Little Creek, Big...........Salmon Flies?

So I bought little L (my 4 year old) a set of waders in late April thinking he would wear them on a steelheading trip towards the end of the month (very nice bootfoot waders at reasonable prices by the way). Unfortunately the weather went to crap after they came in, and I couldn't see dragging a 4 year old up around Stanley in sub freezing weather for him to catch steelhead.



Work has intervened on my life situation, meaning I have been laid-off and had to spend some time job hunting instead of fishing. The good news is, I am very marketable. The bad news is there are very few tech jobs for control systems security gurus in Rigby Idaho. But this is fodder for a later blog post.



As the weather finally turned back to nice yesterday, I decided L and I needed to go fishing. We initially were headed for Willow Creek but as I thought of hiking down the 200' of rock scramble and then hiking L back out..... well I decided to go some where easier to access. So we were headed to Hatchery Ford on the Henry's when we got to Rexburg and I had an epiphany about another little creek fairly close, that met 2 important criteria: not blown out, and open for fishing.



This little creek is high desert, one of the drier areas of the state but surrounded by towering peaks. We got there, got rigged and headed down to the water. The creek is small, generally less than 10 feet across. I was quite surprised when we arrived at the banks and found the willows crawling with salmon flies. This is the earliest in the season I have seen the big bugs anywhere around here. Especially considering the cold, somewhat rainy spring we have so far had.



The fish were looking up, not perhaps as actively as would have been optimal, nor were they very large, but catching fish in a small creek on salmon flies (O2 Stone) in mid May was fun for L and I. We tied into a few, landed a couple and had the big fish of the day break us of and leap, leap, leap to mock us with his freedom.



This could be my only Salmon fly outing this year. I am going to try to get out on the HF when they hatch but it with the upcoming move to warmer climes.... it may not be possible.