Snake Lookin' Good

The color on the Snake River over the past week has improved dramatically...the river is looking very good. The volume is still a little high, but that should not last much longer with the last of the larger tributaries dropping and clearing finally. The river is definitely fishing better below South Park, which is typical after the runoff ends. The fish are taking a variety of drys and nymphs throughout the day. Sallies, larger stoneflies, caddis dries as well as basic beadhead nymphs have been working well. The park sections are fishing OK, but don't expect as many larger fish just yet. The fishing should improve dramatically over the next week or so on the Snake from the canyon through the park. I spent the day off today on the Upper South Fork with good friends Stan Czarniak and Tyler Hardy. Fishing was pretty slow. The dry fly fishing just never turned on. Despite a good caddis hatch and a few PMD's, the fish never looked up today. The streamers were not much better. The nymphing was mixed. I think we had a record number of whitefish netted, hooked or lost in my boat today...almost forty! On top of the slow fishing, the river was very crowded. Every time we turned around, there was a driftboat, pontoon boat or jetboat on our tail or ahead of us...oh well. Here is great brown Tyler managed to wrangle up in between all of the white owls.