3 Days Difference

Snuck out to the South Fork for a couple of hours of fishing with a buddy. We first hit the same spot I did so well on Saturday. The first few casts quickly saw me into a whitefish and the next 20 minutes produced bupkis, except for about 15 snags on the snarls at the top of the hole. It is amazing the difference 3 days can make.

The water has dropped another 1000 some-odd cfs, and was a good foot lower in the side channel where this hole was located. The day was mild, sunny and bright. No snow was falling, in fact all the snow from the weekend had melted off. We passed an area with a lot of great looking structure, about 1/2 mile below on our drive up to fish, and decided to return to this highly inviting area.

We drove down, dropped into the river and started fishing the numerous drop holes and braids. I quickly tied into a fat little rainbow. John (fishing buddy) leapfrogged me, up to the next hole and really started to get into the fish. He still had his nymphs on but the number of risers he was seeing convinced him to switch to dries so he tied on a parachute adams.

I continued up through the next hole, picking up a pair of whitefish and then moved on to right above where the braid separated from the main channel. I started with nymphs and in rapid order picked up a 16 inch brown, a tailwalking, tumbling rainbow and then a fat, heavy shouldered 18 or so inch cut that fought so hard that I swore it was a brown. This cutt made a number of powerful, deep runs typical of a brown, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that it was a cutt.

John was a hooting and a hollering so I walked back downstream to see what all the fuss was about. He had picked up a number of cutts from his little pool on dries and was releasing a nice fish.

I walked back up to the main river and as I entered the water noticed several large rise forms. The hatch was on! I took a couple of minutes to change my rigging and tied on a grumpy and a bwo comparadun. The fish were jumping everywhere in front of me. I picked up a couple of mid sized cutts on the comparadun, and it got pretty beat up, so I switched to a small parachute bwo.

I yelled at John to move up to where I was, and he wandered over informing me that it was time to head back home. I convinced him to stay for at least one fish on the bwos. He promptly burned 4 or 5 fish ;) pulling the fly right out of their mouths.

I tossed my line back out and the second drift saw me fighting a medium sized brown. I continued to fish for about 5 more minutes and managed to burn 3 decent hits. The fish were still rising...... I hate to have to leave when the fishing is hot and the fish are rising. Especially when the number of good dry fly days dwindles.

Idaho Rock Dwelling Brown Trout caught on a BWO
Note the Cat Puke Grumpy by his tail.

Two more cars had pulled into the area making two more groups of fisherman below us on the river. They didn't seem to be using dries but one of them was hooked up as we left.

I think the next time I get out it will be hog hunting on the North Fork. Hopefully before the end of the week.