Red Hot Snake

I had another great week of guiding last week on the Snake River here in Jackson. All of my days on the river were in Teton Park, and the fishing was solid. Although the fish are starting to look more closely at the larger flies, they were feeding with reckless abandon on smaller attractors and mayflies. The river is now running at about 1,900 cfs at Moose. Historically, for this date, it has averaged about 4,000 cfs. In other words, we have a very low river right now. The fish are very concentrated in their holes, and the larger fish have comfortably moved into their prime lies. The good news is that it is giving us some pretty darn good fishing right now. The bad news, in my opinion, is that it may make for tougher fishing as we get through August into September. While the water continues to warm this month, and the fish get stuck each day, they will get tougher and tougher. The first cold snap will solve this, but it's likely a month away. If you have not fished the Snake yet, I'd get on it soon! The South Fork continues to fish well with PMD's, and if you are on the Green early, it should be good. If you have not been in the new fly shop yet (70 South King Street, Jackson), then come on in! We've really added a lot of gear in the past few weeks, including a great fly selection. Rods from Thomas and Thomas, as well as Redington have arrived, along with Abel reels. We also just got in some beautiful handcrafted, wooden fly boxes and landing nets from local builder Steve Shibuya. Hope to see you in there. I was saddened to hear last week of the passing of Irwin, Idaho fly-tyer Phil Blomquist. He passed away in an accident last week and will be missed. He tied a variety of flies for our new shop, including some Orange Crushes, Pepperoni Yuk Bugs and some fantastic Sparkle Dun PMD's. Come check them out before they are gone. We'll miss ya Phil. Here is Marc LeBaron with a nice Cutty, measuring 19", from last week that fell for a dry fly. More soon!