Small Stream Gems

I decided to get up early and go do a little exploring. While larger rivers might have more and bigger fish, there is something magical about small streams. There is usually some degree of solitude and the small fish often seem willing to sample your offering. I headed up to a small stream that I had been wanting to fish and found a likely hole at my first stop. The casts on small streams can be tricky, if you call it casting. More often than not you are just flipping your flies no further than your rod length and often just lowering the fly into a likely spot. There were plenty of logs and branches around but I managed to avoid them for the most part.

After a few casts I had a little fish come up and smack my little yellow stimulator. To my surprise it was a wild rainbow trout!

I thought there would be brook trout in this little stream but subsequent casts proved that it was filled with little wild rainbows, at least this section.

After I caught a few of the little guys a "trophy" sized fish slurped my fly off the top. Look at the gorgeous coloration...

Ok, maybe the fish would not be considered a "trophy" on a regular sized stream or river, but for a pint sized stream this was a nice fish!

I can't wait to head back up here and do some more exploring. I'm starting to get addicted to small streams. All I need now is a shorter rod!

Fishing Humor

The One That Got Away

Most often I am not too disappointed when I don't land a fish but every so often you have that fish on that you really would like to admire up close. I went up to that same hole that I landed the rainbow (on the bugger) from and on my first cast my indicator went zooming under. It was funny but for some reason I had a good feeling about the first cast. I just felt it was in the perfect spot and apparently it was. As soon as I hooked up with this fish I saw him up near the surface for a second and I could tell it was a rainbow! I get excited about rainbows on this river because it is mostly a brown trout haven. I quickly started thinking that this might be the same fish I hooked into last time up. The only difference was that this fish was going ballistic. Multiple times he ran me out into the current. When he would near the surface he would dive back down to the depths. He ran upstream and downstream too. It was a game of back and forth and up and down. The rainbow I landed on a previous trip was a great fighter but this fish had tremendous spirit that I had not seen for a very long time. If it was the same fish he may have put on a few ounces in the higher flows, or maybe it was that he was hooked in the lower jaw instead of the upper. Anyhow, after about five minutes or more I finally had him next to me. I thought he was worn out so I grabbed the leader above him. He suddenly pulled some last minute antics by giving violent head shakes and he threw the hook. I had a feeling that he would get off for some reason. I think it was fitting because this fish really had the will to survive and he used every last bit of instinct to elude me. Maybe that is why fishing is so appealing, having the chance to be connected through rod and line to something so untamed and beautiful. I just wish I could capture the beauty this time on my camera!

After that experience I did not have any more luck with my nymph rig. There was a decent PMD hatch which had some fish looking up so I put on a dry fly. My first or second cast I had a fish on that leaped and got off. Then a cast downstream produced the same result, on and off. Then a cast even further downstream resulted in a fish to my hand.

On the way back to the parking lot I wanted to get a look at a gravel bar and as I stepped into a slight depression near the bank I saw a lot of little fish spook out of the area. This little depression seemed to be a river by itself, only everything was shrunken down several sizes. There were little fish rising occasionally so I started making short casts up the depression and had a beautiful tiny brown on after a few casts. It was a great way to spend a few hours on a hot summer's afternoon.



Journal Notes:
Flow- 510 cfs
Hatches- PMDs
Successful flies- black zebra midge, parachute PMD

Wet Wading

The time has come to leave the waders at home. David and I headed out and did just that and the water felt nice and cool on the legs. Ok, it was actually pretty freezing but our legs went numb pretty quick and it never bothered us. By any means it was better than having to pull on your waders and the air temperature balanced out the cool legs since it was probably near 90 degrees. The water was high but clear and since it was a Saturday the parking lot was a mad house. On any given summer's day there are about a million people floating down the river in their tubes or rafts. Most people seemed to be pulling out of the river upstream from us which was nice so we only had the occasional floater passing through our hole along with the occasional sandal.

There were either some golden stoneflies or yellow sallies making their presence known but the fish were not keyed in on them too much, at least where we were. Occasionally there would be a violent rise but we stuck with nymphing for most of the afternoon. There were also some Pale Morning Duns (PMDs) around but again not too much surface action. Due to the high churning water the fish were probably feasting on the above mentioned bugs in their nymphal stage along with a variety of other tasty morsels that the river offers up. It was by no means a lights out catching day but we had somewhat consistent action during our time on the water. David was having luck early on with a green zebra midge and all of mine were coming on a gold ribbed hares ear. After the action tapered off a bit I threw on a crystal bugger and started dead drifting it with a tight line. After a few casts something slammed it and I brought to hand a beautiful little rainbow.


This fat little football made me more inclined to experiment more with streamers while fishing rivers. I was raving about how fun the hit was so David tried sight fishing to some browns holding along the bank with a bugger and managed to get one to suck it down, however the fish was stubborn and did not get hooked. Overall it was a great summer's afternoon of fishing.








Journal Notes:
-Flow: 818 cfs
-Air Temp: approx. 90 F
-Water Temp: 52 F
-Successful Flies: Gold Ribbed Hares ear, green Zebra midge, rainbow black Crystal Bugger, Pheasant Tail
-Hatches: Golden Stones/Yellow Sallies, PMDs

The Ranch Trip

There is a lot more to fishing than just catching fish. If you can't enjoy fishing without catching then usually you will quickly loose interest in the sport. After fishing trips I sometimes tell my wife that "the fishing was great, but the catching wasn't". It is definitely better when you can have a great day on the water and catch lots of fish, but the overall fishing experience is what counts. The experience of being on the road at dawn and anticipating the day of fishing is always invigorating. Not to mention that the best trout fishing areas in the world are oftentimes smack dab in the middle of the most beautiful country God has created. Add to all of this great company and a good old fishin' trip can't be beat.

My wife's family has a house on a small plot of land up in the Teton Valley in Idaho that they call "The Ranch". The first day was not great fishing weather (although any weather is technically good fishing weather) and we ended up not wetting a line the first day there. The next day was going to be the much anticipated trip to Henry's Lake with Jim, David, and Greg (my wife's father and two of her brothers). We woke up early the second day to a breathtaking view.

We were on the road before six o' clock and about a half hour into our trip I realized that I had forgotten my fins for my float tube back at the ranch. We started discussing the options of where to find some float tube fins in the area. As we went through Ashton we only saw one fly shop which was not open yet. We got into Island Park (I think it was Island Park) and they had two big fly shops but they seemed to cater to the moving water crowd since the Henry's Fork is a stone throw away and thus they had no float tube accessories. I was desperate to find some fins and was determined to not let the Henry's Lake trip go to waste. Let me quickly back up and tell you that during the ride out there one of the spinning rods was poking over my right shoulder and was annoying me every time I looked out the window to my right. It would just brush my face so I guess I was not bothered enough to move it out of the way. So right when we are checking one last fly shop in that area I happened to quickly look to my right and somehow the end of the rod shoots straight up my nose. It hurt pretty bad and all of a sudden blood starting dripping out of my nose at a steady rate. Luckily someone ran into a gas station and grabbed some napkins for me. The bleeding stopped and we started laughing at the freak accident, it really was hilarious. We checked one more spot but it was closed so we decided we would just head to the lake and hope that the boat rental place had some fins. As we arrived at the lake we saw glassy water all across the lake. The scenery was spectacular.

We headed into the boat rental shop and by some miracle they had a pair of fins, one pair to be exact. Jim rented a boat for himself and Greg while David and I were going to head out on our tubes. Jim and Greg launched the boat and David and I launched our tubes out of the dock area. We started trolling our flies up the shoreline and we each had a good hit within the first several minutes. Then it went really dead besides snagging logs on the bottom. We started switching flies trying to figure things out to no avail. After a couple hours David spotted some structure right beneath him that had fish stacked all over the place.

We thought we had it made but still could not get any hits. Some midges had been hatching previously and I tried trailing a midge off of our leeches/buggers with no luck. At this point though there were a lot of bugs coming off the water. We saw two fish rise but that was it. It was enough for me to try a dry for a few casts but I soon switched to a floating line with an indicator with a large midge beneath since we had seen some big ones coming off. David located where the fish were stacked and I put my cast right over them. After I got a good cast into the right area I had a fish on...finally! I was surprised how hard it fought as it ended up being only about 18 inches.


I say only 18 inches because Henry's Lake hybrids can run up to 15 pounds or so. That would be an incredible fight! Anyway, luck would run out on us very soon. Just after I landed my fish the wind kicked in immediately. We thought it would be ok but after taking a quick bathroom stop on the shoreline the water was churning pretty bad. Jim and Greg came over and we hopped in the boat. We trolled our flies and worms the rest of time with no luck at all. Greg had a big fish on before our rendezvous with the boat but it broke him off. After trolling up and back the shoreline in the boat we decided to call it a day at Henry's Lake and try to hit some moving water. We ended up trying the Henry's Lake outlet. David and I spotted a pod of big suckers but I thought I saw a trout in the mix. There had to be a few trout in the pod and we supposed a big sucker would be fun to fight on our fly rods if we managed to hook one. David confirmed the presence of some trout as he landed a nice little cutthroat.

Shortly after this I hooked into a nice sized sucker that put up a great fight. He was a good looking specimen in a disgusting kind of way.



We could not seem to hook up with anything after this so we headed back to the ranch. It was a great day fishing, but the catching was lacking somewhat which was a little disappointing since the potential for great fishing (good numbers of large fish) was running through our minds for the past several months. Sometimes when you get skunked or have a very low catch rate you tend to shy away from a particular body of water in search of better fishing elsewhere. This was definitely not the case for me when it comes to Henry's Lake. If the wind had remained calm I am confident that we would have caught a lot of fish since we located them and figured out the way to fish to them. An even stronger motivation for going back is the fact that David was able to see a lot of very large fish cruising right beneath us. He estimated some of the fish going easily over 25 inches. I have been doing a little more research and found out at least one thing we did wrong which was arrive too late. Come to find out the wind always picks up each day by noon so it is best to be on the water around 5:30 a.m. I also want to get a book by Henry's Lake master Bill Schiess called "How to Fish Henry's Lake". He tells exactly what to do for each time of the year, etc. Don't worry Henry, we will be coming back soon!

The next day we tried the Henry's Fork river below Ashton reservoir and managed to catch only a dinky brown. It was very windy which suppressed any sort of hatch from developing. If we had more time to figure it out we could have probably got into some fish. We fished for a few hours then called it a day there. Overall, the beauty of eastern Idaho was soothing to the soul and it was sad to leave such beautiful country. I can't wait to get back up and spend a few more days sampling the trout filled waters north of Utah.

Lionel Prichard and the Hanks brothers

Pines, Peaks, & Peixe

In case you are wondering what "peixe" is, it is Portuguese for "fish". I couldn't think of any fishing lingo that started with "p" at the moment. Anyhow, David and I headed up to a small picturesque reservoir for an afternoon of fishing. Things started off slow but I found a spot where I kept getting consistent hits after I caught one small planter bow.


We were using crystal buggers in a size 6 which was probably a little big for many of the small mouths that were trying to eat them. I think I had some smaller buggers in my box but I was content because I was getting consistent hits. After a bit the hits died down and we kicked across the length of the reservoir looking for productive spots.


Until this point David had the skunk and I only had one fish with a few more on and a bunch of hits. We eventually made our way back to the spot where I caught my first fish. It was a good move because I started getting hits again. Then it dawned on me that we should trail a midge off of the buggers so our hook up rate would increase. This was the ticket although the next fish I hooked up with took the bugger. It was a nice looking little rainbow and I wanted a pic but he started flipping around on the apron of my float tube and threw the hook and flopped into the water. David was trying to help me and during the fiasco I managed to hook my trailing fly into the strap around my float tube and David got his leader wrapped up in his fins. A ton of effort that yielded no picture of the nice little specimen. Once we added the midge I started catching quite a few but for some reason David was not getting hits still. I had the hotter rod for some reason although he started getting hits and landed a nice little stillwater brown and a planter bow. Overall the day was great and the scenery could not be beat!

Ice Off

Supposedly a local high elevation reservoir had a ton of ice left just a few weeks ago. However, a small spurt of warmer temperatures combined with a wind storm ripped the remaining ice to shreds and open water supposedly prevailed. As I heard some rumblings about this ice off I knew I needed to try and get up there soon. Ice off on reservoirs can be some of the best fishing of the year although I had not had too much success with the phenomenon in the past. I wanted this to change this trip. Anyhow, my brother-in-law David and I met up at a popular gas station just after the crack of dawn and headed up to cutthroat heaven. The wind was very calm and the area we fished had some evidence of the deep freeze left over. A small ice shelf was clinging to a point that jutted out toward the center of the reservoir. Other than this we could see open water everywhere. Some argue the best "ice off" fishing occurs right as the edges of the ice start to pull away from the bank. Others say it is best after a few weeks once the water clears slightly and warms up a bit. We were too late and too early for either respective situation but we knew the fishing still had great potential. Things started off slow which would be a theme to the day as far as catching goes. However after a short time David hooked up with a nice cutthroat. We saw a few fish rising but not enough to warrant the dry fly. We fished wooley buggers the whole day in a few different colors. Things went quiet after this first fish. I thought it was going to warm up quick so I did not wear a jacket at first. The air did warm up but I did not account for the freezing water temperature that quickly had me shivering as the cold seeped right through my breathable waders. We both got out and bundled up and headed back out on our float tubes. While the fishing was not fast, the scenery and tranquility of being out on the glassy water could not be beat. It was so calm and quiet you could hear the occasional chatter hundreds of yards away from other anglers. It was a truly therapeutic morning and the quality of the fishing experience definitely made the slow catch rate insignificant. We eventually kicked ourselves down the shore aways and as David was kicking toward shore to fix the zipper on his float tube he hooked into another beautiful cutthroat.




We fished the area for awhile and I finally hooked up with a beautiful fish that went over 20 inches. That just added to an already great day of fishing. I can't wait to get back up there and have another great fishing experience.