Week of June 10, 2008
Weather has been a factor in our fishing this past week. Most of it is wind. It has been cold and dry. The rivers have been dropping and clearing as snow melt has been slowed, but sunny, cold, and windy conditions have affected our dry fly hatches on Silver Creek. The overcast rainy weather that we experienced opening week spoiled us, we are now having to go more on the dark side to catch fish. I would expect river levels to rise with the warming temperatures predicted for this coming weekend. There is still a lot of snow in “them thar hills”.
South Fork of the Boise
The South Fork is flowing at 611 cfs today. Normal flows are 2,100. It should hold for a while longer as Anderson reservoir was not yet full. It is hard to cross at 600, but easy to wade fish. It is one of the slickest rivers in our area though.
March browns have been hatching. The giant stones could start with the warming weather of this coming weekend. The caddis will start soon as well. The South Fork caddis hatch is as thick as pea soup.
Yellowstone Park
Yellowstone has had cold snowy weather. Night temperatures have dropped below freezing and it has been snowing. If you are planning a trip, let this next system pass.
The Madison is flowing at 960 cfs with normal flows 850. The Firehole is at 772 and rising as of today. Normal flows on the Firehole are 450. PMDs, baetis, caddis, and golden stoneflies should be hatching right now. Giant stones on the Madison and Firehole canyon any day. With the cold weather however, I would only expect baetis and PMDs. It might take a soft hackle or nymph depending on the weather.
I will have a better report next week as I travel to the Park this Thursday returning next Tuesday 6/17.
The rest of the Park waters are either closed or blown out.
If you are looking for a fall trip we still have a few openings. Fall Browns on the Madison, or the hecuba hatch on the Lamar??? Pretty fun trip.
Mountain Lakes
Maybe Baker is thawed, but probably wait a week or two.Big Wood River
The Big Wood is flowing at 874 cfs as of today. Normal flows are 1,450. Heavy nymphs and streamers are still the bill right now. Side channels are holding fish away from the heavy water. Some are still in the spawning mode. Clarity is fine. Olive/black cone head buggers if you like to streamer fish. Black or Brown Stonefly nymphs and size 10 green drake nymph will work. A good time to break out the six weight. Zebra midges not recommended. Take extreme care in wading around the upper Big Wood. It flows fast even though it is not always a deep river.
The lower Big Wood is fishing with perch buggers and nymphs. There is a stunned small perch hatch coming through the dam turbines on Magic. No dry flies showing yet, but the nymphing can be decent. Size 8-10 nymphs as the fish are not picky. The lower Big Wood is big water. If you know it a float tube trip can be good. Wade fishing is not readily available. Not a place to go alone.
Magic itself is only about 54% full. With the irrigation season started we will not get the bays filled. Magic has been a bit spotty this spring. Stripping a perch bugger on a type III sink tip from a float tube or the bank will work or a zug bug or prince hung below an indicator about 6-10 feet on the rocky drop offs will also produce.
Big Lost River
The upper Big Lost is flowing at 785 cfs. Normal flows are 1,250. I would not probably spend time here yet. Water temperatures from snow melt keep this river quite cold. Clarity is good. Holding areas very washy and fast.
The lower Lost is flowing at 460 today down from 510 of last week. Normal flows are 830 at this time of year. This is a different story. We don’t frequently get the lower in this condition at this time of year. It could change at any time. If you are headed over check with the USGS surface water site in case the water master decides to open the flood gates. Trail Creek summit is open and the road is as nice as it will be all year. There are a few baetis hatching, but no serious surface feeding of any sort. A double nymph rig has been good. Both need to be weighted, one large, size 8-10 and one smaller, size 14. Black girdle bugs, stoneflies and a caddis pupae or copper john is a good combo. Nearly any nymph will work as the fish are opportunistic right now. If you like to nymph the Lower Lost is fishing as well as any of our local waters.
Little Wood River (Desert)
Water levels, clarity and temperatures are as good as they will be all year. The dessert wildflowers are in full bloom. A good time to look at this stream if you have a few hours. Spring reports have still been mostly small rainbows and browns. A hopper/dropper combination with a orange turks turantula and a prince nymph dropper should move a few fish. If you are looking for the lunker brown try a mouse pattern or large streamer through the deep cliff pools.
Silver Creek
The sunny cold weather of the last few days has slowed the dry fly action on the creek. There have been some sputtering PMD hatches in the daytime, with more dense emergences late evening when the sun and winds drop. Best catching on the preserve waters can be done with a PMD or callibaetis dropper under a small dry fly. There have been some green drakes emerging above Loving Creek. The green drake unweighted nymph or sparkle cripple is a good choice. If you see only one green drake, try fishing it. The fish know it, and it can work well. There has been some good midge fishing, but mostly with 7x flurocarbon tippets and a size 20 or smaller midge pupae.
Brown drakes. I never used to report this hatch, but when clients fly all the way from Florida to fish it, I guess the word is out. The word has been for the last decade or so, anyway. The precursor to the Brown drake is the white prairie caddis. We saw them last night, 6/9. We saw a couple dozen brown drakes as well. It is on it’s way, but taking it’s time and will no doubt wait until this next cold front passes and it warms this coming weekend. The brown drake nymph and LRO emerger work well in the first couple of days of the hatch. The spinner falls the next evening prior the the emergence. The LRO elk hair spinner is a great bug for the spinner fall. Be prepared to switch to an emerger or dun after the spinner fall. We still have a good selection at the shop.
Salmon River
The Salmon River at Riggins is flowing at 37,900. Gear guys should be able to catch chinook there now. The salmon are still coming over Bonneville Dam. 1,684 on of 6/9. Year to date totals 140,184. Salmon at Lower Granite are fish coming into Idaho with 480 on 6/9 and 42,930 year to date. We are above the 5 year average and double the 2007 counts.
There are lots of folks looking forward to the season on the upper Salmon. It does seem a possession limit of 20 on the upper river is way too liberal. If we are to make a political statement on how important salmon are to Idaho in order to blow some dams and return to free flowing rivers, I think spreading the harvest among more anglers would be better logic. The season will close when a quota of 400 to 500 chinook are harvested in the upper river.
Closing Notes
We have all our flies stocked, finally. Zac and Hunter claim that if we don’t have it, it probably doesn’t exist. They might be right.
Fish far and fine,
Scott Schnebly
Lost River Outfitters