North Platte, South Fork, and Snake Rivers

I've had all of spring break off to fish for these past two weeks. I've spent some time down on the north platte, a few days on the south fork, and a day on the snake. Fishing was very good on all three of the rivers. On the North Platte we caught alot of fish, a few big ones, but mostly fish in the 12-15 inch range. It was pretty much all nymphing with a little streamer action here and there. The south fork has been fishing well, again with nymphs. Some days are excellent, some a little slower. Tons of whities with nice trout mixed in a regular intervals. The Snake river has been crazy recently. The fish are stacked up in the wintering holes and suspended a few feet below the surface. Once you find these spots you can catch as many fish in the 10-16inch range as you want with a few bigger fish hanging around. The video I've posted is from one of these spots on the Snake. If you watch closely, the fish that is being released goes right back into the feeding lane and begins feeding again. Copy and paste this like to see the video http://youtu.be/ntmLPbgYvik

Snake River in the Spring

I took a fly rod with me while taking the dog for a walk down by the Snake yesterday. I couldn't believe how good the fishing was. I don't normally fish the Snake very often, simply because I spend so many day guiding it, but I could not believe how good the fishing was. I wasn't really planning on fishing unless I could sight fish. When I got down to a few spots in the river there were literally hundreds of fish stacked up, sitting up in the water column, about 2 feet under the surface. I had a field day with these fish, they would eat just about anything small, both nymphs and dries. These fish were packed into small areas where springs come into the river, warming the water up a few degrees. Mot of the fish were in the 8-16 inch range but there were a few fish cruising around that looked bigger. You just couldn't get the fly past the smaller fish to reach the biggest ones. I should have taken my camera just to video it but I forgot... sorry. This picture is from a day on the South Fork last week. That day was also very good but the sheer number were nothing like yesterday.

Ice Fishing 2/27

My recovery from shoulder surgery has ended my ski season for the year so I've been filling my time with ice fishing. While not nearly as entertaining as fly fishing I've started to really enjoy ice fishing and I find it to be a great excuse to get outside for the day. Most my fishing has been out on Jackson Lake, the lake trout have been averaging 18-23 inches, with some really good days and some skunks. That's part of the fun is figuring out a totally new sport. The weather here is getting pretty nice and the river fishing is just starting to pickup. My roomate went wade fishing on the snake today and said it was really good with lots of fish rising to midges in the slow water. I'm hoping that I'll get to go wade fish the South Fork this weekend as the high temps are supposed to get up into the 40's. The snowpack is at about 86% of normal right now which should set us up well for the summer, as long as the weather doesn't suddenly turn warm and dry that is. Hopefully I'll have some nice trout pictures to post up here after this weekend!

We've been in a serious cold spell in the valley recently. The temperatures here have been about as cold as I have seen them for as long as I've seen them in the valley. Normal morning temperatures have been between -15 and -10 with daytime highs not being much above 0. Needless to say, this means we haven't been doing any fishing recently and the skiing has only been ok because we've been in a dry spell. On the plus side the water levels are about normal for this time of year so hopefully we'll be good to go for the summer. As we get into February I plan to start doing more fishing and may have more to write about. I am having shoulder surgery soon so that will put an end to my ski season and probably motivate me to fish a bit more, even though I'll have to use my left arm. Here are a few pictures from this past year that I don't think I've posted yet. Take care.

Here's a brief video that one of our guides posted on YouTube from our guides trip. Just copy and paste the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpQcSei21U0&feature=share&list=UUDHkYgi5ECkXW5-GKGBN24g

11/15/12

Cold winter weather is finally setting in here. Lots of cloudy, snowing days but the sunny days are still fishing really well. No more dry fly action at this point, its all sub-surface with nymphs or streamers. The mackinaw fishing has been pretty good in Jackson lake with the macks moving in shallow with the cold temps. Here are some pictures from our guides trip a few weeks ago. It was a great trip with tons of pictures so I'm just starting to get them sorted.

11/1/12

I've had to accept that between work and taking classes I'm not going to have nearly as much time to post reports as I once did. I do, however, have lots of good pictures to put up here in the next week or so. The fishing has been incredible and I've spent lots of quality fishing time with some good friends over the past month. These pictures are from a trip Weldon and I took up to the Henry's fork back in October. Weldon and I met up with Jeff Currier, Josh Gallivan, Granny, and our good friend from out of town, Evan Schwanfelder. Schwany and I once worked in the fly shop together and it had been many years since we'd fished together. We had great hatches and some decent streamer fishing. It was a great trip and the nights at the Trouthunter were especially memorable.