Spud Country

This is SE Idaho's MO.  Its got a lot of fish, and a lot of big fish.  Great hatches, and lots of people.  Fairly close to bigger towns and small cities.  Right on the road to Yellowstone from all points south, where the airports and people are.  So, we all just go anyway and join in the free-for-all.  Everyone gets along and most are hooked up.  Its not brawling like the South Fork. The water moves very similar to the river at Last Chance, only a tad faster.  Its a nice detour when it snows in Island Park and temperatures get frigid.  That just happened.

Summer bugs like summer weather, and they're here.  Drakes, flavs, pmds, and caddis are all present, so its a hard place to leave.  There's still an odd salmonfly and golden around too.  I'm just minutes from the best milkshake in Idaho.  Access is easy along farm roads, and I can easily walk a mile or two up or down from the overflowing parking at Vernon, plus wade clear across and lose 75 percent of the other guys.  I go up a mile or down a mile with the intentions of fishing back to the truck, but rarely make it.  A hundred or two yards of water keeps me busy during the hatches.

Most everyone is dry fly fishing, so it doesn't seem as crowded as the MO, though it is.  The boats stop or anchor and fish a spot for a while, so you're not getting floated over every few minutes during the peak.  Its a little reminiscent of Last Chance 30 years ago, only with brown trout and lots of floaters.  I almost feel like a cop-out sneaking down here and leaving the hallowed Ranch waters, but its June, and I'm just trying to enjoy summer's short window.  I get enough techy stuff on the creeks and Ranch, so its nice to fish some great hatches and catch a bunch of nice fish.  And its not snowing.

I've never really chronicled this part of the river because I usually only fish it in passing.  Stop for a few hours, catch a few, and move on to Silver Creek to the south, the Beaverhead to the northwest, or back to the Ranch just 30 minutes up the hill.  At this flow, around 1300 give or take, its knee-high in most places.  Deeper runs will bowl you over.  Large tributaries come in downstream, and it gets bigger.  Down at Fun Farm, water is in the grass, even with the Chester diversion open.  Like most western rivers, this is irrigation water, but it it just happens to be great year-round trout habitat full of bugs.  The fish rise nearly everywhere because they really are just about everywhere.   Sweet spots are the bottom of riffles and the banks,   Fish gather anyplace the current is slowed, or there's a depression, much like the South Fork. However, this one flows at 1,300 instead of 13,000.

Tuesday afternoon, just before I put my waders on to go hit the flav hatch, I heard on the radio that Willie Mays had passed at 93.  When my childhood idol is gone, who was the subject of the first book I ever read cover to cover in second or third grade (read it over and over!), its hard to get focused.  

I still remember where I was steelhead fishing on Prince of Wales Island when Paul Harvey announced that "legendary fly fisherman Lee Wulff had died in a plane crash."  I remember the sky, the bears, the exact spot I was sitting in my Explorer.  I could drive back to it today, 30+ years later.  I have a fishing spot on my home lake we call "Willie Mays" because its the greatest all-round spot on the 90 mile long lake.  Its waypoint 24 on the GPS.  So now, every time I pull into Vernon, I'll think of this afternoon, the flavs, and of Willie.  Maybe this is part of what this whole fly fishing thing is about, but I digress.  We still don't go walking up and down the river without a rod and too many flies.

So Tuesday afternoon I missed a ton of fish and just didn't execute well.  But they were up and doin' it, nice fish.  The partly cloudy light and glare on the choppy surface were murder.  It was hard to see 12's and 14's, and I couldn't see the fish until they rose.  They were moving too.  When I did get the eat, I couldn't hook a fish no matter what I did.  I've been fishing straight upstream or very up and across a lot here because its a great way to approach the fish, but I'm struggling with the hookup rate.  The fast current pulling on the leader doesn't allow the fly to go into the mouth as far, or at least, that's my story. 

Here's another one:  The super-long day yesterday caught up with me this morning.  I got a mile from the truck, up river, and faced a double emergency.  I didn't have my angel dust with me, and I was wearing the wrong sunglasses!  I had removed the bottle of fumed silica from the vest to refill because I had used up a bottle already this trip.  I forgot refill it and didn't notice not having it.

I have two pairs of matching polarized bifocal prescription glasses, one for driving and one for fishing.  1X readers for driving to see the gauges, and 3X readers for tying on any fly with any tippet, piece of cake.  So here I am with the 1X on my face, can't see to tie on the fly, and how the hell am I gonna keep my fly up?  (Never much of a problem in my life, but another sad digression)

Well, I just made do with tying on the flies.  I mean, 4x and 14's-16's isn't too tough anyway.  And, as a bonus, I could actually see the fly in the fish's mouth down in the net.  That's usually a bit of a struggle, and requires dropping the shades because the 3X reader is too strong at that distance.  The 1X was perfect for in-the-net.

As for floating my CDC collection and other bugs, I did have two life savers.  In a vest pocket I found a tube of Tiemco Dry Magic.  It works great on CDC, and once applied sparingly and it dries a little, it actually lasts longer than the angel dust.  It doesn't blow away every time you take the lid off either.

Secondly, I had on my vest my handy-dandy little Westlake Special rubber band fly-flicker.  You know, the rubber band thing with a ring on one end, so you can hook the fly to it and snap it dry.  Ya, one of those.  Between the two, my fly was up all day!  Emergency averted.  The two worked as good as the angel dust would have, especially on a warm sunny day.

I don't change flies much during the flav hatch until I miss one that I want a second chance at.  I couldn't get any to eat the same fly again without a 5 to 10 minute rest, and I can change flies in under a minute, so that's what I do for the second (and third) chances.

So its been a great little three days down here in the low country.  The daytime riffle and bank fishing was just great, and the late afternoon/early evening caddis fishing on the banks put the evening bite back on the schedule.  I'm pooped.  On to some smaller water up over a bigger hill in the morning.

First look down river

And up

Nice to see you

Here's the stunt double for Mr. Flav.

Any break holds good fish

The riffle in the middle was just loaded

Bank had some pigs sipping.

Hot fly, from the house of the man who lives just down the river from here.  No surprise.

Corn fed, to skitter

Visible spinner

On the far bank, you just walk the bank and stalk upstream.  Fish hold right on the bank around the rocks, lots of fish.

Downstream access

These little stones held some monsters

Anywhere there's water like this . . . 

Ha!  Yes, I did that!

One of my summer goals was to catch a large fish on a bee.  I tied three like this one just to try.  The chenille is hard to keep floating, but it worked!

These little side "coves" of slower water held some pigs sipping spinners and caddis.

Evening caddis in the house

The partridge and real hares mask with the antron shuck took the tougher fish, straight upstream.

There's a bunch like this!

The best caddis, with imitation hares mask body and genuine antron shuck, riding low.

Some rainbows too, but not many this trip.

This mess is in front of the parking lot and boat ramp in the evening.  No, I did not participate.  I was busy fishing my own stretch of water.  It wasn't ever close to this bad anywhere else.