13th Day of Fly Fishing – May 4th, 2024 – Henry’s Fork, Idaho (1,800cfs)
Here we are, it has been a slow start for me fishing wise in 2024. Only at 13 days on the water so far and we are already a third of the way through the year. March and April really seemed to fly by! So the Mother’s day caddis hatch was already in full swing this year on May 4th. If you go back to my blog from this time in 2022, you will see it was in full swing then, too! That dat was also the maiden voyage of my Hyde Montana Skiff. Making comparisons year over year can be useful, but sometimes, not so much! This time, both days had huge caddis hatches, but fish were only keying on them for limited times and only in certain sections. Lighting on the water may have been a factor, as the action always seemed to pick up when the sun was behind the clouds.
On this day, John and I launched his Clacka at Ora Bridge with plans to take out at Chester Dam. We started around noon and were excited to see swarms of caddis at the ramp. As we headed down the first section, I was up first and John was on the sticks. Seeing no heads at all, I took the safe route and started with a nymph rig, my 4wt Scott G2, using a big, black salmon fly nymph as the point fly and an emerging caddis soft hackle for the money fly, coming off of the tippet ring. With the salmon fly hatch only about a month away, the black salmon fly nymph should have gotten action as well. There were lots of boats on the water which limited our options on the first few runs. Several were parked, like they were waiting to see heads. We parked for a moment after I lost my point fly to a snag. This gave John a chance to try his streamer in a typically productive run. In fact we saw a fish landed just above us, taken on a nymph. We decided to carefully work the seam, knowing that a half dozen boats before us had done exactly the same thing. Nothing materialized. I ran a few more runs and then we parked at a good spot for rising fish further down. A boat there saw a head and managed to get an eat. It was a small fish, but as always, better than no fish. SO we waited for them to leave and went over that area, but alas, no more heads.
At this point with still no eats of any kind, we switched it up and I manned the oars and John fished his nymph rig. He had the same slow going with that as I did. John’s rig had both a caddis nymph and a baetis nymph. We worked both the deeper runs in the middle and the edges. At normal flows (1800cfs), the fish are not hugging the edges exclusively, they will be in the middle as well and you have to know where the structure is. As we were headed under the Vernon bridge, I realized that we only two hours in and we had already moved through the best water of the float. Not great trip management on our part. As we reached the Vernon flats, I noticed an older wage fisherman on river right and I decided to anchor below him. It was time for a lunch/sanity break. Lunch because I was getting hungry and sanity because we had fished some excellent water and so far we hadn’t bothered a single fish! Something told me this older dude knew something. As he sat on the bank he was mouthing a stogie, just waiting. He reminded me of an “old school” Ranch angler, but he still had another five weeks until that fishery opened and he needed to get out and work this mother’s day caddis hatch! I asked him if he had had any luck and he mentioned back that he had only seen “dinks”. And by DINKS I’m guessing he did not mean “Dual Income, No Kids”. No, he was was indicating that he was not up for chasing small fish. OK, so now his MO was coming into focus. We were parked 80′ below him trying to stay out of his way. His gaze had been directed upstream and ultimately he chose to walk further upstream.
As we sat and ate lunch, the clouds began to form and and we had intermittent periods of clouds and sun. We noticed more activity on the surface with the clouds and decided to stay put and fish this area. The caddis swarms were getting really thick and there were more of them on the surface now.. At one point, we were grabbing at them trying to trap one. As I opened my hand, John grabbed the caddis and flipped it over. The body was clearly black. Body color is an important identifier, even more so than wing color. All of these caddis had some variation on a tan colored wing. With respect to body color, sometimes dark vs light is all you need to know. However, HF trout can be very picky, so we decided to tie on caddis with black bodies. I had my 3wt G2 at the ready, which is rigged with a Cutthroat furled leader and 5X tippet. John was not sporting his waders and stayed in the boat. I chose to fish below him, as there were a few fish there rising as well. As the rises picked up, we both began to get eats. John first. He had a smaller fish, then a really nice brown get on that ultimately became unbuttoned. I landed a nice fish too, but then realized the net was in the boat, and as I was trying to get fancy with fish in hand, hoping to get a picture, he broke off the fly! Darn! Anyway, we each picked up a couple more and the rises just stopped altogether.
We chose to stay on river right as we pulled up anchor, and I decided to stay on the oars. We were nymphing but I was still on the look-out for heads. Nymph fishing is something I do to pass the time waiting for heads. It hasn’t always been that way. When I got serious about fly fishing while living in Colorado, I nymphed all the time and was very successful with it. Simple linear rigs with eye and hook bend connections. Later I preferred eye to eye, bbut none the less got similar results. Now its complicated rigs with tag ends, tippet rings and point flies, or drop shot rigs. Frankly, I’m not sure if the complicated rigs out-fish the older set-ups. I do know that as my focus has shifted to highly pressured tail-waters like the Provo or in this case, the Henry’s Fork, I seem to be catching fewer fish. As always, there are too many variables to consider, but as I havemade clear in numerous posts to this blog, nymphing is my least favorite form of fly fishing.
John nymphed the long stretch below Vernon all the way to the Chester back bay. However, I do have a secret spot that I discovered last summer with Reid and Mel. We decided to take another break there as it was only 4pm and the weather was just stunning! Partly cloudy with a light breeze. As we sat along the edge, I noticed a couple of smaller fish rising. For whatever reason, John did not seem interested, so I peeled myself over the transom and waded a bit upstream to be out of his way. Promptly, I saw a larger head come up and I cast to it. My first cast was a bit short, so I reloaded. We were fishing the caddis with darker bodies per my note above and I prefer the X Caddis, which has a shorter, sparser wing and a trailing shuck. It imitates an emerging caddis, so really a perfect match during a hatch. The second cast was spot on and I got the eat. My hook set was perfect and it was game-on! This fish was a nice healthy brown and I was trying not to horse him too much, so bringing him in took several minutes. He had the advantage of a fairly strong current and I knew it. Just as I made the final lift to swing hin into John waiting net, he broke off. Just a little too much pressure for the 5X tippet I had on.
Now John was suddenly interested in fishing again! We spotted a big fish coming up about 20 feet away. John tried making a couple of shots, but the fish lost interest in rising and with no additional fish coming up near us, we decided to lift anchor and finish the float. It was now 6pm and we knew we did not want to commit to the “Golden Hour” which was still 2.5 hours away so we decided to head for the Chester back bay and just take it slow passing through. There were a few smaller fish rising, but they were not remaining high in the water column. This type of rise greatly limits your success rate. What John was delighted about is that the wind completely laid down and he was rowing in dead calm!
Anyway, it was the perfect end to a nice day! Nothing beats a dry fly eat, especially when it’s a big fish on the other end. Both of us had that experience today!
