Overcast Days on the South Fork of the Snake River

Overcast days are what you hope for when fishing with streamers.  Since it rained most days on the float we took advantage of streamer fishing.  

Camping at Dry Canyon especially provided us with great fishing.  It was right were a shallow side channel met the deeper main current.  

 We could walk out in the shallows and cast to the seam were the shallow water met the deep water. This strategy worked well for several cutthroat and rainbows. 

Using large salmon fly nymph imitations dead drifting along this seam also worked.  

Having a whole week to work the fly rod, little Nick did a great job catching some of the biggest browns of the trip.  I was impressed.  

Stopping from time to time near runs where fast water met slow or where there was a drop-off also gave us consistent action. 

As we were floating past some other fisherman on the last day, they informed us that just before the takeout at Byington there was some whitewater that may be dangerous for kayaks, especially a little one like little Nick’s.  Looking at the map we found a boat ramp that was also upstream from two S-curves in the river that we were already concerned about.  Given the experiences reported in the previous blog post, we were already being very cautious and thought avoiding these obstacles would be wise.  Pulling into this boat ramp, called Wolf Flat, I asked a guide who was just finishing a float if she was heading to Byington or Conant and if so, could I have a ride.  Luckily she was and would be happy to give me a ride.  On the ride I found out the river level had just been lowered which usually causes the fishing to be slower like it had been that week.  I gave her a $20 bill for the ride.  I picked up Nick’s explorer at Byington and drove back to the boat ramp on the other side of the river.  We loaded up the Explorer, barely fitting in my disassembled pontoon boat.  Driving over to Conant we could see the white water the fishermen had warned us about.  The white water indeed stretched clear across the river.