For many years We have been going to various places at Canyon Creek, Clear Creek, and many places in between. Anyone wanting to go along was always welcome to join us for a day or a week. We would make the best of every trip, the good, and the bad. However, Harry, Bud, and I finally decided to try Clear Creek, one more time by ourselves, no one else with us. We found the hunting at Canyon Creek to be too hard to do as we are beginning to get older, and the hills are getting steeper each year. Of course, Clear Creek is not flat in any sense of the word. We like the area, and it has been good for us in the past so one more trip would be for this year. The season would be open only three weekends in Area 39 this year. We planned to stay five to seven days and we wanted to be there for opening day.
The weather was quite pleasant for the middle of October. The frosty mornings were starting the aspen trees’ leaves to turn yellow. The bushes were red, yellow and greens making spotting elk almost impossible. The trailer house was loaded with a week-s supply of groceries and several large jugs of water. The motorcycles were put in the back of Bud’s pickup truck along with some extra gas cans. we had a small generator to take along for lights′ it ran quiet and was g○○d on gas. As in the past, we always go the day before the season opens just to get camp Set up as comfortable as possible as a home for a week. A satisfactory level place was found back in some trees about a mile from the switch backs where the road goes up to Colter Summit. Ropes were stretched between trees and over the trailer to anchor the cooking area lean-to. We did not want a windstorm blowing the lean-to around.
After all was in order it was time to fix some lunch and do some scouting around to see if any animals were ±here. We drove up to Colter Summit looking for signs of any animals moving around. Unfortunately, we found truly little promise of a successful hunt. There were very few tracks of anything around at all. This was not going to be a good year, but we would hunt as normal in the places where we found elk before. In our driving around we noticed the Forest Service had closed and locked the gates on all the side roads so we could not ride the motorcycles off the main road.
Back at camp We fixed a g○○d supper of steak and hash browns. We usually warm up some Vegetable to go with the main course. After supper it is time to get in a few games of Pinochle to relax before turning in for the night. Cookies and milk are necessary each night just before turning in, a habit we have had for years.
Morning arrived with the dinging of the alarm clock. The sun was not even thinking of coming up yet, but we managed to get out of bed. We had a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs, before heading up the hill by camp. The morning was spent checking the aspen groves and fir pockets. It was all in vain. There were not any elk around anywhere. Very few tracks were found. We ate our lunch then headed for another area to check out. After several miles and hours of walking in the hills we went back to camp disappointed at what we did not find. There was a lot of time left to hunt and this was only the first day. Hopefully, something will show up in a day or two. We fixed a good supper and talked about walking out the closed roads the next morning. These roads were several miles long going into the remote areas. If there were any elk in this country, we should find some signs. Another camp was near to our camp, with several guys hunting also. They had motorcycles and were riding off the closed roads where it was illegal to ride them. We took down their license numbers to turn them in to the Forest Service but unfortunately there were not any Rangers around camp the whole time we were there. We left them to do their thing, hoping they would get caught.
For the next few- days we hunted hard. Walked the back roads and drove everywhere looking for something on four legs. The hunt was a total bust. Where the animals went, we had no idea at all. Finally, we cut the trip short by several days and headed home. After all the gear was put away, we had a long discussion on the hunting conditions at Clear Creek and Canyon Creek. Hunting has gone downhill badly in both places in the last few years. We looked at some maps of the Salmon River country upriver from Riggins. We would plan a trip to somewhere at the top of the Salmon River canyon near Allison Creek for next year. Steelhead fishing season would be open at the same time, so if hunting were bad, we could try fishing for a day or two.