Happy July!

Desmond and I Measuring the Fishes

The last 10 days have been a blast! June 21st through the 23rd Desmond, Dan, and I went down to the Minidoka District in Southern Idaho for a 3 day shocking/camping expedition! It was gorgeous! We didn't see many fish however, but we did spot two bull moose feeding next to a cabin!

One of the bull's we saw in Minidoka!

Dan, Desmond, and I in the Minidoka District, ID

City of Rocks, ID

On our last day of sampling we had a little time to kill, so we stayed in City of Rocks National Monument Park and took in the scenery and a little bouldering too! It is truly a beautiful area... all of you rock climbers out there, you must go!!

Gazing out at the City of Rocks

Thursday was a "work day," which means all of the crews went up to the Shake Creek Work Station where the Fire Crew and Weed Crew are stationed and built a stock fence ALL DAY. I have never been so sore, but I had to keep up with the boys (even show them up a little) because I was the only woman there save two "higher-ups." (Insert Girl Power statement here... ha!) It was a satisfying day however, there is a certain satisfaction to working hard, sweating, and then seeing a finished product! With all the crews together we got the fence almost completed! The fire guys would have had to do it all themselves, and would have taken them all summer.

After the hard week of work, you think all I would want to do was sleep... but Andrew was flying in that night! I was so amped up I drove home from the work day while Dan and Des slept!

Andrew and I sitting in Worswick Hot Springs!

Andrew and I had a great weekend, I took him up to the town of Ketchum in Sun Valley (skiers delight) and we had pizza and a brew or two and hiked around in the Ketchum district of the Sawtooth Range. We camped Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in 3 different places, it was a blast! It was hard saying goodbye, I won't see him for a month and a half! Yikes!

This week was full of shocking, rainbow trout, and bear tracks! Monday and Wednesday were pretty average sampling days, but Tuesday we hiked into our sites, for a grand total of 5 miles.. not too bad... minus we were in waders and had all our sampling gear (very heavy!). It was fairly successful however, we found no bull trout, which is good for that site... it is very close to a cattle allotment (not so good for the streams, a lot of nutrient and sediment loading). We caught mostly rainbow's and sculpins, all under 200mm. We did have some excitement as we hiked out, fresh bear tracks and scat! It wasn't there when we hiked in... so as I had the food pack, I took care to make a lot of racket with my live well and net so as to frighten off the bear, just in case!

Bear Track with Cliff Bar for Measurement

This Fourth of July is going to be so awesome! My friend Kim from school is driving out to Fairfield from Oregon and we are going to fish and roadtrip out to Montana to stay with our friend Nick and his family! We will be 2 miles from Big Sky and will be fishing the Madison River. Hope to come back with lots of big fish pictures!

Happy America Day everyone! Try not to be too american ;)

love.