Henry's Fork 11-02-2012

I can't believe it's going on five months since I blogged last.

Sam and I made a run to the Henry's Fork last November in hopes of catching some big pre-spawn Browns on streamers. We caught a fair number of trout, mostly Rainbows, but no huge Browns. We arrived to a nice crisp fall morning.

 

Sam didn't waste any time getting down to the water.

 

After the shadows retreated off the water, it started warming up. 

 

First Brown of the day. 

 

And a health little Rainbow.

 

These are some of the big streamers we started out casting, latter in the day we scaled down to about 1/3 the size and seamed to do a little better, but these do have there place when the big fish arrive.

 

Note to self, bend down the barb on this one.

 

 

In the afternoon we moved down below the bridge and did  pretty well, catch some nice Browns and Bows, but still no monsters.

 

Henrys Fork 06-07-2012

Dusty was in town, so this year Sam thought he would introduce him to Henrys Fork by Ora bridge. We arrived the night before and camped in Ashton.

Dusty heading down. 

Sam heading for the top of the second island. 

Doubles. 

Dusty with a nice one. 

Sam seemed to always to far away to get a picture of his fish. 

When the hatch started the birds moved in to pick the bugs off the water.

Some moved in to close, and Sam hooked into one. 

Sam bringing him down to get the hook removed. 

It was almost like this bird had been hooked before, and was pretty patient while we removed the hook. 

I waded down to the bridge and got this shot of Sam and Dusty.

The next morning we waded up the outlet to Henrys Lake. This was a lot of fun and we each caught a ton of fish, mostly Cutts and Cutbows, but we did manage a few Brookies, and some Suckers. 

 

 

Island Park Area 6-17-2009

For the past six years Sam has put together a fishing trip to the Island Park Idaho area during the week of June 15th.
This years participants were myself, Sam, Beau, Dave, and Chris, The no shows were Scott, Dean, and Jason.
We were in contact daily with Brett in Ashton and Rick in Island Park, sharing information about the hatches, flows, and where to fish and what flies to use.

Wednesday
We arrived in Ashton Wednesday to heavy rain around 11:00 am, so we stopped at the Premier Fly shop to see Sam's good friend Brett who has built some Sage rods for Sam.












After visiting with Brett, we went up to the Buffalo campground and setup camp. Then back to Ashton and the Ora bridge to do a float down to the Vernon bridge. Luckily the sun had come out and it didn't start raining again until we had the boat almost out at the Vernon takeout. Our float was from approx. 1:30 to 4:30. We caught a few Browns, Rainbows, and whitefish.



















By the time we drove back to the Ora Bridge the storm had really turned ugly, so we decided to wait in the truck to see if it would pass. It finally slowed to a drizzle and Sam and I decided to wade up river from Ora bridge, Baeu had worked the night before so he opted to sleep instead of fish. While we were on the water, the rain slowed and we witnessed a massive Flav hatch. There were thousands of them floating on the water with very few fish rising to them, but we were able to fool a few Rainbows into taking our dry flies.













Thursday
We woke Thursday morning to overcast skies after heavy raining most of the night. We headed over to float "The Box" below Island Park Reservoir. The top of the box canyon is swift with nice deep pocket water behind big boulders with lots of snags, but it holds the biggest fish if you can get your fly down to them before it is swept downstream. Sam did a great job of navigating the boat around the rocks, and putting us in casting range of the best holes. Beau and I spent a lot of time retying on tippet and flies because of the snags. We were able to land a few Rainbows and lost some.

















After the Box Canyon float we had some lunch and headed over to where the Warm river dumps into the Henry's Fork. This is the Warm river to Ashton float, this is the longest float of the trip (approx. 6-mile) with just a few small rapids. It was raining hard at the launch, but quit after about 20 minutes on the river. Sam let me practice on the oars for this trip. The fishing was slow, but Sam and Baeu did land some small Rainbows and Whitefish. I talked to some people at the dock, and they all experienced the same fish conditions.













We still had some time after getting the boat off the water so we headed back over to Ora bridge to try to hit the evening Flav hatch, but we were too late according to the fishermen in the parking area. Beau left for home, Sam joined Brett down river from the bridge while I waded up.
Sam caught some on top while I only caught a couple nymphing. If you look at the second picture below you can see Brett fishing. It was a fun day, and we hit alot of water.














Friday
Weather wise this was the best day of the trip. In the morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky at camp. It was just Sam and I so we decided to go wade fish the Madison in Montana. This was all nymph fishing the runs, riffles, and pocket water. I caught around 20 (most Rainbows) and Sam caught more than me. It was a lot of fun, the fish hit hard, made long runs down river, and jumped a lot. The Brown I caught below was a nice 18-incher. I loved the color and spots on the Rainbows.

















After several hours on the Madison, we had a tailgate lunch, before driving back to the Ora bridge to meet up with Dave and Chris.












At Ora bridge we caught more fish nymphing. Check out the width of the Rainbow that Sam landed, in the first picture.













Saturday
Another nice day we floated the box again this time with Dave and Chris. I was able to land more fish than the time before, but I still lost several flies to snags.

















That evening we went back to the Ora bridge for the best evening and dry fly fishing of the trip. We started out nymphing and caught several Nice Rainbows and some big Whitefish. Finally the conditions must have been just right, and the Flavs started hatching, except this time the fish were all over them. They were rising everywhere, and Sam was nailing them on top. By the end of the hatch and when things had calmed down he had landed over 20 on a dry fly. I did manage to catch 6 on top the rest were nymphing. These were also some of the biggest fish of the trip.

















Sunday
As you can tell we spent a lot of time fishing the Ora bridge area, it's Sams favorite spot, so before we went home Sam had to go down and wet his line one last time. While he fished I took some picture of the senery and him fishing.