South Fork of the Snake 7/10 - 7/26

The South Fork of the Snake is continuing to fish well through the later part of July. Over the last several weeks the better fishing has been up in the upper parts of the river. Most of the good big bug fishing has been from Palisades Dam down to Cottonwood. On bright sunny days the fish are starting to wise up to some of the big bugs. With the high sun the fish are a little shy and not quite as willing to take a taste. If you can get lucky and get some cloudy weather the dry fly fishing has been insane. I had a couple of 60 fish days this week under dark light conditions. It is pretty crazy how the darker light gets those fish active. The hot bugs lately have been a small chubby chernobyl, eldens ant, lighting bug, pink pmds, and pheasant tails.

The riffle fishing between noon and 5PM has been really good. The canyon is the place to go if you are looking for some red hot PMD fishing. The name of the game is to throw some adult PMD with an emerger behind it. It seems like on the South Fork 8 out of 10 fish eat the emerger before the adult. Throwing the adult helps you to locate your emerger. Even though the riffles have been loaded with fish most of them are between 12''- 18''. But when you are hitting between 5 - 10 fish per riffle then who is complaining. Make sure you don't pass up the foam holes because you can pound fish during the PMD hatch on lighting bugs. Last week there was one foam hole on the upper drift that produced 20 fat healthy trout. It was plain silly. We actually left because the clients were getting bored of not being challenged.

This is turning out to be another great summer. The outlook for the next couple of weeks is that the second hatch of goldens should be just around the corner. The second hatch of goldens are immature and cant fly so make sure to put a little wiggle on that bug. There have already been a handful of bugs seen down between Byington and Lorenzo. The madness will start all over again when those goldens decide to come off in full force. Other news is that I heard 3 hoppers in the canyon this week. So if we get a couple really warm weeks then that should also help to light things up.

For those of you who are looking to do some fishing in California this fall it is time to start booking as my calendar is filling up. It is gonna be tough going back to staring at indicators on the Lower Sac. But then again who can complain when you are wacking some fish. I'm getting amped up for some early steelhead action. Make sure all of you get some dry fly action in during the next couple of months.

Tight Lines!