33rd – 36th Days Fly Fishing – August 12-15, 2024
The Dude and I do a swap every year and looking back at my blog posts, I struggle to believe this is the first post covering these trips. The Sun Valley trip this year came up first in August. We don’t do the Teton version of the swap in August due to the heat and the warm water conditions on the Henry’s Fork. This year, the Dude will be visiting me in September and conditions ths year are excellent.
Every time I visit my friend in Sun Valley, I always insist on fishing Silver Creek. However, although I had an amazing evening about seven years ago, we have caught almost nothing there since we have been going there together. The few puny rainbows we have caught don’t compare the the giant rainbows and browns that Silver Creek has become known for. We thought about hiring a guide this year, to try and change our luck, but ultimately nixed it. Therefore, this year we substituted The Big Lost for Silver Creek.
The Big Wood – August 12th
The headwaters of The Big Wood are up near Galena Summit in the Sawtooth range. The Dude’s cabin is located very close to the Big Wood in the upstream reaches. Therefore, it is an easy first day and in particular, “the spot” which is a run where we always catch fish. Smallish fish, but these rainbows are feisty! Because Highway 75 follows the Big Wood, there is lots of public access so are always exploring new stretches and the Dude found a really nice fish behind a rock in one of those new places.
The Salmon – Stanley, Idaho – August 13th & 14th
We love fishing the Salmon, usually downstream from Stanley, Idaho. This year we also did the overnight stay so we could fish it two days in a row, without going back and forth over Galena pass. Over the years we have discovered a number of put-ins that fish consistently. Some of the riffles are great for nymphing and some of the longer runs are great for dry flies and swinging soft hackles. This year for the first time, both of us decided to experiment with Euro-nymphing. We both bought rigs over the winter and we decided that a couple of the riffles we fish on the salmon would be excellent for Euro-nymphing. And yes!, we were successful at the first couple of spots we tried.
A big surprise for me came when we were fishing one of our favorite soft hackle spots, later in the day. The stretch that usually produces numerous rainbows was slow the first day and I decided to explore a new section that had worked for me the previous year. While swinging a soft hackle, I had an enormous tug on the line and knew immediately that was not the typical 12-14″ stocker rainbow we usually get from this section. The current is strong in these runs and I knew I needed to get this fish to the edge ASAP! Applying side pressure I ultimately got him to the edge and my awaiting net but not until after a 5 minute battle.
Woa! an 18″ brown! Clearly not a stocked fish and a very nice surprise!
The following day, the Dude and I fished further downstream than we usually go looking for new water. We found a few spots that held fish but nothing notable. Finally, heading back upstream, we ended up at the spot where I caught the big brown the previous day. I put the Dude on the spot with soft hackles as he had been struggling to catch fish in the usual spot. As he worked his way through the new location, he caught fish after fish. I stuck with a dry fly, the royal stimulator that had worked so well on the Greys and I worked behind him covering water he had already worked and I was catching fish after fish too! We both landed six fish in about a half hour. And that’s how we ended our second day on the Salmon.
The Big Lost – August 15th
The Big Lost is east of Ketchum and so literally on the way back to Victor for me. For this reason, we drove two cars so I could merely head home at the end of our fishing day. The Big Lost is aptly named because it is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It has a solid reputation for big native Cutthroats and rainbow trout. There are three sections to it too. The upper section is closest to Ketchum. The middle section runs through farmland and there is lots of private land and fewer public access points. The lower section is a tail out below Mackay reservoir. This section has the reputation for big trout and there are a number of public access points.
We ended up fishing the upper section. And our choice for a put-in was rather random. There were steep embankments on both sides, so we worked upstream following the stream bed. At one point the embankments turned into rock walls and we had no choice but to push on upstream. The flows were less than I would have liked and bottom of light colored sandy limestone did not offer much cover, so we knew the trout would be in deeper cuts, runs and holes. This meant lightly working big areas of not so fishy water looking for the smaller pockets of fishy water. The Dude was struggling a bit, but I managed a couple of nice fish, one rainbow and one cutthroat.
So the trip was a wrap and I headed back to Victor. The Dude is set to visit in September and my goal will be to get him into some bigger fish.
