The South Fork is running close to 17,000 CFS in the stretch I normally fish. The "why" is that Palisades Reservoir is at about 85% of capacity ( holds somewhere around 1.2 million acre feet ), the snowpack in the mountains that drain to the Snake and the South Fork is well over 100%, so they are making some room in Palisades for run off by sending a lot of water downstream much earlier than usual.

It is good news for the agricultural folks, and for all of us who depend on the Snake River Plain acquifer for our well water. Not so good for a lot of the fishermen. If there is a silver lining, it is that I'll have to spend more time on the Henry's Fork before run off hits it in a few weeks, and maybe I'll start getting the hang of it.

Spent from about 10:30 to 4:00 trying to learn more about Henry's Fork below Chester. Huge numbers of midges in the air the entire time. A pretty good bwo hatch about 1:30 but it didn't last very long. Saw all of three fish up that entire time.

Looks like the next wildlife I see while fishing is going to be a SKUNK. Didn't get skunked today, but I seem to be working my way in that direction.

First place I fished, after about five minutes, I landed an 18" cuttbow. That was one of the most ungodly fish in the system. Couldn't believe how beat up it was. Looked like someone had used a cat-o-nine-tails on him for a while. Don't think I've ever seen a fish that looked so worked over. Give him credit for a good fight - guess he wasn't ready for another whipping ??!!

About five minutes later, I had on another pretty good fish - and lost it.

That was it. The only excitement after that was snagging the bottom any number of times and seeing the indicator take a dip. Wow.

So, going from eight fish in hand, to three fish in hand, to one fish in hand, seems to be a distinct trend which leads to 0 fish in hand. I did ask Kelly ( kglissmeyer ) for some pointers and we'll probably be getting out together fairly soon, so I may avoid getting shut out ..... ??

It wasn't much consolation, but the two other fly fishermen I talked to weren't doing any better. One left after an hour or two and was skunked. The other one had two on and didn't land either one. I saw a couple guys with a drift boat hit a nice spot before I got to it, and they had a double right off, and then nothing. Saw a couple more drift boat teams, and didn't see them get anything. And a bait fisher that I talked to also got skunked.

One of those days.

John