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June 2013

Fly Fish Food Jimmy's / 2013 / June (Page 3)

Henry’s Fork 6-18-13

Now is a good time to go back to the Cardiac Canyon reach with dry golden and giant stonefly patterns. The giants and golden hatches went through big time a few weeks ago, and fish have had a chance to digest those eaten.  Fish remain conditioned to look for these, so a good strategy for such as Hatchery Ford, around the Mesa Falls area, and Bear Gulch is to present them.  You may not get into quite as many fish as during the peak of these hatches, but you will surely have good results.  Cardiac Canyon keeps you away from crowds on the Harriman-Last Chance reach above looking for responses to green drakes, caddisflies, and PMDs and from the crowds on the river below responding to the gray drake hatch.  Speaking of green drakes, they’re ramping down on the lower river and yet to make  a major appearance in the Last Chance-Harriman part of the river.

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South Fork 6-17-13

We are getting a lot of calls about the South fork in the anticipation of an early stone fly emergence. As of yesterday there was no sign of a nymph crawl out. We floated from Byington down and know of a couple of boats that were below us and no one saw any of the big bugs. We did have a good hatch of size 10 green drakes from late morning to early afternoon and the small fish were up feeding on them in the riffles.

Our best success still came underneath with size 4 rubber legs followed with a smaller nymph.  Streamers have also been good. The same goes for the upper sections as far as patterns and techniques go..  We are getting a lot questions also about the obstacles in the river below Byington. There is a pretty good suck hole on the north Twin Bridges and a lot of debris is piled up on Lorenzo bridge. Passage under the bridge is down the middle or through the right channel. The ramp at Lorenzo will fit two boats but not three. You can pull over on either side of the river directly blow the bridge to see if the ramp is clear before proceeding to the take out.

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Henry’s Fork 6-17-13

To start, the fishing on the lower Henry’s fork has been consistent the last week and should stay that way for awhile. With a dry-dropper set up using a CFO Flammer Ant(golden stone imitation) size 8 as a dry and a Beadhead Crystal Pheasant tail size 16 can be rewarding all day long. Also fish a Green Drake Parachute size 10 from about mid-morning to mid-afternoon even if you don’t see any Green Drakes because the fish might be looking for them. The gray  drakes are starting to appear in the evenings. Finally right at dark the trout will move off the bigger flies in favor of smaller caddis so try a  size 16 or 18 tan x-caddis.

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Small Streams 6-15-13

Big fish are where you find them.  We have a report (pictures and all) of a 27-inch brown coming out of the Portneuf River above Lava Hot Springs. Here are a few other small streams that hold big browns: Robinson Creek,  Camas Creek, South Fork of the Madison River (Montana), Duck Creek, Grayling Creek, and Gibbon River (Yellowstone Park), Warm River, Stump Creek and Crow Creek ( all in season), lower Grey’s River (Wyoming).  The same could be said for Willow Creek, Cranes Creek, and Gray’s Lake Outlet up until the early 1990s when drought and other actions diminished them. There may be a few left in these waters, but nothing like in years gone by.

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Southwest Montana 6-15-13

Fishing on the Madison River below Hebgen Lake is really shaping up. Big stoneflies are beginning to hatch early, caddisflies are giving great PM fishing and PMDs are emerging big time.  Streamers are working during low light conditions. And because  insect activity is beginning earlier than normal, crowds are down.

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Still Waters 6-15-13

Chesterfield Reservoir is down at least ten feet from full pool. But fish are taking damselfly nymphs with enthusiasm. But enjoy fishing there soon because further draw-down is coming and could warm this reservoir enough to slow fishing.  Twenty-Four Mile Reservoir offers the same good fishing through using damselfly nymphs but the threat of for draw-down is much less.  Fishing is good on Daniels, Hawkins and Treasureton reservoirs for the same reason: damselfly activity.

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Yellowstone Park 6-15-13

We packed float tubes down DeLacey Creek trail to Shoshone Lake two days ago and were met by eager juvenile lake trout trout that would not quit hitting.  A few good sized (up to 15″) brookies joined in, but the browns did not.  If you are looking for back country fly-fishing that is sure to produce  a great experience, and this  big lake offers it, here is what you need: good enough physical shape to back-pack a float tube, fins, INSULATED waders, fly-fishing gear, raincoat, etc., six miles round trip.  Here’s what works: get out in the lake and present small leech (black in size 10 is best) or scud patterns (orange in size 14 is best) on top of weed beds through using a full sink line. The lake trout average 17-21″ and in the cold (47 Deg. F.) water put up a credible fight.   The Park Service encourages keeping these fish, but carrying out five fish this size makes the walk out  tougher.  So  take out the results of using that filet knife, and put the rest back in the lake.  Elsewhere in the Park, fishing on the Firehole River is holding up very well (see our last report on fishing Yellowstone Park waters).  PMDs are making great PM fishing on the Madison River, and a few golden stones are showing up there. Run-off is beginning to leave Fall River Basin streams.  Streams in the northeast corner of the Park are high but beginning to drop in flow.

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Today at Jimmy’s

For all you Steelheaders out there we just received the new Skagit Master 4 DVD “cracking the code”. I have not watched it yet but I am sure it will be just as good as the previous three with a little more fishing in this one.

 

Second is a new book called “Fly Fishing for Carp” written by Kirk Deeter. Fly Fishing for carp is pretty popular in the area and this would be a great book to read over and pick up some new tips and flies from. If the carp thing is something you enjoy or want to learn more about, this book is a must have.

 

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South Fork 6-13-13

The flows on the south fork have stabilized at 12,800cfs at Paslisades Dam and 14,000 at Heise. This should be the flow for much of the summer. Run off has peaked according the Bureau of Reclamation and Palisades Reservoir will not fill this year which points to an early stonefly hatch. Traditionally the hatch starts the last week of June but I’m sure we’ll see it start earlier. We floated from Byington to  Lorenzo yesterday and had very good fishing with a pair of Bennett’s brown rubber legs. The fish were holding below the drop offs and troughs in the riffles. We did not see any stone adults but we saw a hand full of yellow sallies and green drakes. Some of the fish had bulging bellies from eating stone nymphs.

We’ll keep you updated on the status and progress of the hatch. Meanwhile the fishing with nymphs and streamers should be very good. The river is the perfect “south fork green” color for this time of year.

 

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