I got one of my bamboo fly rods in the hands of one of our good friends, John, from Colorado recently. John is relatively new to fly fishing, but he didn’t have any difficulty picking his first fish swinging a black wooly bugger on my 8′ 3″ 5 wt rod. Here is John in action:
Swinging a bugger on the Salmon River.
Fish On!
A happy angler.
I spent a couple of hours exploring Valley Creek last week with a small 7′ 0″ 4 wt rod. Valley Creek holds a lot of smaller brook trout, cutthroats, stocked rainbows, whitefish, and salmon smolts. The brookies were happy to take a #14 Royal Wulff. Whitefish and rainbows went crazy for small nymphs, and I picked up several on #16 pheasant tail nymphs. Here are a few photos from my afternoon.
Valley Creek – Perfect for a small bamboo rod.
A nice brookie that took a Royal Wulff.
Hatchery Rainbow
Mary Ann was on the river guiding today so I went out on my own. I hit a favorite spot on the Salmon River, and had the hardest time finding any fish willing to look up for dry flies. The water looked good, and there were olive stoneflies, caddis, and golden stoneflies out on the water. But, I only managed a entice couple of 10″ rainbows to my dry flies. Whitefish were very happy to take nymphs, and I picked up 12 or 14 on stonefly nymphs and prince nymphs. After 4 hours of fishing I was just about to call it a day. But, instead, I worked upstream to deeper water, still trying the same dry flies that I had been trying earlier in the day. Surprisingly, from 3:00 PM to 3:45 PM when It was 98 degrees, I picked up 6 nice cutthroats on a #12 olive bodied Elk Hair Caddis and a #8 Yellow Crystal Stimulator. I’m not sure why I had this success late in the day, but I was certainly happy to finally find some cooperative Cutties! Here are a couple of photos for my day:
Slower, deeper water upstream by the rocks.
A nice cutthroat that took a yellow crystal stimulator.
I’ve been using this fly here in Central Idaho with great success. It seems to be a good imitation for adult golden stoneflies. I can’t take credit for the invention of this fly…I found something like this a fly shop here…I don’t remember which one or what the original version of this fly was called. But, I’ve modified it a little to match the smaller adult golden stoneflies that we’re seeing in late June. Mary Ann has been calling this pattern the Chubby Junior…even though it has no resemblance to a Chubby Chernobyl…the name sounds fine to me. Here is the recipe:
Hook: #8 2X long
Tail: Tan Calf Tail
Body: gold dubbing with 2mm tan foam on top
Wing: 12 strands of white crystal flash, with tan calf tail on top
Head/Thorax: 2mm tan foam
Leggs: Brown Rubber
Hackle: brown
Top View
Underside View
I hit my favorite small creek here in Central Idaho yesterday, Bear Valley Creek, to see if the fish would cooperate. It was a blustery day with high clouds and just a little sun. The bugs didn’t seem to like the wind, and I didn’t see a single fish rise all day. I saw a few Blue Winged Olives and Yellow Sallies flying around so I went surface with representative nymphs. In between the 12 or 14 whitefish I caught, I managed to pick up a few nice 15″ cutthroats. Here are a few photos from my day:
Bear Valley Creek, Idaho
A #14 Tungsten Yellow Sally Nymph and a #18 Psycho Mayfly Nymph.
A beautiful Bear Valley Creek Cutthroat