17th Day Fly Fishing – April 26, 2023 – Henry’s Fork – Ashton, 2700cfs
Spring is finally in the air! John and I waited for the perfect spring day to launch a drift boat. Then upon checking flows on the Henry’s Fork yesterday morning as I always do before heading for the water, it hit me…… They raised the flows 1,500 cfs overnight! That’s more than double from the day before! But, John and I conferred and decided to keep our plans and float anyway.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day! What was bizarre, was we saw only two other boats the entire day. Sure it was a midweek day, but it seems like all the other fishermen got the memo and made other plans. However, John was ready to get his Clackacraft into action! So we decided to go ahead and launch anyway. We had already decided to shorten our trip and the fast water was bound to shorten it further. So we anchored a lot and worked some of the upper runs very hard!
John got the nice brown pictured fairly early so there was hope! He was fishing a double streamer rig. My focus had been on nymphing. I had a big black salmon fly nymph with a large tungsten bead to get the rig down and a caddis fly pupa/emerger as the money fly. As the day progressed, we were constantly switching our rigs and for me at least, retying my rig. I had my 5wt Scott G2 designated for nymphs and my 7wt Scott Meridian with the Cortland Streamer Max sink tip for the streamers. The Meridian really performed and I am very satisfied using it as a fresh water/salt water crossover. I went through many big black salmon fly nymphs and several streamers and the bottom of the Henry’s Fork yesterday was just unforgiving. It was a tough day on the water, but we worked it!
We both had lowered expectations for the day. Even though there was a huge midge hatch underway and a robust BWO hatch, there were no fish rising. In fact, we didn’t see a fish rise all day! However, it was a great day on the water none the less. We had to relearn a lesson about flow changes, but it was great to get out and float and enjoy the weather and the wildlife on a beautiful spring day!
