Tag: Idaho

Guide Talk, Henry's Fork, Snake River

TroutHunter TJ

By TB

For years, we’d heard from our son-in-law, Chris Drake, of the difficulty in fishing the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River near Island Park, ID.   How the fish all had Ph.D.’s and were easily spooked.  How perfect presentations and drifts were essential to catching fish.  Well, we saw these clear, flat waters outside the TroutHunter fly shop in Island Park, ID, but decided our best bet fishing was in sections where there was a little more current and structure that would lend itself to having better luck.

We’d also heard about the local charm of Island Park, ID.   According to wikipedia, “the city was incorporated by owners of the many lodges and resorts along U.S. Route 20 in 1947, primarily to circumvent Idaho’s liquor laws that prohibited the sale of liquor outside of city limits.  It is only 500 feet wide in most locations and, at 33 miles (53 km), claims to have the longest “Main Street” in the world.”  TroutHunter’s fly shop, lodge and restaurant/bar are one of the highlights along the route.  We were fortunate to have booked our guide from the shop and to have met friends for dinner at the restaurant/bar. More on that in another post!

We met our guide, TJ Powell, at the TroutHunter fly shop on a cold, crisp October morning and headed off for a section of the river nearer Aston, ID.  When we put in, we knew it was going to be a  great day because we immediately came upon fish.  They weren’t the giants that inhabited the Railyard section of the Henry’s Fork, but beautiful wild trout that fought like crazy.

We had a blast fishing with TJ and hope you enjoy his “Guide Talk” video about fishing on the Henry’s Fork.

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Guide Talk, Silver Creek

Silver Creek Schooling

By TB

Spring creeks are the most difficult to fish for many reasons… crystal clear waters, strong micro-currents, matching the exact size fly, etc…   The best I’ve heard is that the fish have a Masters degree (or Ph.D.) in how NOT to get caught.   Hence, you often get “schooled” when you fish a spring creek.   Well… while we didn’t get “skunked” on Silver Creek, we certainly got schooled.  When you put on a size 20 PMD and the fish want something even smaller, they won’t bite.  When your 7x fly line gets caught by the many micro-currents making your fly float funny, the fish ignore it.  Make a noise wading near a fish, forget it.

Luckily for Barb and I, we had Carl Evenson of Silver Creek Outfitters showing us around the Silver Creek Preserve which is run by The Nature Conservancy.   Carl knew which kind and size of flies seemed to be on the water.  He took us to where fish were rising or hanging out.  It was up to us to deal with the currents which were going every which way, but, we did and we had a great day fishing.

Carl was full of knowledge about fishing Silver Creek as well as the history of the area.  We hiked and fished over 4 miles along the Creek, stumbling upon a huge bull moose and seeing some huge trout.  We even caught a few, even though they weren’t the humongous ones.

In this “guide talk”, Carl shares his story as well as the story of Silver Creek including its iconic hatches.  We hope you enjoy this interview as much as we enjoyed our time on the water with Carl.

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