29th Day Fly Fishing – June 3rd, 2025 – South Fork of the Snake, Canyon Section
The night before last, I was so excited, I couldn’t hardly sleep. After many years of fishing the upper stretches of the South Fork, I finally had the opportunity to fish the Canyon Section with my friend John. It is a super long float, ~20 miles, from our put-in at Conant to our take out at Wolf.
Conant is the start of the Canyon, where there are walls so steep, there is no place to put a road. So the first 15 miles are basically inaccessible by car. The first take out is Cottonwood and there is a crappy dirt road there. We went a few miles further to Wolf, where the raod is the same but better maintained. The float is so long, it makes sense to have two rowers, where John and I regularly took turns.
We had seven rods rigged between the two of us, including dry fly rods. We were in between hatches but were hoping to see a few heads. There were some baetis coming off in the late afternoon and a few smaller fish rising, but the action was not heavy enough to get the bigger fish interested. I fished both streamer and nymph rigs. Toward the end of the day I stuck with the streamer rod, because I did have a few eats. The nyming was really slow, with zero action on the Pat’s rubberlegs. With the golden stone and salmonfly hatches weeks away, we expected to see action with the stonefly nymphs, but alas, we did not. We had a few eats on a pheasant tail variant. MIne was a Frenchie soft hackle. But, they were all whitefish eats unfortunately.
But hey, the float was incredible. The scenary was just fantastic! We saw no fewer than five bald eagles. The canyon walls were just stunning. Yes, the Flaming Gorge perhaps more so, but these were spectacular! Lots of rowing and lots of casts with a heavy streamer rod, sink tip line and a heavy articulated streamer. We put in at 10:00am and were out at 7:30pm. It was a long day and I was exhausted! Such a great feeling though, but today I took it really easy!
No doubt that I will fish this stretch again as it has an incredible reputation. My friend Douglas Barnes did the foat with Worldcast Anglers a few times, a two day float staying at the South Fork Hilton and he always raved about it. I think they take out at Byington on day two which extends tthe float to 25 miles. In any case, I will be doing this float again! Hopefully with better fishing results. But it is still worth the trip, even with sub-par fishing.
Some beautiful images below that can’t’ begin to capture the stunning beauty::
