Fathers Day Walleye

Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir, June 2025

Catching a walleye on a fly rod had always been on my fishing bucket list. Idaho has a couple of bodies of water where walleye reside, with Salmon Falls being one of the most well known. Late spring of 2025 we finally made it happen. 

Research had shown that mid-June was a decent time to try. So Father's Day weekend, Katie, my dad and I found ourselves pitching our tents at Salmon Falls, eager to give Idaho walleye a try.

We launched the boat and zipped over to the first chunky rock bank we saw. Katie and I started with a balanced leech under a strike indicator while my dad threw a spinning rod with a lure. I was getting ready to make my first cast when Katie's bobber sank and she set the hook. 

"That was fast." I scoffed. "Let's see what ya caught."

The fish stayed fairly deep but didn't pull or fight very hard.

"It's fighting different." Katie added. "Maybe..."

She heaved harder on the rod and the fish rose toward the surface of the water.

"It's a walleye! It's a walleye!" I shouted in amazement while scrambling for the net.

We scooped the 20 inch fish into the net, just amazed at how quickly we had caught a walleye; Katie's very first cast. I just shook my head; leave it to Katie.

We kept the fish, not knowing how many more we'd find. Walleye are obviously one of the most highly prized eating fish, so coming home from this trip with some to eat was another goal. 

We continued working the rocky bank and started catching gobs of decent smallmouth bass. As fun as these were to catch, we really wanted walleye. My dad found the next walleye; a small one but still the target species. This one ate a small swim bait. 

That first fishing session resulted in Katie's first walleye, countless smallmouth and one other walleye my dad caught. Not a bad start.

The next day, my dad and I tried an early morning session, only to find lots more smallmouth and no walleye. When Katie was ready, we headed out again. This time we'd cruise much further up the lake into some different water. We tried a few places along the way and caught many more smallmouth.

We finally made it 3/4 of the way up the lake where we found a few more boats and a much shallower, flatter, muddy bottom. I began to use my electronics to detect the schools of fish. 

 

We all began to catch small walleye on a regular basis, including my first on a fly rod. All seemed to be in the 9-11 inch range, making it hard to put some in the live well, but we slowly added a couple of the larger ones.

It was fun to finally find some walleye we could catch on a regular basis. The giant Katie had caught the first day on the first cast seemed to be an anomaly. 

That evening, Katie and I went out again and found a few more walleye in the back of a cove.

The last morning we headed up the lake again in search of more walleye. The small fish we had cleaned so far seemed to have a decent amount of meat, so maybe we shouldn't be too picky on the size. We tried a slightly different spot adjacent to deeper water and found the walleye once again. They would come through in schools, indicated by the fish finder. I anchored the boat and would call out the school as they passed by the back of the boat. Many times, an indicator would drop on command when a school would cruise by. 

The occasional smallmouth was also never far away and always eager to eat a balanced leech. 

By 2 pm it was time to pack up and head home. We had all caught our first walleye on a fly, albeit mostly small, but walleye none the less. Katie's first fish was the largest walleye we saw and subsequent efforts on rocky banks only resulted in loads of 12-15 inch smallmouth. It seemed the schools of small walleye preferred the muddy bottoms found at the upper end of the lake. Maybe next year they will be bigger?

My dad had a wonderful time and was very impressed with the reservoir and its campground. 

A blue racer snake

Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir did not disappoint and we will surely be back for more walleye on the fly rod. 

 

North for Northerns

North Idaho and Montana 2025

Just like last year, Katie and I drove north in early May, hoping to repeat and fine-tune the big pike catching we did the previous year. This time, we'd start in Montana and work our way south as the trip progressed. The first day of driving was long, and by dark we had a very temporary road-side camp set up in the first fishing location. 

The first lake we tried, we had only fished one other time, producing incredible pike fishing in 2023. However, the lake level was lower than we wanted and the spot we had caught pike last time was only 2-3 feet deep and muddy. We had a couple pike encounters at the boat-side and landed a few smallies though. We explored a couple other areas of the lake and had a good time on our first day on the water.

Setting up camp in a new location, we settled in for several days of fishing on one of our favorite pieces of water, as well as a new one. We decided to head to the new spot first. We launched the boat and immediately drifted into water that just screamed pike. Even though I had other spots further away I wanted to check out, we couldn't pass up the water my gut was telling me we should try. 

With the boat ramp only 50 yards away, we began casting and immediately were into pike. 

After several pike, we left that area and began to explore. The water looked good in some other places, but after several hours and very little pike action, we returned to the spot near the boat ramp. Fishing picked up again and we finished the day with many more pike!

The spot didn't produce any giants, but respectable and spunky fish. The next couple days we fished some familiar spots. Fishing was decent and several more pike were landed.

 

We landed a decent number of medium-sized pike the first few days, but the big girls eluded us. We saw a couple but they didn't want to play. We relocated camp back to Idaho and further south for the next segment of our trip.

The next lake we tried had very clear water and excellent weed beds. You could see down nearly 15 feet and several times we could see huge pike following our flies. We didn't hook up with any of the giants, but we caught a few smaller pike and some nice crappie and bluegill.

We moved camp once again and settled into one of our favorite areas, where lots of different lakes could be accessed by boat. 

The next few days were filled with lots of fun outings on the water and some nice bike rides. 

We found lots of nice crappie too!

The water was a few degrees warmer than the previous year, and it seemed to make all the difference in not finding big pike. Pike were caught here and there on the usual streamers, but oddly enough, the largest pike were caught on our balanced minnows while crappie fishing. 

The balanced minnow seems to catch everything that swims!

We also caught quite few really nice smallmouth bass!

We decided to continue south on our journey towards home and stop at one last spot; a world renowned smallmouth fishery. We had never fished here and figured it was worth a try. We zipped up the lake to the first point and began fishing with... you guessed it: balanced flies. It took Katie all of 5 minutes to hook into a giant smallmouth. She lost the fish but it gave us lots of optimism for the day and half to come. That first evening we caught 2 giants and lots of small bass.  

We fished most of the next day and caught babies on nearly every cast with the occasional toad mixed in. This was a great last stop on our trip! Katie even caught a few slimy trout. 

The annual pike trip up north had come to a close. Another successful year with lots of fish and lots of fun. We're still chasing that 40 inch pike so stayed tuned for 2026!