Creek mouths and springs are the places to fish these dog days of summer. Most of what’s being caught are cutts in the 15-18 inch range. Traditional Henry’s Lake flies work best. If you do not have one, pick up one of Bill Schiess’s book “Fishing Henry’s Lake.” It has tips for where to fish and how to approach this time of year as well as traditional Henry’s Lake fly patterns. It is a treasure trove of Henry’s Lake fly-fishing information.
With flow out of Mackay Dam about 450 cfs, wading in the river below is a bit tough. But with caddis, western green drakes emerging and terrestrial insects falling into the water fishing is good.
Look at the boat ramp-parking areas. A glance at these tells how good the fishing is (for example Spring Creek overflows to near the highway during daytime). Mayflies, early morning mutant stones, PM caddis and terrestrial insects are active. Have patterns for all of these, and you will find action. At 9800 cfs at Irwin, 10700 cfs at Heise and 4850 cfs at Lorenzo, the river could not be in better shape.
Thanks to grasshoppers it does not matter where you go from the Teton River to smaller streams such as Little Warm River dry fly fishing will be good. To supplement the effectiveness of hopper patterns these days, be sure to have caddis life cycle, traditional attractor, ant, and beetle patterns. In a few streams small PMDs are still around, and tricos will be soon showing up. Kokanee are beginning to show in lower Big Elk Creek and western green drakes (flavs) should show up in significant numbers any day now.
Anywhere you try, fish deep especially during mid-day. During these summer dog days that’s where the biggest fish go because cooler water means more dissolved oxygen.
Almost anywhere you go fishing is crowded. That applies not only streams and smaller still waters, but roads going there (travel as early in the day as possible). The best way to avoid crowds is to walk away from easily accessed waters once you reach them. That means try such as Fall River Basin, Lewis River between Shoshone and Lewis Lakes, second meadow above on Slough Creek, Cache Creek area on the Lamar River, Black Canyon of the Yellowstone and so forth. Even in those places you will have company, but to a lesser amount. For almost all streams presenting terrestrial insect patterns is the best way to fishing success.
Mayflies (PMDs & pink alberts) are out in the riffles up and down the river, and so are drift boats. If you fish early in the morning ( before around 9 AM), you will see mutant golden stoneflies emerging and fish keying on them.
Hoppers are here anywhere on the river. Unless you fish late or early in the day swimming is more fun than fishing on the lower river. So head to the Last Chance-Harriman, Flat Ranch or Box Canyon sections for the best chance for action from terrestrial insect patterns. With the heat of day, consider wading wet in each of these sections.
We cannot promote these enough. Almost any small stream in the area will produce now until dropping to base level and cold weather arrives. In some of these, fish will move downstream where overhead cover ( Beaver, Jackknife, Robinson Creeks) may be more abundant. Others with a good inflow from springs, tributaries, or lakes (Bear, Bitch, Big Elk, Palisades Creeks, Warm River) fish will hold their location until cold weather arrives. On all these terrestrial insects, especially grass hopper patterns and caddis life cycle patterns will be effective for weeks to come unless a major mayfly emergence (western green drake, trico) happens. In these warm dog days wading wet on the Teton River from some of its access locations in the valley can be comfortable and rewarding (candidate fly: grasshopper patterns). The Rainey access is a good candidate for doing so. Get in touch with us for fishing condition details on any small stream.
Look for a bit of a mid-day fishing action slow down during this warm weather spell. Nevertheless terrestrial insect populations are growing because of the warm weather. So breakout those hopper patterns for use on just about any stream.