Mach 31st 2010 Update

Before I get started with the latest report, I would like to announce that Teton Valley Trout Unlimited Has been awarded an Embrace-A-Stream Grant from TU National for work on habitat restoration on Trail Creek in Teton Valley. Trail Creek is an important spawning and nursery tributaries near the headwaters of the Teton River. The project will clear sediment from the streambed, reduce channelization by directing the creek to its original bed, and stabilize stream banks by planting native forms of vegitation. The finished project should also reduce sediment buildup in the Teton River further downstream. TVTU is collaborating on this project with Friends of the Teton River and the Teton Regional Land Trust. I will provide reports on this project as it progresses over the next couple of years. So stay tuned.

And now for the latest report:

Snake River

The weather has turned a bit wet and cold in western Wyoming/eastern Idaho over the past two days. Nonetheless, good, early spring fishing continues on the Snake River, specifically from Wilson Bridge down to Dog Creek and Pritchard's Landing. Chironomids and blue-winged olives are the primary fare at the moment. Below the surface, fly fishermen have been taking healthy cutthroats on Ice Cream Cone Midge Nymphs (size 16-18), balck or cream Zebra Midges (size 16-20), and Rainbow Warriors (size 16-18). But in the afternoon as water and air temps warm, trout are coming to the surface. During this two to four hour period, take the nymphs off and start fishing top water. There is a lot of activity on standard surface midge patterns, but most of my activity (during the two short sessions I have been able to get out on the water) has been on patterns suggesting blue-winged olives - Extended Body BWOs (size 16), Parachute Adams (size 14-18), and Q's Looped Wing Emerger (size 16). When fishing these patterns target the full length of riffles from their head to the tailouts. Your midge patterns will work here too, but my luck with these is happening on mainly on the seams of confluence lines and eddy pools.

If you get out on the Snake over the next couple of weeks, keep an eye out for little green stoneflies, which should be making their appearance soon. When you see them, think about using a Lime Trude (size 12-14), Chartruese Humpy (size 12), or a Jimmy Z (size 12), which are generally thought to be suggestive of this obscure stonefly.


South Fork

Fishing on the South Fork is still a bit hit or miss. Fishing is fairly decent from the Reservoir down to Palisades Creek where water temps are a little warmer. Rainbows and cutthroats are feeding here on mysis shrimp which are making their way out of the reservoir, something they tend to do at this time of year. Below Palisades Creek it is whitefish heaven with a smattering of cutthroats and browns in certain pieces of holding water.


Reports from and for other waters


Lower Henry's Fork: The lower Henry's Fork from Warm River down to St. Anthony is fishing as good as anything else in the region. I have not had a chance to get up there in the short time that I have been back, but some area guides who have been getting on it are providing me with enough info to spur me in that direction sometime over the next week. At least that is the plan. Midges and baetis are showing up and providing consistent activity with raibows in the 10 to 14 inch range with some larger 15-16 inchers scattered about. Rainbow Warriors (size 16-18), Lightening Bugs (size 16-18) and Bubble Back BWO Nymphs (size 16). Surface activity is less than consistent but is happening when the water and air temps are right.

Salmon River: Over the the last decade or so, late winter/early spring steelhead fishing on the Salmon River has been seeing more and more fish with each year. This year has been solid with thousands and thousands of fish in the river. Just pass over a bridge and look down into the stream. You will probably see them stacked up in several places. Best of all, those bringing back reports to our shop are claiming that between 40 and 50 percent of their catches have been wild steelhead. Thats good news for the Salmon River. Lets hope that such a trend continues. We might be setting up for a terrific April as more fish are entering the river each day.

While the entire river upstream of North Fork is producing, the best fishing has been from the town of Salmon and on upstream of Challis. Nymphing is providing much of the action with standard egg patterns. Still, swinging classic wet flies like Purple Perils and General Practitioners through runs is also doing the trick. It is getting crowded up there, so if you find a pool or run, you might want to stay there for the better part of the day.

March 24, 2010: Early Spring Update - Light Winter But Awesome Fishing!

Winter has been rather gentle to the eastern Idaho and western Wyoming area this year. I recently returned to the region to find one of the lightest snow packs in recent memory. Not as light as 2007 but certainly as light as 2001. As of this morning, the NRCS Snotel sights for the Snake River drainage show total precipitation at 57% and the snow water equivalent at 52%. The upper Green is at 54% and 52% respectively. Snow pack at the 9,300can ft. level is standing at only 70 inches. We can call this a drought for the most part. However, we still have April and May to go and they can be big in terms of precipitation. In 1998, it rained almost everyday from May 2nd to June 27th. On the other hand, I can remember some pretty dry ones as well. 1992, 2000, and 2001 come to mind as examples.

Right now I would estimate that we are about a month ahead of schedule and looking at a very good possibility of our runoff ending much earlier than normal. The result could be some extremely good early season fishing. The mild weather is already producing some fantastic fishing on the upper Snake River. Chironomids, blue winged olives, and capnias have been wildly active due to the warmer than usually water temps and large cutthroats, browns, and rainbows are responding. Our shop has had about a half dozen trips already and the guides are reporting fantastic fishing at the middle and tail of riffles and along seam lines. On the Snake, the reaches of the river running from Wilson to Dog Creek have been fishing the best. On the South Fork, dry fly and nymphing action has been described as "steady" on the section of river running from Palisades Reservoir down to Palisades Creek. Below Palisades Creek, things are a bit more difficult. The best action is coming on streamers on intermediate sink tips stripped through long riffle pools. Expect the South Fork to get better as we get deeper into April.

But it is May and June that we are waiting for if the runoff ends early. Some of you may remember 2007, when we experienced top-notch fishing on the South Fork and Green in May and the blizzarding caddis hatch on the upper Snake in June. Could the very same fishing be in the cars this year? What happens in April and May in terms of temperatures and precipitation will give us the answer.

Panama - the Pacific Coast

Where Panama's Caribbean side was all about jackfish and snook (and some snapper here and there), the Pacifc side has been all about golden travally. I fished in the Boca Brava - Boca Chica area for a solid week after a solid week of surfing further to the south. Travally are fun - the ones I was targeting over a three day period we feeding about five feet from the shore of a small island during a falling tide. They would come in and turn there noses down to feed on crabs. This action would expose their flanks, caudal fin, dorsal fin and abdominal fin. The big boys feeding there - 25 to 30 inches - Is what I wanted obviously. In the end however, the biggest I was able to hook and land was around 20 inches. I was able to hook four and land two total. They are not the easiest saltwater fish to bring in by any means. The runs are impressive, but even more substantial is that they turn their body to increase tension during the fight. I would describe it like trying to pull a trash can lid out of four feet of water with a current against it. Some very impressive stuff.

My time here in Panama is coming to an end and I will be back in the Snake River area soon. Pray for a little more precipitation. But if we don't get it, get ready for what might be an incredible early season on the South Fork, Green, and Snake.

Is Print Media Dead?: Drake Mag Investigates!

Somehow this slipped by me. The link below is to an editorial that Tom Bie did for his online version of the Drake Magazine. Tom is talking about fly fishing, but is also talking in a general way about all genres of print media. In a nutshell, he claims that print journalism isn't dead, but print journalism that SUCKS is dead. I couldn't agree more. I am a big fan of the Drake and I think that it is by far the best fly fishing magazine out there. I like what he says about another magazine that I am a big fan of - The Economist.

http://www.drakemag.com/component/myblog/print-is-dead.html?blogger=tombie

Snook and jacks in Bocas del Toro

Lucy and I have settled into the little town of Bastimentos on the island of the same name. No roads or cars, just a sidewalk running down the middle of town. Carnival has just ended and the place is starting to quite down a bit. We are splitting our time between surfing and fishing the mangoves set between the various isands in the area. We are hooking into snook and jackfish ranging between 18 and 30 inches and, of course, loosing most of them before we can land them. Thats the tough part about sishing from a kayak. Most of them are getting into the mangroves where they break off. Still, we are having some success getting them to the boat. Big barracuda are patroling outside of the place where we are staying. I have some wire leader that was given to me by a local fisherman and I will take a whack at those in the next couple of days.

Below is an important message put together but the David Suzuki Foundation regarding Eco certification of salmon in Canada. For those of you who fish for steelhead and other anadromus sportfish in B.C. you will find this to be quite interesting. My friend Greg Taylor of Skeena Wild sent it to me just today.

NEWS RELEASE

Conservationists Launch Official Objection to

Eco-certification of Troubled Canadian Salmon Fisheries

Groups say that labeling endangered sockeye salmon as “sustainable” misleads consumers

VANCOUVER, CANADA – Today, three prominent conservation groups from British Columbia, Canada, filed a notice of objection with the U.K.-based Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) over a recent announcement by the MSC to award its coveted eco-label to controversial salmon fisheries on Canada’s Pacific coast.

MSC is a global eco-label program which enables certified fisheries to brand themselves as a sustainable source of seafood. Sustainable seafood is generally defined as species with healthy populations, harvested from well-managed fisheries that don’t cause significant harm to ocean environments and other sea life. Major Canadian retailers, including Loblaw, and European retailers Tesco and Sainsbury’s, have recently committed to selling only MSC-certified seafood in their stores.

The objection of the conservation groups is focused on the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery, which recently became the focus of a judicial inquiry by the Government of Canada, due to a worsening population collapse and widespread concerns over mismanagement. The Fraser is Canada’s largest Pacific river and meets the Pacific Ocean in Vancouver, the host city the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

“Scientists have shown that many salmon populations – particularly in the Fraser River – are not only at very low levels, but at risk of extinction,” said Dr. Craig Orr, executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. “Endangered salmon should not be considered a sustainable choice for consumers until the fisheries management system is improved, overfishing stops, and depressed stocks are allowed to recover.”

Some Fraser River sockeye stocks harvested in the soon to be certified fishery are listed as “endangered” by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, and “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, whose team of scientists point to overfishing as a key threat. Last year, Fraser River sockeye salmon collapsed with only 13% of an expected 10.5 million fish returning to spawn – the lowest return of sockeye in the past 50 years.

Under the MSC’s third-party certification process, companies hired by fishing industry “clients” determine whether a fishery meets the MSC’s criteria for eco-certification.

“These companies are doing brisk business by certifying fisheries,” said Dr. Orr. “But given the state of Fraser sockeye, people should be more concerned about conservation than marketing fish. Our objection focuses on several areas where the third-party certifier has ignored crucial data and awarded passing grades to a fishery which should have failed.”

“We are determined to expose the failures of this MSC’s certification process in order to protect well-intentioned consumers from being misled,” said Greg Knox, executive director for SkeenaWild Conservation Trust. “If this certification goes ahead, European consumers who attempt to make ethical purchasing decisions by choosing MSC-certified fish, could end up eating endangered Canadian salmon.”

“Fraser River sockeye is one of several fisheries we view as unsustainable that have applied for certification by the MSC,” said Mr. Young. “They are now poised to certify the Atlantic longline swordfish fishery as sustainable, despite concerns that it kills endangered turtles and sharks.”

No fishery has ever been denied certification after completing the MSC assessment process, and no objection to a certification has ever been upheld.

Panama!

Lucy and I have been in Panama now for a few days and acclimating to 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity just fine. I have been in such climates numerous time in my life, but never with such a sudden shift from 30 degrees and snowy to sunny and tropical. I should be missing the skiing back home, but I'm really not.

We are on the Caribbean side on the country on the archipeligo of Bocas del Toro. We happen to be here during Carnival and the tmain town of Bocas is packed. Lucy and I are heading to the island of Bastimentos today, which we hear and are hoping is much more quite. It has been mostly surfing for us thus far, but we plan on getting some kayaks in the next few days and actually fish. in another couple weeks, we will be heading for the Pacific Coast to go after roosterfish, snook, and get in a some more surfing. I will submit posts when I can, but to be frank, the ocean is my main priority at the moment.