I know that I’m totally blessed and get to do a lot of cool stuff, but my most favorite trip every year is backpacking with my daughter, Kolby. It’s the best daddy-daughter time in the world. No TV, no cellphones, no internet, no nada. Just me and her. We get to talk about everything under the sun with no interruptions. When I take time to hear her insights, it amazes me as to how smart and perceptive she is. I’d never have a chance to see this side of her if we didn’t withdraw from the busyness of the world.
I live a busy life. Right now, I’m 30,000 feet above the earth headed home. I’ve been out of state for two weeks and have two to three in-state trips this week while home and then I fly out again for two more weeks.
While going through TSA, I got a call from an editor wanting me to fly down to Texas in a few weeks for a dove hunt. And working on a deal with Knives of Alaska to develop a professional boning knife for the outdoorsman. It will soon be hitting the market. I’ve got to run down for a few days to bone out a steer, deer and a hog and do some filming on processing and do a couple of TV shows.
There is always something going on or being planned. So to get away, just me and my daughter by ourselves in the wilderness backpacking and fly fishing is precious. If you don’t do this with your kids, you really should. It’s the highlight of my year.
After your initial set-up cost, it is a cheap outing. We covered backpacking gear a couple of weeks ago, but I’d advise buying good gear. It will last for years to come and not toot out on you while in the backcountry. We tested out an Alps Mountaineering Chaos 2 and an Alps Meramac 2 tent, their Crescent 20 sleeping bags and their Nimble Air Mats. All worked great.
I had a flurry of articles I had to submit so we got off a little later than I wanted. I wanted to get to our camping spot, set up and fish for an hour or two before dark. As is, we got there in time to get set up before dark. We threw up the tents and while Kolby was pumping up the mats, I gathered enough firewood for the duration. I love the Nimble Air Mats. They’re unique in that the storage bag acts as a pump of sorts. It connects to the valve on the mat. Fill the bag with air and then roll it up to force air into the mat. A lot of mats are only 1-inch thick, the Nimble is nearly 4 inches thick so you only need one mat. This will save me from packing two.
We built a fire, ate some snacks and then stumbled to bed. The next morning, I got up early and hit my favorite hole. I caught one nice cutthroat, about 17-18 inches and then went back to camp to get Koko. We built a fire, drank some coffee and ate a quick breakfast.
We then hit the river and fly fished all day. I started out using Skull Head black wooly buggers from flydealflies.com. I could not beg a bite. I put on one of their Olive Caddis flies on Koko’s line and right fast she hung a nice native cutthroat. Wow, what a nice fish.
We didn’t catch a ton of fish but got a couple of nice ones and had a great time and as you remember from last week’s article, we got sidetracked picking huckleberries, which isn’t a bad thing at all. That in and of itself would have made it a great trip. I screwed up big time and forgot to pack flavored oatmeal. We love that for breakfast with huckleberries mixed in.
Wow, too many options in the backcountry. Do we pick huckleberries? Thimble berries? Fly fish? Why just do one? So we did all three. Late that afternoon we headed back to camp and built a big roaring fire and dined on Mountain House meals. I love their beef stroganoff dinners and if I don’t pack a MH raspberry crumble dessert … let’s just say that Kolby might go full auto.
As the sun set it started sprinkling lightly. We normally stay up until dark to watch the bats erratically swooping around chasing mosquitoes but due to the sprinkle and being dead tired from hiking all day we crawled to our tents and crashed. The sprinkle turned into a light rain. Nothing is as peaceful as being in a tent warm and toasty while it’s raining outside. Poor animals, they need to buy an Alps tent and sleeping bag.
The next morning the wood was damp. I had some fire-starting material I was testing but it didn’t work so I used some paper towels and soon had a fire going. I dipped a pot of water out of the river and made coffee.
We then hit the river until … we walked by a good huckleberry patch. Kolby put on the brakes and we picked a few more bottles of berries (we pulled the filters out of our Aquimira water bottles and filled them up). I finally got her back to fishing.
Soon the time had come to leave. We reluctantly packed up camp and hit the trail back to the truck.
What a great time.
Kolby and I got home, unloaded and were in bed by 1 a.m. The next day, Katy wanted to go hit the crappie so I unpacked, repacked and we took out and didn’t get home and in bed until 1 a.m. again!
Wow, two girls that are fishing me to death. Now that’s a good problem to have!
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
