The flow is now down to 4740 cfs which has really opened up many wading opportunities throughout the river. Look for the flows to drop more through October. When we hear what the winter flow level will be we’ll let you know. Last year it was around 1700 cfs. It could be higher this winter with the better than average reservoir carryover we have. Look for hatches of blue wing olives and Mahogany duns. For a complete list of patterns look at the 9-22-14 report.
Fall conditions continue to be excellent with clear water and cool water temps. On bright sunny days the dry fly fishing with big bugs (hoppers and chernobyls) has been slow so we have been using nymphs and small dries in the riffles. We have had very good fishing with chernobyls from daylight until the time the sun hits the water and then its back to nymphs and small dries. The last 1 1/2 hours before dark has been good too.
The flow today is at 7500 cfs but look for it to drop a couple of times sometime this week in increments of 500 to 1000 cfs. We are constantly asked how this will affect the fishing and I have seen both great fishing on a water drop and slow fishing so the best thing to do is go anyway.
The Fall colors are starting to really turn now and the canyon is gorgeous.
Here is a list of Fall fly patterns to use now through October.
Mayflies: Duns, Emergers and Nymphs
Blue Wing Olive Thorax Dun #18 and 20
Blue Wing Olive CDC Emerger #18 and 20
Blue Wing Olive Nymph #18 and 20 ( swing through the riffles or fish as a dropper fly under the Thorax Dun)
Bead Head Bubble back nymph #16
UV2 Nymphulator #14 and #6
Mahogany Thorax Dun #16 and 20
Mahogany CDC Emerger #16 and 18
Remember to fish the heads of riffles with these small dries even though there are no hatches.
Nymphs:
Bennett’s Rubber Legs (orange and brown or black) #6 and 8
Black or Red zebra Midge #14 and 16
Olive Crystal Golden Stone nymph #12
Streamers:
Coffee’s Sparkle Minnow (sculpin or silver color) #4 and 6
Sculpzilla #4 or 6
Wilson’s Articulated Sparkle Minnow #2 and 4
Galloup’s Articulated Circus Peanut ( white, tan, black or olive )#2
Galloup’s Sex Dungeon (same colors as above) Size 2 Remember to use rope for leader for the articulated streamers. 12 to 15 lb at least.
Big Dries:
Chubby Chernobyls (purple,brown or gold body() #8 and 10
Big Parachute Hoppers #4 and 6 (good below Byington, not very good above Byington))
Other patterns:
Sandy mite #12 and 14
Standard Renegade #12 and 14
Purple or Bright yellow and orange bodied Soft Hackles #14 and 16
Fish the last three patterns after the sun drops below the horizon. Just use a standard wet fly swing. Make a cast, let the fly swing and straighten out below you. Make two or three steps downstream and repeat. You can thank me later.
Henry’s is fishing okay right now, but is sure to improve as we move deeper into the fall. Water temperatures are in the mid-upper fifties and the water is clear. It doesn’t seem like fish have moved shallow into their typical fall haunts just yet. Best success has come from water in the 6-12ft range on the West, North, and South shores of the lake. Weeds have really died off on the entire lake and this should expose a lot of willing, hungry fish if you can find them. Fish darker leech patterns or cyrstals in sizes 6-12 on type 1 (intermediate) and type two lines. Best advice we can give right now is to be mobile, if you aren’t catching fish within an hour of being in a new area, move. People who are covering the most water seem to be doing best. If I was headed up to fish in the next week or so, I would check out the Cliffs, Duck Creek, or the Pintail Point area of the lake.
Fish will continue to move shallow in the coming weeks and we should have some excellent fishing in the next couple of weeks. Get out there and enjoy some good fishing! Please feel free to call us for up to the minute reports.
We see that flows out of Island Park Dam have been reduced to around 400 cfs. That makes for tougher boating through Box Canyon, but opens up a lot of wading possibilities. Two nymph rigs during daytime should produce, but streamers presented at the tops of holes and deeper runs, then on through, during low light conditions have a better chance for getting you into some of the big bows the “Box” is famous for hosting.
Fishing is picking up on the river below Ashton Dam. BWO, mahogany dun, and hopper patterns bring daytime action, but streamers under low light conditions will get you into the bigger fish.
This cooler weather is “just what the doctor ordered” for improving daytime fishing on the river below Ashton Dam. Look for the various BWO species, mahoganies, and midges to provide increased action to go along with possibilities from terrestrial insects. Consider that presenting streamer patterns under low light conditions will become more important the further we move through autumn.
Flow out of Palisades Dam was raised step-wise beginning 9/8 to about 7570 cfs to satisfy irrigation needs. Expect this coming week that flow out of the dam will be reduced back to levels before 9/8. This change should have no significant effect on fishing because of good water conditions and the high quality of aquatic insect activity we have seen on the South Fork this season. Thus we suggest using same strategies that have worked well before this change in flow . These include wading side channels and wading to riffles. For boating anglers, park boats and wade to fish riffles, or on drifting by, slam terrestrial patterns or Super-X’s near banks having overhead cover and good vegetation. Be ready to switch from mid summer mayfly patterns to BWO and mahogany dun life cycle patterns especially on riffles, and under low-light conditions devote more time to presenting streamer patterns.
The trico emergence on the Birch Creek diversion has peaked. Now it is the turn of BWOs to bring fish up on this tough to approach but excellent and little visited small stream. On observing the size of fish here, anyone would become interested. But these fish are not easy to fool because of surrounding thick willows and easily disturbed stream bottom. Want a test for your small stream skills? Try this one. It’s open year round.
We fished Sand Creek Pond #4 yesterday, and there is some good news to spread around. Water temps near the surface are in the mid fifties in deg. F. The caretaker hired by IDF&G relates that the ponds are filling. Around 2 PM the speckled dun emergence was thick enough to land individuals on our boats, decorate our hats, but most important to bring fish, large and small, to the surface. We also saw a few BWOs and egg laying caddis. Soft hackled patterns twitched slowly a bit under the surface worked just fine. So did floating speckled dun patterns.
There have been two drops in the flow the past week bringing the South fork down to 6434 cfs. We should see these drops throughout the Fall until irrigation season ends sometime in October. We are seeing less pale morning duns and more blue wing olives and mahogany duns. Continue to fish chernobyls in the flats and over the color changes along the banks.
Overall the fishing has been very good for this time of year. There have been some days where it has been slow during the middle of the day ,especially on bright days. On the sunny days we have done better in the late afternoon until dark.
Streamer fishing has been good early in the morning and again at night. Finally we have mentioned before that we have done well fishing dry flies in the shallow riffles even when there are no hatches, A good combination is a small parachute adams trailed by a mahogany dun or small CFO ant.
This coming two weeks is one of my favorite times to fish the Harriman State Park reach of the river. Crowds are definitely down, and more enjoyable weather prevails. Surely there are many approaches to fish the river during this time, and all can produce under the right conditions. Because it produces for me, my favorite is through long drifts around cover using a hopper pattern. I prefer using this technique with traditional patterns. That is because I believe their imprint on the smooth surface of the river here is closer to that of the natural insect than those patterns fashioned from foam and rubber. And this technique with traditional patterns produces for me on other streams with similar surfaces. On water of broken surface this difference is minimized. When presenting with a long drift be aware of drag, strive for a natural drift as long as possible, and wade as little as is practical.