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Fishing Recreation
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26 Sep 2009, 1:09 pm / Happy
They were throwing enormous #6 & 4 golden stones, hoppers, and Chernobyl ants out of every boat that went by, and believe me there were a lot of boats. It was the 17th day of September and the same guides on the same river had been doing the same thing since the 4th of July.
We had floated the South Fork of the Snake River for over a mile and there were 2 fish that cautiously rose to the hook and refused to take. I was convinced at that point these fish had a bad case of "Big Fly Fatigue". As so often happens on big renowned rivers, every fisherman's first pit stop of the morning is the local fly shop, where they load up with same flys the customer ahead of them just purchased. So you have a string of boats head down river casting the same darn thing. How stupid do we think a fish really is?
I tied on a #20 pink emerger, barely even visible in the turbulent current of the river. We paddled up into a calm chute beside a major rapid and I served it along a gentle edge. I strained to see the small silhouette as it moved through the chop, but the side of a large rainbow wasn't so tough to see as he sucked in the hook. A gentle set, an energetic jump and line screaming off the real introduced me to the first big South Fork rainbow. He had his way and I had mine, but his way was down river so we kicked the boat loose and the chase was on. He plunged into fast deep water. I struggled for his head and after we did the dozy doe for few minutes he landed indignantly into the net. So there dude some small safe emergers do have a hook in them.
We oared back up to the quaint little hole I hooked the fish in and immediately we were into another big fish and land him. I miss one and then we hook and land two more. We move down river and begin to hook more fish until I see a large boulder with a soft current in front of it. It looked like the perfect space to move a big fish. I casted in front of the boulder and the fly passed in the soft spot. I saw the flash but not the fish. I set the hook and he immediately dove deep into the heavy current and effortlessly began to mover up river as we were floating down. I applied all the pressure I could but he continued up river deeper and more powerful; I couldn't turn the fish. He was almost into my backing when I turned him and his path turned down river directly at another boat below us. We had to move toward the center of the river to clear the other boat, but the fish stayed deep and continued running down river. It was "do or die". I either turn him toward us or he'd be in the lines of the fisherman across from us. I lifted and felt a powerful head shake and he was gone. We never saw him, he never surfaced and there was never a time I ever controlled that fish. I got my butt thoroughly kicked by a South Fork monster. You win some you lose some, but one thing is certain Dry Fly fishing is a really cool thing.
We continued down the canyon casting a combination of small and large flies, but by the end of the day there were two flies that really put the fish in the boat. A #20 pink emerger and a #18 olive brown biot CDC caddis. Go figure. A giant river, turbulent current and big fish along the edges waiting to eat a micro bug rather than a mega bug. Take note of this scenario because I've seen it happen many times before.
I'd like to thank Joe Bare owner of JB Creations in Idaho Falls for a really fun two days on the South Fork. Joe ties our upright wing mayflies and guides the Henry's Fork and the South Fork of the Snake River. You'd be hard pressed to find a guide that knows those two rivers better than Joe Bare.
Keep an eye out later in this year, we filmed our trip and there will be a video available so we can share our South Fork experience.
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Fishing Recreation
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