Fishing Report and Stream Flows for May 8th, 2011

Snake River
The recent warming of temperatures have helped the fishing on the Snake to a certain degree. We are now experiencing some decent fishing on the lower reaches of the river from Deadman's Bar down to South Park Bridge. It is by no means on fire, but much better than what we had a week to two weeks ago. Side Channels and shallow riffles and seams are showing action on Lightening Bugs (size 10 to 14), olive, black, or red Copper Johns (size 10 to 14), Prince Nymphs (size 12) and Zug Bugs (size 12). Dry flies are also seeing some action in long riffles and along structure, as well as along the mouths of the numerous tributaries. Large attractors seem to be doing best - Kasey's Creature (size 8), red Rubber Legged Double Humpies (size 8), and olive or red SRA Chernobyls (size 10 to 8). Streamers are producing when fished along banks and structure, but there is very little by way of consistent action as of yet.

Flows from Jackson Lake Dam stand at 5000 cfs. Water temps on the tailwater section just below the dam are in the mid to upper 30 - a bit too chilly for the fishing to have picked up in a noticeable fashion on that reach. This may change in the coming week.

More warm weather is forecast over the next 10 days, so expect the runoff to start in earnest soon.


South Fork
Warmer weather has helped the fishing a little bit on the South Fork. Water temperatures have risen into the low 40s in the Canyon and the upper 30s to near 40 on the upper river in Swan Valley. Another factors in the uptick in fishing has been the fact that releases from Palisades Reservoir have been lowered to 14,000 cfs. The runoff has started on many of the tributaries both along the South Fork and above it in Palisades Reservoir. This has led to some discoloration on the river, but cutthroat and rainbows are still being taken on San Juan Worms, egg patterns, and large rubber leg stone fly nymphs in size 6 to 10.

Fishing should continue to get better as the river warms, but one issue to keep in mind is that the reservoir is only at 11% capacity and is down to only the original river channel in most places. This could mean that once the runoff starts upstream in Wyoming, we could see much of that sediment going straight through the dam and into the South Fork. The result could be one of the muddiest seasons on the South Fork in years.



Henry's Fork
Warmer temperatures have caused a bit of discoloration on the reach from Warm River to Ashton but much of the lower river (Ashton to Del Rio) has solid clarity and is fishing very well. The most prominent development over the past week has been initiation of the Mother's Day caddis hatch. Any section from the confluence with the South Fork upstream to Mesa Falls has a lot of caddis emerging throughout each day. This is producing a fair amount of surface action on olive or black X-Caddis (size 14 to 16) and Elk Hair Caddis (size 16). Nonetheless, it is nymphs that are working best, including Glass House Caddis (size 14 to 16), olive Copper Johns (size 14 to 16), and Z-Body Caddis (size 12 to 16). We are fishing these as double nymph rigs with Pat's Rubber Leg Stones and Crystal Creek Stone Nymphs. These big bugs are picking up fish as well, no doubt because salmon fly nymphs have been very active along much of the river.