Saturday fishing and a report on things around here

Sometimes investigating is need. Such was the case yesterday
when my friend Matt and I donned Gore-Tex and Wool and
ventured into a bolder-strun piece of local pocket water.
Fishing my usual haunts on the Snake recently has been fun
and productive; lots of eager cutthroat and mountain whitefish
taking dries and nymphs. However, we both were in the mood
to do something different and the pocket water seemed like a
great choice.

Throughout the course of the day, we fished some beautiful
runs and pockets, shared rocky banks with resident moose and
got snowed on pretty good. We also managed to hook some
fish. Short-line nymphing was the name of the game and the
whitefish seem particularly impressed with our tactics.
Additionally, a few stocky golden-yellow cutthroats also played
along and kept things interesting.

While the fishing wasn’t outstanding, it was just what I needed;
solitude, exploration and the occasional tug on the line.

As I alluded to above, fishing on the Snake has been good
lately. Lots of midges, small black stoneflies and the occasional
Skwala have fish looking to the surface. When colder,
nymphing with smaller (#14) dark nymphs (think Hare’s Ear
and Prince variation) are getting the job done. Fish are still
podded up, and with flows low, wade fishing on the Snake is a
very practical option. I suspect that a warming trend this week
will get the Skwala hatch going and make for some fun dry fly
fishing with bigger rubber-leg concoctions.

We’ve gotten quite a bit of moisture the past two weeks or so.
And while kind of bummer for those of us yearning to break
out the Hawaiian shirts, this has boosted snowpack/ water
content to average levels ensuring good water flows for trout
this summer! I suspect we have a few weeks of good river
fishing ahead of us before runoff. Then it’ll be time to focus on
local lakes with slow sinking lines and various streamer and
nymph patterns. Hope folks are taking advantage of early
season fishing……