South Fork of the Snake

[JohnScott]

My Home Water ( photo taken April '07 )



Finally had a decent day with nice temps and no wind. Fished a spot that usually is a 6-7 minute walk through some woods and up a dry side channel to get to the river. Took about 25 minutes of postholing through 18-24" of soft snow to get to the water.

Fished a rubber legs nymph with a midge larva trailing. Had one really nice cutthroat, a nice brown, and seven pretty routine mountain whitefish. A nesting pair of eagles watched from directly across the river a good part of the time. With the unmarked snow, a partly clear sky, and great looking water, it was a really good day. The fishing will pick up next month, but was it great to be out.

The walk back, being careful to walk in the holes made on the way in, didn't take quite as long. The snow should be melting off soon, and it will be a much more pleasant walk.

[flyfishfairwx]

Sounds like a great day to be on the water.

[JohnScott]

Another decent day with no wind to speak of. Someone was kind enough to take the path I made the other day through the woods and up the side channel and all the way to the water wearing snowshoes. Between the snowshoe tracks and the firmer snow because of the settling and some colder temps, getting to and from the river was quite easy.

Saw a cow moose and her last year's calf on the way in - at a distance of about 40 feet. Mama moose's with newborn calves can be kind of testy, but this one was quite calm, as was her calf. May be the same moose that watched me fish in this location for about an hour one day last March.

Also saw a couple eagles, at some distance. May have been the pair that nests right across the river from where I fished, but one was working a run some distance downstream from me and the other seemed to be out hunting.

Fished from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Quite a few midges on the snow, but no obvious hatch and no fish rising. Decided to go with a large brown rubber legs stonefly nymph trailing a midge larva. Took eight browns, most of them 14-15" with one pushing 18," all but one on the stonefly. Also had a dozen whitefish, most pretty routine but one about 16," again all but one or two on the stonefly.

It was cold enough for ice in the guides the whole time, but with no wind and some filtered sun, it was quite pleasant.

The place I fished today is quite different from last March. A nice, slow run off the main current that was about twenty yards wide and a hundred yards long completely filled in with small gravel during the high flows over the summer - completely. In the five years I've fished this section, it has only been the same two years back to back. Keeps it interesting.

[DShock]

John,
Thanks for your Report! I wish that I would have been there.
Doug

[flybinder]

John, thank you for the fun and vivid fishing reports!
There are times, when I really, REALLY miss living in Idaho, your fishing reports sure don't help! (But, love reading them, anyway!)

[JohnScott]

Fished my home water from about 1:15 to 4:30 p.m. today. The weather was delightful - mostly cloudy, no wind, and temps in the lower 30's. No ice in the guides today, first time out this year without ice to deal with. There was a sporadic midge hatch going on, but very few rising fish. Not enough to think about fishing a dry fly.

Fished the brown rubber legs nymph. Got a whitefish ( aka Rocky Mountain bonefish ) right away, and another three bonefish and a 17" brown, fairly quickly. Then it slowed down, way down.

So I headed further upstream, as much to explore the next run as to fish it. Did catch one whitefish in that stretch, but more important, got a good look at the run. More change. One stretch of water, along the near bank anyway, that was a good three feet plus deep last year is now about a foot deep, a good 30' out from the bank. Hard to believe that the river moves that much rock every year, especially stuff that is up to a foot in diameter, but it does. Not sure how this will effect the fishing this spring, but will know in a month or so.

Got back to my starting point about 3:00. Considering how slow it had been, I seriously thought about heading for home. Decided to give it a little more time. Good decision. Between a little after three and 4:30, I landed three browns and somewhere around fifteen bonefish. Plenty of action and some pretty nice fish.

Two of the browns for the day went 14-15" and the other two were around 17". Most of the bonefish were pretty routine. But one was one of the larger whitefish I have caught in the South Fork - went over 20", and he really pulled when he took off. If whitefish had the staying power of trout, people would target them as a matter of routine.

John

[JohnScott]

Thought I would try another place and a different approach today. The place I had in mind more often than most others will have rising fish. Took my 3 wt ( Winston Ibis 7'6" ) instead of the 5 wt thinking about fishing dries or maybe some smaller nymphs.

The route to that spot looked decent, despite all the snow. But there was still a lot of snow on the high banks, and it is a steep 20-25' down to the water. Decided wisdom is the better part of valour, and moved on. The next place I checked had a fair number of rising fish, but they looked like whitefish. And there was quite a crowd ( 5-6 guys well spread out ), so I moved on again.

Ended up at the access to my home water. Okay, so instead of big nymphs with the bigger rod, I'll try dries with a small nymph trailing. Started fishing about 2:00 p.m. Delightful weather - clear skies, no breeze, and temps approaching 40 F. Tied on a griffith gnat with a t.c.t.k. trailing. Didn't take long to figure out the unweighted midge larve was not getting down. Changed to a bead head two tone ( olive and black ) copper john. Right choice. Over the next hour, I landed around 15 to 20 bonefish and two browns, and lost another really nice brown.

Tried a rust colored copper john for a while, got a couple bonefish but the fish didn't really seem to care for it, then a bead bodied goldent stone, which also wasn't on the menu. By the time I went back to the olive and black c.j. it was about 4:15. Picked up some more bonefish and a couple more browns. At 4:30, I decided to give it until 5:00. The bonefish quit hitting, but another couple browns were willing. At 5:00, I was standing just down from some really nice water and extended my stay for "one more cast."

The third or fourth "one more cast" got a nice trout, most likely a brown, but he went bye-bye. The honest to goodness "one last cast," a couple minutes later picked up an ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS 19" fine spotted Snake River Cutthroat in full spawning colors. No point to fishing any more after landing, reviving and releasing that fish.

Quite a day with the 3 wt. Besides the big cutt, landed two browns that went around 16-17" and lost one that was probably bigger than that. The other browns were more like 14-15", and the bonefish, with one exception, were pretty routine.

[RS1]

Is this over by Lorenzo?

[JohnScott]

Closer to Heise.

[JohnScott]

Fished my Home Water section a couple days ago. Pretty good action with about twenty whitefish and five brown trout over three hours from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Went back to the 5 wt and the brown rubber legs, with and without a small nymph trailing. Most of them took the r. l. Both the browns and the bonefish were are pretty routine. Nice weather, nice water, nice time.


Today, I fished a section I call the Trestle Run, several miles downstream from the Home Water stretch, from about 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Trestle Run is a wide, medium depth, moderate current run which I have only fished a few times - once with a small dry and dropper early last fall for small whitefish and cutts and twice with streamers for browns in late fall. I had some really nice browns there on the streamers.

Beautiful weather again today. Mostly sunny, a light breeze that kicked up once in a while enough to blow the cast off target, and temps in the low 30's. Started with the brown r. l. trailing a t.c.t.k. Caught a nice 16" brown on the t.c.t.k. in the first few minutes. Then it was just kind of slow and steady, picking up mostly whitefish and a couple more browns over the next two and a half hours, enough on the r. l. that I dropped the dropper. One of the browns went about 20" and the other was around 18". The whitefish were consistently bigger than those from the Home Water section, averaging around 15-16".

Late afternoon, the whitefish usually stop feeding, or at least really slow down, about the time the browns get a bit more active. No exception today. In the last hour or so, I picked up another five browns - landed three and lost a couple. Two were in the 18" range, one that I lost was probably that size, from the way he looked when he jumped and the way he pulled, and the other two were around 15-16".

All in all, a really good day fishing this stretch. Ended up with eight nice browns and around a dozen whitefish. I had the feeling it might be decent, with bigger fish, and it turned out that way. Definitely will be headed back there next week. (366)