38th – 41st day of Fly Fishing – July 15th – 18th, 2025
The Teton
It was my pleasure to meet and fish with Matt, Mel’s son. Fishing varied, but we had an excellent time! Our journey began with an evening float on the Teton. The pair arrived at my cabin in Idaho at 3pm and we were off to the ramp by 5. Fish were rising when we got there. We decided to self shuttle so it was really 6pm before we were underway. PMD’s were coming off and I anchored up in a spot just 30 yds below the ramp, and we immediately were putting small cutthroat trout in the boat. As the action at the first spot began to cool I drifted us down another 30 yds to a spot where I knew the fish ran a bit bigger. But after only 30 minutes of fishing, a squall was approaching with wind initially and then some raindrops. Before long the rain picked up and I made the the decision to row us back up to the bridge where we could anchor underneath and escape the rain.
Turns out, this was not your typical summer downpour and the rain kept coming. Ultimately we decided to call it and park the boat back at the ramp and go back to the take-out to get the truck and trailer. The good news is, our trip was already off to a great start. We all caught fish on PMDs and Matt caught more than a handful. The hot fly was the size 18 PMD sprout that I suggested that Mel tie. I just love it when a plan comes togeher!
The South Fork
Day two got off to a slow start. We slept in and had Costco quiche for breakfast and at 11am we headed over the mountain to Swan Valley for a South Fork float. The scoop we had gotten from World Cast Anglers was the salmon fly hatch was still in full swing and that a dry/dropper combo was the way to go. The flows were 12,200, high but actually normal for this time of the year due to agricultural needs downstream. Anyway we pounded the banks with our salmon fly dry flies and a perdigon style dropper in size 14 or 16. We saw salmon flies come off and we saw them swimming for the banks. But our salmon fly imitations were getting a cold response. We did see a few refusals but did not get any eats. We were also shocked that the droppers weren’t seeing any action either. We had fairly long tippet sections to the droppers and when casting near the banks, the depth was not all that great. We were perplexed!
Hard to believe these
are the small bugs!
As we worked our way into the riffle section, I noticed that a spot frequented by guides was unoccupied. Great! We found a soft place to anchor and surveyed the water. Sure enough we found some rising fish. The question was, what were they eating? PMDs? Caddis? Even though there were a few PMDs around, the caddis seemed to dominate. My go to caddis is always a size 18 X-Caddis with a black body. Mel was picking up caddis that were in the boat and discovered that the size 16 caddis with a brown body was dominating. So I made a change and waded a ways upstream to see if I could entice an eat. As is always true when I’m rowing, my only time to fish is when we are at anchor and I wasn’t about to waste any time. Wading was tricky. At 12,200 cfs, flows were fast and deep in this spot. And to make matters a little less interesting, many of the fish that were rising were really small, but given how slow the float had been so far, I just wanted an eat or two. With the brown size 16 caddis on I managed an eat right away, but no hookset. This fish porpoised over the fly and he was pretty good sized. Sometimes I take that move as a refusal, but in this case, it felt like an eat.
Some of the larger fish rising were way further out and I made multiple attempts, and tried wading closer. Still five feet short! Anyway, I regrouped and decided to focus on fish closer in and managed to get a solid rainbow eat. I landed a really strong 14″ fish. Soon after, the rises were waning and Mel and Matt were ready to go. So we left in search new places to fish.
On any given day in mid-July, the South Fork is likely to be crowded. There are a couple of reasons for this. Guides are promoting the salmon fly hatch to their clients, and the Henry’s Fork gets warm and weedy. As the temps on the Ora to Chester stretch of the HF climb above 68 degrees by mid-day, the guides will tell their clients that the South Fork is the place to fish. But frankly, the salmon fly hatch is a huge draw as it is always hyped by the fly shops and in social media, etc. Heck we were sucked in too! What’s not to like about big fish eating big bugs on the surface! We are just sorry that we were unable to figure it out.
We made several other stops and I remained vigilant looking for heads, It was a frustrating day from a fishing perspective. But we had a great day otherwise. The South Fork is special and Matt got to experience a big, beautiful cold river in scenic Swan Valley. At the take out, as we were getting our gear organized for the ride home, a guide came by our boat and was totally elated by the excellent day he and his clients had. We told him we had salmon flies in the water most of the way down and got nothing but a few refusals. He then pointed out that the only salmon flies remaining were the females, which were considerably smaller than the males. The males are about an inch longer and they have an orange abdomen. The females have a brown abdomen. He said his clients were fishing golden stone dry flies as they were the right size and had a similar colored abdomen. Further, he said the big male imitations with the orage abdomen had been fished for the past week and the and the fish were refusing them as they had already seen too many. This phenomenon where refusals happen later in the hatch happens a lot it is a well known fact on the Flaming Gorge of the Green River during the later stage of the cicada emergence. The fish refuse the cicada dry flies.
As the host captain and guide, i needed to take greater responsibility on that day. When flies aren’t working it is important to make changes. But, in my defense we saw very few fish rise in the upper section where the salmon flies were present. We saw lots of female salmon flies skate across the water unscathed. Further, given the fact that there were so many boats on the water, we saw very few fish caught either. The fish we did see caught were in the riffle section and they were smallish.
As I see it, the best way to get better at fishing the South Fork is to fish it more. In general, I fish the Henry’s Fork three times as much as the South Fork and I feel like that experience has paid off. I have a lot of good days on the Henry’s Fork!
The Greys
Ah, the Greys! This was the trip I was really looking forward to since Mel decided to bring Matt in mid-July. It was July 17th and we had near perfect conditions. The Greys is a wading river and I was excited because it meant I got to fish too! All day long! The conditions were perfect too – 540cfs, blue skies, 80 degrees light winds. The flows this time of year are so important! As I have fished the Greys each of the past four summers, I have kept records of flows and correlated them to fishing success. The flows between 500-600cfs are the best. Above 600cfs many good stretches become too difficult to wade, and below 500 cfs, the fish tend to concentrate in the deeper holes. So we nailed it as far as flows are concerned.
The drive from Victor to Alpine is easy and very scenic, especially as you go around Palisades Lake. We saw a number of osprey heads poking out above the rather large nests, perched high atop tall poles. The lake is really pretty too! Then there is the long drive up the canyon of the Greys river. Incredibly scenic, but somewhat tempered by a bumpy road and lots of dust, spun up by four wheelers and side-by-sides.
We reached our first put-in and opted for dry/dropper rigs. My friend and former boss Chris Parkin put me on to the dropper idea as he gets a lot of his eeats on the dropper. I suggested we start off with my favorite dry fly on the Greys, a royal stimulator. It turned out to be a good call for today as we did see a number of fairly large caddis around. It was a good call right off the bat as Matt had a really nice Cutthroat on in no time!
Matt is seen above landing his first Greys Cutthroat! In current as swift and powerful as this once that fish gets downhill of you they become almost impossible to land without help. I’m seen jumping in below Matt with the net.
Fishing was so good on top for that first hour, I took my dropper off. It needed to happen as the stimulator can easily get waterlogged in curent like this with a dropper pulling it down. Anyway, we all managed to get several fish in the spot before moving on.
After noon, the top water bite literally shut off. So we switched to a foam dry fly and went with a perdigon dropper. As Chris had predicted, the droppers began to get results right away. We fished until almost 4pm when the fishing became slow
The Greys is a special place and we had a great day!
After fishing, the day ended with dinner at the food trucks at “Music on Main”. We chose Teton Thai and the turned out to be a great choice. The bands are always great but it was a long day, so after a few songs, we headed back to the cabin.
Teton River Float
On this day we decided to spend more time on the Teton. The initial float only lasted an hour or so and then got rained out. The Teton made sense as the Henry’s Fork is now getting too warm in the afternoon to fish. Yes, we could have made it an early float, on the water at 7:30am and off by 1pm, but a longer float on the Teton just seemed to make sense. I chose a longer stretch that would take most of the day and we were on the water around noon after self shuttling.
As soon as we launched, we saw fish rising. PMDs were on the menu and we had several fish in the net before moving on. As time moved along, the rises became few and far between. This may have been a function of the water warming. When we launched, the water was 62 degrees, at take out it had risen to 68. Regardless, even though we had droppers rigged on the second half of the float, we weren’t able to get many eats on them, even though we had several eats on the foam hoppers, but hook sets were elusive.
Because the Teton is not conducive to wading I found myself on the sticks almost the entire time. It also meant I did not get many pics. The highlight of this day for me was the male moose whom we came upon. We also saw a mom and her calf too, but didn’t get any pics.
It was a great day! Started off with some great action that tailed off over time, but the Teton never disappoints when it comes to wildlife!
The day ended at Tatanka Tavern in Driggs for salad and a couple of incredible pizzas!
In Conclusion
It was a great trip! It was Matt’s first experience with the Teton Valley and the surrounding areas. I think he was a bit blown away actually. Next on Mel’s agenda was to head up to Yellowstone and do some fishing with Matt up there. I saw pictures and I know they had an amazing time and caught some beautiful fish.
For the record, Mel and Matt are outstanding fishing partners and great guys to hang out with. They are welcome back any time.
