The Proof to the Stories

Piles and piles of spinners!



Spinners close up.


Yumm...Spinners are delicioso!

All photos by Paddy McIlvoy.

More Brown Drakes!

Tonight will be night six of the brown drake hatch. I'm actually doing better than I was a couple of nights ago, but I noticed the bags under my eyes this morning are pretty offensive, as is the state of my house.

It truly is the best week of the year and it has lived up to it's reputation once again. Sunday night was the most insane spinner fall of all time. There were clouds of spinners in every direction as far as you could see--at that point you are out-competed by nature. The four of us managed to land an amazing number of +20" fish, including some leaning towards 30".

On the way out, we stumbled upon a pile of spinners in an eddy that was about 3 feet long and a foot deep. The photos do a much better job of explaining this feat of nature.

On Monday night, I fished with Ketchum on the Fly and managed to land a feisty +20" brown on my second cast. You can call me Old McDonald, though, because I farmed about 20 fish the rest of the night. The spinner fall was great again, but there weren't as many fish as there were in my secret spot. We finished with a picnic spread and some wine--something I can always count on with KOTF.

After tennis this evening I'm heading out for maybe my last night. I better make it count.

Brown Drakes

I'm writing this on Saturday morning, but won't be posting it until next week because I don't want anyone to know how the fishing is and I don't have any photos to post yet. As the title suggests, the elusive brown drake hatch is finally happening!

Thursday, the first warm day we've had, we went looking for an emergence, but we only found BBT (Big Brown Trout) that were willing to eat mice (I know, we're spoiled).

On Friday, we were pretty tired from the previous night's excitement, but we drove out to check on things around 8 and found bugs in the air. After a quick trip back to the house to gather appropriate clothing, we went out to Larkin with this summer's Silver Creek interns, both new to fly-fishing.

The water was boiling with fish when we finally arrived and we got after it. Most of us fished the awesome comparadun and I caught my first fish on a cripple I had tied several years ago (therefore very ugly). I switched to the extended body Brown Drake, which had always collected dust in my BD Box, and managed to hook a 20"+ brown on my first cast. While I was waiting for Paddy and the camera I broke him off, but I did get to see him--WOW! I switched to the mouse rod around 10.30 because I was tired of missing strikes in the dark and had two explosive strikes, but no connections.

Ryan landed a 2 foot brown, which was his first fly-fishing fish--insane! That boy's spoiled! Everyone caught fish, but we all missed hundreds of strikes. I'm so tired already and we're only one night in. I think I can make it; I have to make it. The best fry fly fishing in the world for one week of the year; I'm lucky to say the least.

Finally...It's Fishing Season!!

Well, I've been waiting to report on the fishing until I had some photos, but I'm a week into the season and I haven't managed to take my camera out of my bag. The first week of the fishing season has been interesting. It's been very cold and rainy which has affected the evening fishing--when I get to go out.

I managed to fish on opening day and though it was slow after the BBQ at Silver Creek, I did manage to land the requisite brown. I went out again on Tuesday night, after another party at Silver Creek and managed to miss a few strikes on a Brown Drake, though I didn't actually see any flying around. There have been a few sporadic Brown Drakes, but they don't seem to be an indicator of the hatch appearing soon. I was able to float the creek on Thursday with some scientists and we saw lots of evening midges, of course, and about Size 15 PMDs hanging around.

On Saturday, I taught my favorite fishing class of the year with the Magic Valley Fly-Fishers in Twin Falls. I love working with them--they're such a great group of people--enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and fun. There were about a dozen ladies in the class and they all seemed to be excited about fishing.

On Monday I'm finally going to get to fish the Creek in the morning before coming into the fly shop for more fly ordering--whew! I understand the fishing on the Wood has been good as well with high-water nymphs, but I don't know why anyone would fish in a flood when the Creek is down the road.

We're only a week into "summer" and I'm already so busy. I am trying to fish a few times a week to soak it all in before things get REALLY busy. Hopefully Brown Drakes don't happen while I'm in San Fran this weekend--keep your fingers crossed!

Spring Climbing

Paddy and I were lucky enough to go on an eight day Southwestern adventure. We started in Vegas, spent most of our time in Prescott, and headed north to the Grand Canyon and Utah. I had not really spent any time in that neck of the woods and I couldn't have loved it any more! Vegas was pretty disappointing, but considering I don't like tourists, or average Americans in general, I wasn't surprised with my reaction.

Prescott was amazing! It reminded me a lot of the Texas Hill Country, actually (except for all the mountains). We climbed there five days and went to all of the major climbing areas like Groom Creek, the Dells, Sullivan Canyon, and my favorite, the Promised Lands.

We started to head north...through Jerome (awesome mountainside town), Sedona, and spent the night north of Flagstaff. The next morning we arrived at the Grand Canyon before seven and started our march down the Kaibab trail. We went about three miles down (that's how much water we had) and then made it back out in about the same amount of time. It was gorgeous, of course, and great people watching.

Next we went north to Zion. The drive over the Glen Canyon Dam and through Grand Staircase-Escalante, eventually to polygamous Kanab, and to Zion was beautiful. We had to turn around at Zion, though, because the campgrounds were full. I was pretty sad, but as we continued driving, I got to see some of Bryce Canyon.

We finally made it back to the Wood River Valley Monday night...just enough time to prepare for the opening day of fishing season on Saturday. I'm off to tie flies now!

Steelhead Mafia

I was unemployed this past weekend, it being slack and all, so I suggested an overnight trip to Stanley in search of the elusive spawning steelhead. The car was packed with Carl's family tent, extra quarts of oil, standard camp fare (pasta), and some Robert Earl Keen.

Paddy and I fished all day, spotting most of the fish before casting. It's an exercise for your eyes to see the fish in fast moving water, but I'm definitely getting better. We landed a few that afternoon before I demanded to fish with the Spey Rod. I learned the "Snap T" and proceeded to catch a thousand smolt as well as a bull trout--my first. Pat Barrett, great lover of all things Spey, apparently says, "The tug is the drug." Boy is he right.

The camping experience was one I will try to forget. It wasn't particularly painful, but awfully cold and my new crashpad (for bouldering) was probably harder than the ground was. Needless to say, I was beyond grouchy when forced to enter the river on a cold Sunday morning.

The first cast of the morning (Paddy's) resulted in a fish on a dry fly--a rare occurrence on the Salmon. I then found a fish for myself and missed the first eat (they eat dries like cutthroat), but managed to hook her on the second. She was a beautiful wild hen and it couldn't be a better photo opportunity with the Sawtooths as the backdrop.

I was then left at the fabulous new coffee house in Stanley while Hunter and Paddy pursued their own fish for a few minutes. We continued to fish and work on Spey casting, only returning to Picabo after more fish and more stinkiness.

I can't wait until opening day.

Spring Turkey

On the Clip Board 'O Fun for my trip to Texas was listed "shoot a turkey." I wasn't particularly confident after failed attempts on film, nonetheless, results were successful.

After work on the ranch, Pop and I went out to call a long beard in. We sat, dozed, and filmed each other chewing the fat for about two hours with only one gobble. We left in search of another turkey, ran him off, and returned to the original spot where we saw four Jakes.

Pop called and they came running. We barely had time to sit down before they walked a quarter of a mile towards us and the decoy. Directions were to shoot as soon as I saw one and in less than five minutes out of the truck, I had a clean shot at eight and a half yards. I didn't even have time to get nervous.

It was quite tasty and I have enough feathers to tie flies for the rest of my life.