And there it is, the 2026 season at Lava Creek Lodge comes to an end in a blaze of glory. The action the final week didn’t slow down and left the last guests departing with huge smiles and memories. The fishing changes by the week, but never lacks for fish or action…just where we fish them. We really hadn’t caught many colored up red silvers until this week, we finally started to see them, with a mix of still chrome bright ones as well. Red fish for us always means you’re nearing the end of the run and a change in the seasons. But these are not way upriver, colored and tired fish, even the darker ones bite with a vengeance and fight with fury, although we are fishing further upriver we are still a mere 5 miles from the salt water.
Shane and Brett are staples here at the lodge, continuing their 8 year streak of visiting, and for good reason. They’re great guys to spend the day on the river with and laugh in the lodge late into the night. The third of the three musketeers, Clay, couldn’t make it this year for the first time…but he was there in spirit (albeit two dimensional).
Smitty is another regular here, and always brings the nonstop energy!
Dennis and his son Hunter joined us for the first time and were already planning their trip back by the end of the week. I fished them the last day and had a day for the record books, surpassing catch numbers we were getting in the peak of the salmon run! Location is everything, and we lucked into an amazing sandbar that had formed and the fish were stacked behind resulting in non stop doubles for the team.
Charles took Mark and Bruce on an upriver adventure looking for dolly varden and rainbow trout, and ran into double digit landings of big dollies up to 27 inches, and a couple fat rainbows like this one Mark landed stripping streamers.
The season comes to a close and it’s time to empty out the wader pockets of battered silver flies and empty leader spools.
It’s always a bit depressing when the season ends, and it’s time to board up our home away from home. Maybe a bit more so this season, we had some really great return clients and made some new friends out of many first time visitors who are looking forward to coming back for another visit.
We also had a fantastic crew… Charles, Andy, Will, Isaac, Matt, of course Betty, and our resident ray of sunshine Lainey. Hard to say goodbye to everyone, it’s going to be lonely pouring my cup of coffee solo tomorrow morning.
Until next year River….have a good winter, we’ll see you in the spring!!
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