January started off with a solid two weeks of warm and mostly sunny weather. Fly fishers in the area were able to take advantage of this preferable climate and hit the lower South Fork of the Snake River where air temperatures approached 50 degrees on some days. Action on the surface was the best many could ever remember for a January. Hatches of midges, blue-winged olives, and micro caddis were evident for hours on some days. With the boat launches at most of the access sites free of snow, float fishing was as easy as it is during most of the season.
The killer patterns of early January were the Ice Cream Cone Midge, Z-Wing Caddis, Lightening Bugs, and Minimal Mayflies (in olive).
But, alas, snow and cold has finally moved into the area. We have gone from 63% of average snowpack to 92%. While this has made the fishing a bit more uncomfortable for the time being, we can take joy in the fact there is potentially more water for area trout this coming season. That would make five surplus water years over the past six years.
With February approaching, keep in mind that temperatures in the lower elevation (below 5,500 feet) warm significantly during this month. Ririe and Rigby, Idaho, for example have average daily high temperatures that approach 40 degrees. If we have a warm spell in the area like we did in early January, don't be surprised if air temperatures go to well over 50 degrees on the lower South Fork. It has happen before. It could happen again this year.
February is a good month for the standard winter hatches of midges and, when the weather is right, blue-winged olives. But it is also the month that we begin to see little black and little brown stoneflies. These bugs will crawl in mass to the river bank to emerge from their shuck. On the Snake and the South Fork, these stoneflies bring flats and shallow bankside riffles to life with feeding trout. Be ready to fish with Brackett's LBS Nymph and Furimsky's BDE when you see the little winter stoneflies on the banks or the stream surface.
