12/17/13

Ski season is in full swing these days and it looks like it will be a little while till I do much fly fishing. I have been doing a little ice fishing recently but that's more of a social event than hardcore fishing. Hopefully I'll make it over to the South Fork here soon and I do plan to do some fishing while I'm in St. Thomas in mid-January. Here are some pictures that my girlfriend's father just sent me. They're from a fishing trip that he, my friend Alex, and I took on a local river back in late August. It was a great day of fishing with some awesome dry fly fishing... I miss those summer days.

12/3/13

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving celebration. Fishing is pretty much over for the time being. Its a full on snow storm and I usually take the months of December and January off from fishing. It's probably great skiing in the mountains but I wouldn't know because I've been in a walking boot, post ankle surgery, since November 2nd. I did manage to get out and go do some wade fishing with my buddy Pat last Monday and Tuesday. The fishing was very good during the middle of the day, a little slower early and late. I imagine the fishing would have been better if I had been a little more mobile. Its kinda tough to get around in a walking boot. Hopefully you all will have a great holiday season and I'll try to keep up on the posts over the winter. Take care!

Nov 16, 2013

Winter has set in here. This is a picture taken from my front door this morning. Fishing had been very good up on Jackson Lake before this storm rolled in. We'd been catching tons of Mackinaw Trout in water as shallow as 5 feet. I just recently had ankle surgery and I'm in a walking boot so most of my fishing season is probably over. Here are some more pictures from our guide's trip a few weeks ago. It was a fantastic trip with lots of sight fishing. Many of these trip photos, not all of them, were taken in a area that I can guide but requires a multi-day trip. If you are interested in going to this area just email me at neil.chamberlin@gmail.com and we can talk about it. Take care!

October 25th, 2013

The fishing has continued to be excellent in the area. The Snake River is fishing very well with streamers, nymphs, and dry flies midday. We're still getting hatches of blue wings and midges during the day that are bringing the trout to the surface. I was just floating the Snake on Thursday, the day after the government finally reopened the parks, with some fellow guides and we really beat them up with streamers. We caught lots of cutties in the 14-18 inch ranges and I was lucky enough to get one big fat brown that came in at 22 inches. It was excellent weather and an excellent day of fishing. I spent the past four days on our final guide's trip of the year. This is when all of our guides get together for one rowdy fishing weekend and its the last time many of us will get to fish together for the season. We had an awesome trip with great baetis hatches, tons of rising fish, and even some really good sight nymphing. The trip was an awesome way to end the season. I'll be posting a little more about it once I get some of the pictures from the other guys. Here's one picture taken by Jeff Currier (www.jeffcurrier.com) of a nice rising rainbow. This picture pretty much sums up how the fishing was.

Jackson Hole Fall Fly Fishing

My guiding season has finally started to slow down here and I've been able to fish a little bit on my own. We've had some crazy winter weather in the area recently with cold temps, lots of precipitation, and lots of wind. I was fortunate enough to go out fishing with some good clients a few days ago and we had some excellent fishing. The weather was incredibly windy but we did find some fish, including some large fish, podded up. The fish were eating both large and small dry flies and nymph droppers. One of my guys, on his first day every fly fishing, did catch a true 20 inch cutty on a dry fly. It was an awesome fish and amazingly fat. Congrats Alex! That was the last guide trip I've taken. A buddy and I did go fish a special river on tuesday and had an awesome day! The water was so low that floating was a lot of work but the fishing was pretty darn good. It was all nymph fishing but its tough to complain when you're catching fish from 14-22 inches. I'm currently visiting my folks down in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and plan to do some fishing with my dad. We're gonna fish both tomorrow and Saturday even though the weather looks awful at the moment. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to post after this trip!

One Fly 2013

We just finished up the One Fly tournament here in Jackson. The fishing was tough due to water conditions, the Buffalo fork turned the water muddy. My groups did quite well. The first day's group did decent but the second day's group killed it! I was lucky enough to guide one of my fellow guides, Trey Sharpe, who had a great day and fished a streamer amazingly well. In the end Trey ended up getting 3rd place overall. Here are some pictures from the past week. Hopefully it won't rain too much tonight and we'll have another great day tomorrow.

September 1st

Fishing has been picking up on the Snake River. Snake drakes, mahongany mayflies, and september stonflies are the name of the game. The water is still relatively high for this time of year but the fishing has been quite good. Just today we caught one of the largest cuttthroat trout I've even caught in the snake river. This fish was 20.r inches long and probably weighed in the range of 4 lbs. The fish ate a large stonefly dry fished in about a foot of water. Most of the other rivers in the area are fishing poorly. The Green river and new fork rivers are too low to fish and the south fork, while fishing well in the mornings, is not fishing well later in the day. Fall is arriving and lower nighttime temps should improve the midday fishing.

Aug 11th, 2013

Fishing continues to be very good for the time being. I've really only been on the Snake River recently as it seems to be fishing the best. I've heard that the South Fork is warm and off color and the Green River and the New Fork are way too low to fish right now. The Snake is fishing well with dry flies but streamers can also be a very good choice. I actually had a very large fish take another fish off of a client's line just a few days ago. Fishing has been pretty good throughout the day but I would say that the morning is generally better. Here are a few pictures of a fat 18incher that my client Enoch Snyder caught this past week.

August 4th, 2013

Fishing on the Snake River is still very good at the moment. The flows are still very high but they did drop this river by 500cfs on August first. This has helped the fishing significantly and also made the rowing alot less strenuous. Early morning has been the best with thde fishing starting to taper off later in the afternoon. Dry flies are the name of the game but nymph dropper and streamers are a good addition. Here are a few pics from the past few weeks. Many of them are from the Green River but I had delayed posting them until now. At this point the green is too low to float and I doubt I'll be able to float it until the fall when they stop irrigating. Oh, on a side note the South Fork has not been fishing very well recently. The reservoir is way drawn down causing the South Fork to be warm and off color. On the plus side this should make for some good fall fishing over there.

July, 28th 2013

Fishing still continues to be very good for the time being. Here's a picture from the teton river on a day off not long ago. Hopefully the weather is kind to us and the fishing will continue to be good.

July 25th

Sorry for the delay in posting. I've been super busy this year and barely have a free minute to post. In summary the fishing has been very good. The green and new fork are getting low and warm so that's on the way out. The Snake has been high but actually fishing very well in the park. The south fork is apparently fishing well in the mornings but slowing in the afternoon with higher temps. There are also some other options around. I think this is the year of fishing alternative stretches and fishing earlier in the day. I'll post some client pictures here soon but for the time being here are some more pictures from my Belize trip.