Brown Drakes!

I finally feel like I've recovered from Brown Drakes...it took a while. It's my favorite week of fishing of the year. This year's hatch was several weeks later than normal, but still caught us by surprise. We used a canoe every night so we went all out. In the photo below you can see our extensive antipasto selection. I kept joking about all the stuff we brought and said I was going to bring a chandelier and an umbrella to complete the picnic!



Nick and Kristina enjoying the heavy hors d'oeuvres.


The hatch in the middle of a thunderstorm. Craziness!


Kristina said she came in a girl and wanted to leave a woman. We finally stopped gossiping long enough to make that happen!


Paddy caught this bad boy during the thunderstorm. I love the colors of the fish and the awesome rainbow.


Nick and Ryan, from Salt Lake, drove up to join us one night. They're canoeing down to the take-out to avoid the coming storm, but ended up paddling through some of the craziest lightning I've ever seen as well as hail and really heavy rain. When I picked them up, they were all smiles.

It was another amazing year of drakes with awesome friends. I can't wait until next year!

Texas Style

I saw this posted several places and it was supposedly in Texas. This October could get interesting...

Check out the new issue of Sun Valley Magazine--on local newstands and airports around the country. The new issue is the water issue and I saw a variety of familiar face in there whether they were paddlers, fly-fishers, or even Trout Friendly Lawns. There was an awesome photo essay by my friend and fellow guide, Nick Price, and I wrote a short piece about hopper fishing on the creek. Check it out!


Photo by Nick Price.

Early Season Fishing

Well, I've been avoiding this, but I guess it's time to talk about the early season fishing in the Wood River Valley. As you know, there's too much water everywhere. We're not as bad as Montana--they have snow pack up to 350% in places. Our snowpack is about 175% and it's coming off very slowly. We've only had one day over 70 degrees and the Wood is at 2300 cfs and not rising. I was expecting a big flood, but I think we're just going to have a slow melt and the Wood won't be fishable for a long time. I did manage to guide it a couple of weekends ago and it was great, but it may be another month before we can get back out there.

Our saving grace, and realy one of the only places to fish in the West, is Silver Creek. We've had a slow start. I think because of the cold weather there haven't been a lot of bugs, but there have been enough to have a nice morning. Last weekend, I was guiding a trip on Lower Silver Creek, expecting Brown Drakes and the wind picked up and blew everything away. In a desparation move, we went to the Preserve and actually had nice fishing throughout the afternoon. There were a few PMDs, some baetis, and lots of midges. By the 4th of July I expect the fishing to have improved greatly.

So...I mentioned Brown Drakes and I'm really disappointed to say that they haven't come off yet. Brown Drakes are one of those BBC documentary freaks of nature events and the hatch is my favorite week of the year. This is my seventh year to fish them and I expected them about two weeks ago...it seems like they may never happen now, but I know I have to be patient.

Long story short, Silver Creek is what's happening and by July it'll be full-on bonanza.

And I thought I could avoid having to post about feathers…

So, we all know about the feathers in the hair thing. I think it’s cool, but I haven’t gotten any because I know that it could contribute to crazy high fly prices—or even worse—no hackle left in the world. Moldy Chum posted last week that the fad had gone even further to include dogs—ridonkulous.

Anyhoo, I’m an Etsy whore. I love shopping on Etsy and it’s a great source of inspiration for my own crafts. I’ve noticed over the last month a number of feather listings that have knocked my socks off and today was by far the craziest. I’ve seen whole saddles for $400 and today I saw 20 feathers listed for $75. That’s $3.75 a feather!!!!!!!! Of course, to a hair stylist, that’s cheap because they’re charging $10-$20 a feather, but if there’s only the hackle left on our fly-tying desks, there could be a worldwide shortage of flies.

Paddy is considering selling some crazy hackle colors that he never uses so he can buy an iPad. I hope he can sell enough so I can get one too!

New Notebooks on Etsy

Since it was snowing today, I cranked out some sewing instead of going fishing. You can check out my new stuff on Etsy here.