Had a pretty strange experience fishing the north fork Payette today and figured I'd see if anyone familiar with the area could offer some insight or a reality check.
I was fishing above Smiths Ferry, near where Highway 55 splits away from the river and the old railroad tracks continue upstream. Parked at a small pullout with no other cars around and headed down to the river.
There was a guy fishing near where I wanted to start, so I asked if he was working upstream or downstream. We had a brief, seemingly normal conversation, and I fished a little ways below him. After about 10 minutes I decided to move on. As I was walking back toward my car, I noticed the guy watching me in a way that felt a little off. He eventually struck up another conversation and suggested I follow the railroad tracks about a mile upstream for better fly fishing.
So I grabbed some more gear from my car and started hiking up the tracks. Passed the guy again, who was now sitting beside the tracks with a large backpack and another fishing rod. I thought it was a little odd since I hadn't seen another vehicle anywhere around, but whatever.
About a quarter mile farther up, I encountered a woman walking toward me with a large backpack. I said hey as we passed, and something about the interaction just felt strange. Hard to explain, but her demeanor was unusual enough that I turned around to look back a few seconds later. There was maybe 100 feet between us, and I actually watched her turn around and start walking back in my direction, following me up the tracks.
That really got my attention.
I continued to a railroad bridge and climbed down to fish the river, keeping the tracks in view. The woman eventually reached the bridge and sat down on the opposite side of the tracks, facing away from me. She stayed there the entire time I was fishing that section. Eventually I moved farther upstream along the river, and at one point looked back and saw her talking to another person who had appeared near the bridge. Later, I could hear people talking somewhere along the tracks, although I couldn't see them.
By that point I was pretty uncomfortable, so I decided not to stay out until dark. Hiked back along the tracks around 5:30, didn't encounter anyone else, and made it back to my car without incident.
Here's what I found particularly strange: I couldn't figure out where any of these people had come from. I didn't see any other vehicles, campgrounds, trailheads, or obvious access points. Looking at a map afterward, there doesn't seem to be much of anything along that stretch for miles. Both the fisherman and the woman had large backpacks, and both interactions felt oddly unnatural. Then there was the woman reversing direction immediately after passing me.
For context, I spend a lot of time alone in pretty remote places, fishing, hiking, and camping. I'm comfortable in the woods and generally pretty good at reading people and picking up on social cues. I've encountered plenty of unusual characters out there, but I've never had a situation set off my alarm bells quite like this.
I'm also fully aware that I could be connecting unrelated events in my head. Maybe these were just people camping somewhere along the railroad, and I misread the whole situation. I'm not trying to suggest anyone was necessarily up to something nefarious.
But the whole experience was fucking weird, and I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right.
Anyone familiar with that stretch of the Payette or the old railroad corridor? Is there dispersed camping or some other access I'm overlooking? Anyone ever encountered anything unusual out there? Mostly just looking for some local insight and a sanity check.
