The Favorite Part of the Trip

While my kids were young I used to take them camping each year on the Green River below Flaming Gorge. I would take Karen and Madison for a couple of days and then take David and Garrison on a separate trip. We would rent a raft from Flaming Gorge Lodge and camp at Dripping Springs, a public camping spot along the road to Big Hole. Sometimes we would hike down to the first camping spot along the B section. Floating the river in the raft we would stop along promising looking sections to fish. Right below Mother-in-Law Rapids would always be a favorite spot where we would catch a lot. While camping, we would usually roast hot dogs and marshmallows. With the boys, we would pee off the cliffs and the usual things that boys will do.

Fishing always seemed pretty good, although the weather is quite hot in the summers. To combat the heat, I would always take the kids to the lodge to buy huge ice cream cones.

So on one particular trip on the way home, I asked the boys what their favorite part of the trip was. Gary immediately blurts out – stopping at the 7-11 for candy as we left. OK, I spend three days with the boys rafting down the river, fishing and camping out. Their favorite part of the trip was in the first ten minutes – stopping at the store?

Weber River Water Level Has Dropped

Someone in the lab asked me this week “do you go fishing every week? I told them no. Last week I was in Disneyland and next week I have to go to Hawaii for a Human Genetics conference. Hopefully this clears the air about that.

OK, yesterday evening I was on the Weber River below Rockport and the water has dropped considerably. You’ll notice from the picture with the black mink that it dropped recently, like earlier in the day. The fish were off the bite. I caught a nice cutthroat and a big fat white fish on a caddis emerger. There were caddis flies on the water but the fish didn’t seem interested. I notice that whether the flow has recently risen or dropped the fish don’t seem interested in eating. The water was also somewhat off color.

Oh, I did get checked by the Division of Natural Resources to see if I had a license. The first thing I pulled out of my wallet was my Montana season license. He commented that I get around. I did show him my Utah license. He mentioned that no one was having much luck yesterday. I was glad to see that the DNR had someone out checking the river. It was the first time I have been checked there.

Where is the South Fork of the Snake River?

Quite a few people have asked me where the South Fork of the Snake River is located so I thought I’d explain. Most everyone is aware of the portion of the Snake River that flows through the Teton National Park in Wyoming. This is a beautiful, calm river with the Tetons as a backdrop. I have floated this section with the Boy Scouts. A little further downstream at Hoback Junction is where the Hoback River joins the Snake River. Right below this junction is where the white water rafting trips take place. I have white water rafted this section with family reunions and with Boy Scouts. The famous rapids are called Big Kahuna and Lunch Counter. A picture of your raft is often taken at Lunch Counter Rapids that you can purchase on the internet. This part of the river flows into Palisades Reservoir at Alpine, Wyoming and is joined by the Salt and Grey’s Rivers.

After the river passes through the Palisades Reservoir which is on the Idaho/Wyoming border, the river is called the South Fork of the Snake River. The South Fork is thus a tail-water fishery and joins the Henry’s Fork (a.k.a. the North Fork) 64 miles downstream near Rexburg and Rigby, Idaho. The South Fork flows through Swan Valley near the Conant put in by South Fork Anglers which is 15 miles below Palisades Dam. The Byington Boat Access is 25 miles downstream from Conant.

The South Fork is a large river with a water flow high in the spring of around 20,000 cfs and a low in the fall of around 2,000 cfs. 10,000 cfs is more of a typical flow for mid-summer.

Directions: To get there from Salt Lake, you take I-15 to Idaho Falls. Then take exit 116 (Sunnyside Rd) or 118 (W. Broadway St.) going East. Pass over the Snake River and turn left (North-East) in about 1 mile on US-26 which takes you to Swan Valley (43 miles). I have learned that it is easier to stop for gas and lunch in Blackfoot than at exit 118 in Idaho Falls. Also taking exit 116 (Sunnyside Rd) to get to US-26 allows you to bypass downtown Idaho Falls. It is about a 4.5 hour drive unless you stop at Taco Bell in Blackfoot like I always do and then plan on 5 or 5.5 hours.

Bald Eagles

Besides the wonderful fishing, the South Fork of the Snake River is a great place to see bald eagles. You know John Denver’s song Rocky Mountain High - I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly… Well the canyon stretch which is the 24 mile stretch from Conant to Byington has 5 Bald Eagle closure areas. These areas are actually within the first 10 miles of this stretch in between the various camping areas. Every float trip I have taken on this stretch of the South Fork I have seen Bald Eagles. The last float with my son-in-law Nick we saw the most I’ve ever seen. Also, what is nice about floating with Nick is that he is a wonderful photographer. Included in this section are some of the pictures we took on our float.

While keeping your eye on your fly or strike indicator, it is sometimes hard to notice the wildlife like the eagles. Part of the wonderful experience of the float, besides fishing, is the wildlife and scenery. There are also other types of beautiful birds you don’t see very often. Plus the mountains, trees, river, fall colors and other wildlife like garter snakes and raccoons are worth a few minutes of your attention. In previous blogs I’ve mentioned the moose and beautiful clear night skies. Enjoy it all!!!

Go ahead and click on the pictures in order to see the eagles better. They are majestic.

The Biggest Fish of the Trip

Now that I have told you about the most likely places to catch fish, along the seams, let me tell you about the largest fish of the entire float on the South Fork. It was healthy 18 inch brown. It actually looked bigger than that but the measuring tape doesn’t lie.

This fish was not caught in a seam. It was caught in a straight, featureless stretch of even flow, consistently three feet deep. Go figure!

What is there to learn from this? You can only catch fish while your fly is in or on the water. Had I not fished this stretch because it was featureless, I would not have caught this fish. So, fish the most likely places when you can and when floating a stretch not so promising, continue to give it your best.

Good Looking Spots – Reading the Water

We would pull over and fish places that had shallow water next to deep water or fast water next to slow. These are called seams and fishing along these seams can really improve your catch rate. Fish will feed along the shallow water where food is more prevalent but still have the comfort of knowing there is deep water nearby for escape to safety.

Where fast water meets slow water, fish can escape fighting the fast current by hanging in the slower water while at the same time feeding on the insects drifting by in the faster water. Insects get swept off rocks and plants in the fast water and fish take advantage of that by lying near that seam.

Fast water also gets oxygenated making it more comfortable for the fish. If you can find a spot where fish can hide-out right where the water turns deep directly downstream from fast water this is ideal. The fish have well oxygenated water, the safety of the nearby deep water and fast water washing the insects from the shallow rocks. The broken surface also makes the fish feel unseen and therefore more secure. As the river turns or where there are islands, there are usually good seams.

While floating the river, we would keep an eye out for these types of seams and spend a half hour or so at each.

South Fork of the Snake – The Fishing

OK, the real reason we camp and float the river – the fishing. An example of the type of fishing that can be had occurred the morning of the last day of my two floats. Nick and I woke up at 7:30, cleaned up the mess the raccoon made, packed up the tent and supplies and we were on the river by 9:00. We had 14 miles to float to the take out at Byington. The entire float was 24 miles so we had over half the float to go. Never the less, we took time to stop at three promising looking places. The first two places we caught six or seven fish but the last stop we caught 23. Most were white fish, but we caught some rainbows and the last couple were nice browns.

On the first float I started out fishing a hopper/dropper system. There were a lot of grasshoppers in the brush around the shore. The dropper was a bead head hare’s ear. I caught one nice cutthroat and had a couple more rise. After pulling into first camping spot called Pine Creek, I spent an hour fishing around the island and didn’t even have a rise. My daughter Karen caught the best cutthroat of the trip on a bronze fox spinner.

The next morning I switched to a nymph strike indicator system. South Fork Angler’s had recommended a few flies and one was a rubber leg. There were lots of stone fly nymph shucks on the rocks along the shore and even a couple of live ones scampering around. I placed a large one, size 6, as the point fly and a smaller one, size 10, as a dropper. These flies have multi-colored chenille, light brown and dark brown. The legs were barred yellow and brown. The flies were also well weighted and looked very buggy. Using these I started catching quite a few more fish, usually 5 or 6 at every good looking spot at which we would stop.