very un-secret Priest Lake, a huge body of water in the northernmost corner of Idaho, bigger than Lake Coeur D'Alene. But the filtering in the sky did not set the lake off to its best colors. Still it was impressive.

Another day we might have the chance to see it as the real jewel it is of the Northwest.

Priest Lake from the eastern side; miles and miles of waterline.