June 20th, June 23rd – 32nd and 33rd Day Fly Fishing
Many of you may not understand and that’s OK. Your waters are your waters and I make no judgement. However, the “Ranch” and I’m talking the Harriman Ranch section of the Henry’s Fork, Last Chance, Idaho for clarity. This is the place where fishermen from all over the globe come to test their skills. For validation, please refer to pages 89-93 in the book “50 Places to Fly Fish Before You Die”(Thanks to you Bro! This is my bible!). Yes, the Ranch is recognized globally as a gold medal catch and release river section. From a purely personal perspective, it is absolutely, without question, my favorite freshwater fly fishing venue period! Now, I have not fished New Zealand or Scotland for that matter. It is my very favorite from my own personal experience. When I say globally, I mean that one day I was walking the far bank and I came across a couple of asian fly fishermen. At first impression, all I could tell was that they were dressed impeccably in Simms everything! Both were sporting very expensive bamboo fly rods. I stopped to ask “how are you doing?”. I could tell right away their English was not great. Further, I could clearly tell they were native Japanese. They just said, “We are headed to the Islands”. Blog readers for sure! The Islands hold some of the largest trout, 20″+ . Word about the ranch gets around.
The Ranch section closes every year on December 15th and re-opens June 15th. This almost 100% rainbow trout fishery does not get stocked by the state of Idaho. And although rainbow trout are not native to the fishery, the population is self sustaining. The June 15th re-opening supports the rainbow spawn in April and keeps human disturbances away. This makes the opening really special to the locals and the many visitors. These fish have not seen a dry fly in six months!
However, just because you visit in June, you are no way ensured a successful trip. One of the reasons this place is loved and adored by locals, “it’s freaking hard to catch fish here”. Yes, not unlike Silver Creek, also in Idaho and my second favorite fishery. So why are the hardest places the best places? Once you have developed your fly fishing skills to a certain level, you need to test them. Testing your skills pushes you to be better. The Ranch WILL push your skills and if you pay attention you will also improve those skills.
Monday, June 20th 2022 was one of those days for me. It was my first trip to the Ranch this year. I must say with much anticipation! Last year my first day was June 16th, the day after opening. It was one of my best days ever! Clearly in my top ten of all time. So I was very excited to get out there. Was it anything like last year? No way! Last year the high was in the low 80’s. A huge wind came up in the afternoon, driving most of the fishermen to their cars. A big Flav hatch had happened earlier and evidence of the bugs lingered. I killed it fishing flav spinners! Monday was not like that at all. The high was 49 degrees, overcast all day and we had 1.5 hours of solid rain. Not much of a flav hatch but PMDs came off twice. It was tough, I did not get an eat all day! There just weren’t many rising fish, all day long! Still, I am humbled once again by the Ranch and more so by the rainbow population that inhabits it. I did have a young male moose (pic below) greet me at my truck as I arrived and that was a nice treat!
Learning how to be successful at the Ranch takes time. I have seen newbies come out and land a big rainbow on their first try but I also know that it took me many tries to catch anything larger than a 13″ fish. I have also been skunked many times, including Monday the 20th. However, after talking to a few regulars, some of them caught a few. One guy who was successful on the river that day trailed an emerger behind his dry fly and he was getting eats on the emerger. He landed a few. I talked to another guy who got a few on a PMD adult, but it was a very sparsely tied PMD. I fished PMDs but none of mine were sparsely tied and I got NBRs (Nothing But Refusals). Anyway, if you watch people and talk to people you learn something. I felt like I learned a lot that day.
Fast forward to Wednesday, as I had to work Tuesday. Back at the Ranch, this time a little earlier as I was so excited to get out of the house and hey sometimes there is a morning bite too especially as we get into July with the trico spinner falls. But a PMD hatch can happen at almost any time and everyone figured that the drake hatch was right around the corner. I knew right away when I pulled into the lot that Wednesday was going to be much different than Monday. First off, when I arrived the lot was full and I was lucky to have a truck pull out right when I arrived. There were already several cars and RVs in the overflow lot. Once I was rigged and made it down the trail it was really clear what was happening. A few fishermen out on the water, but many, many more who were sitting on the bank, staking out their spot. Of course, this is classic Ranch etiquette. When you sit on the bank, you are reserving at least 100′ above you and 100″ below you. When it is not crowded it is more like 200′ in each direction. This is more space than you will get on most rivers, so if you come to the Ranch and your home river is the Provo River in Utah, don’t bring your Provo etiquette with you. Also on crowded days, more people will wade across to the far bank and stake out a position there. The etiquette in that case each person has from their bank to the mid point of the river. It is actually plenty of room and there are always places to fish, even if your favorite spot is taken.
I decided to cross and found plenty of room on the other side. Sometimes, the fish will hang on the edges, particularly if wind is blowing food that way but that was not the case today as I was scanning the edges quite a lot. Where the fish are depends on the flows so let’s talk about that for a minute as flows had a pretty big impact on where I chose to fish that day. The seasonal norm for 6/20 is approx 900 cfs and on Monday they were 800cf, so close enough to normal. However, during the day Tuesday they dropped the flows and by Wednesday they were down to 680cfs, which is big drop for a single day and an even bigger difference from the norm. I could tell the difference from Monday to Wednesday. The Henry’s Fork up at the Ranch has very little structure and the bottom is almost flat and therefore, depths are fairly consistent as you walk across. In my experience fishing here the fish are more comfortable, the deeper the water is. This is not unique to the Ranch section of the Henry’s Fork. The Bitterroot in Montana is another excellent example. It gets tougher to fish as the water levels drop in summer. So as I was wading, I was looking for water that was deeper. Where there was a depression or channel as I knew the fish there would be happier. My best days at the Ranch have been in knee to mid-thigh water, unless the fish are finding food on the edges.
It turned out to be a very long afternoon with no decent hatches to speak of and the occasional rise was usually a smaller fish. We also had a lot of “one and done” risers. Ordinarily when a fish rises once, it is not enough to get you out of your seat on the bank. This day though because the rises were so sporadic, we hoping to coax a fish back to the surface a second time. So it was not uncommon to see a fisherman head out to fish a single rise, even though in most cases, the fish did not rise again. What compounded this frustration is that you never knew if the fish was refusing your fly or perhaps was not looking up. On the other hand, with repeat risers, if the fish doesn’t take your fly after 3 or 4 rises, you can conclude that you are getting a refusal.
It was 4pm now and I needed a break so I went back to the truck for a snack and some water. At this point the river was almost empty of people. There is typically a break in the afternoons, usually 1-6pm. A lot of fishermen leave and then come back, some just hang out at their cars. I decided to head back to the river at about 5pm. The reason being, I wanted a different spot for the evening fish and I figured I would stake that out. Specifically, I wanted deeper water and more structure if I could find it. Since I was early, I practically had my pick. There was already a guy a couple hundred feet above me and he was eying water upstream of his position, a rock formation, so I knew I was not moving in on his area of focus. The place I chose had a few rocks 20-80 feet off of the bank and I like the depth and flows. After a bunch of false starts, I finally had a few fish rising new the far rock. I had tied on a caddis. A guy I spoke with earlier had some luck with a caddis pattern and it is always a good choice in the evening.
Some of the smaller fish that were rising appeared to be refusing my caddis, but the rises were fairly sporadic so I stuck with my fly. It was now around 6:30 and I started to see a bigger head rising near the furthest rock. I got over into position and made several 35′ casts that were upstream and to the left of me and right on the mark. Then I saw the eat and set. This was not this fish’s first rodeo. He swam right down to where i was standing and I was madly stripping line, trying to get tight and hoping he was still on. To my delight, he was still on but as soon as he felt the tension, he began to make several fierce runs. On one of the runs I fed all of my loose line out through my fingers and was able to get him on the reel. After a few more runs, trying to turn the fish upstream and realizing that he was heading downstream, I thought about what it was going to to take to get this fish to hand.
At one point during the fight I dropped my tip after a run only to have a second burst and a head shake. Not having my rod raised caused me to lose my tippet protection, which is the primary reason for fishing a 3wt. And, my drag was one click too tight for the 5.5X tippet I was using. In any case, it was a legitimate break-off. The fish performed a ninja move and took advantage of my errors. It was a really nice fish! I’m guessing 19″ with big shoulders, probably a 4lb fish. It was an excellent 4 minute battle and it made my day.
Actually, I was convinced that there were more fish to be caught. It was already 6:30pm when I hook the fish that broke me off. I was banking on caddis activity because today, unlike Monday when I saw few caddis in the bushes or flying around in general, today they were everywhere in big numbers. I knew they would be out in much bigger numbers that last hour of daylight
It was 9:20pm when I landed the first fish of the day. He took the same caddis I was getting refusals on earlier. Go figure. The fish was a respectable 13+” fish. Nice and fat and a very strong fighter. Casting down always puts you at a disadvantage when you are fighting a fish. They can use the entire force of the current to their advantage. That’s why whenever possible I cast up. Especially at sunset, you really have a better perspective on rises. They are just more visible with the sun at your back. Up and to the side works too. But having the fish eat above you puts YOU at a big advantage. The fish has to fight you and the current.
Shortly after landing this fish (pic below) I decided I was done. It was getting tough to see and the rises had dropped off considerably. But leaving the water at 9:45, I knew I wouldn’t be home until 11:15pm. And of course, by the time I had a quick “heat up leftovers in the microwave dinner” it would be after midnight before turning into bed.
