Henry’s Fork 6-5-15

The Henry’s Fork is currently providing some of the best fishing in the area. Let’s look at what it offers bottom to top. Below Ashton Dam PMDs and caddis life cycle are bringing action, but after the peak stonefly activity came by a few weekends ago, fish are once again looking for the big bugs, and golden stones are satisfying them especially in afternoons. Cloudy PMs bring on the BWOs. It’s the same story from Warm River to Ashton, so go with your favorite BWO, PMD, caddis, and golden stone patterns. But consider that rubber leg patterns have also been effective. Cardiac Canyon offers some great fishing, not just to those folks floating through, but also to those walking in from the Bear Gulch, Mesa Falls, Hatchery Ford, or Riverside points. Add yellow sally patterns to the “what’s effective” bunch discussed above for the Cardiac Canyon section.  The river is lower than normal here making wading a bit less dangerous. Nevertheless, take care. PMDs are coming on at Last Chance to join cloudy day BWOs, caddis, and dwindling March browns. Water coming out of Island Park Dam has been a low but steady flow of around 350 cfs for many days now. This means walk-in wading makes a better choice than dinging up that boat. In some ways this is better for encountering fish currently taking big dry stoneflies: you get more than one chance at them and can spend more time pin-pointing select locations. Further up the river, walking into the Henry’s Lake Outlet on the Flat Ranch Preserve will get you into fish as well as relative solitude. These are mostly cutthroat escapees from Henry’s Lake with a few hybrids mixed in. Remember that these are lake fish, and at first will feed on food forms familiar to them in the lake. So do not overlook leech and streamer patterns. When these fish feed increasingly on what is available in the river, spend more time with PMD and caddis life cycle patterns, and hopefully in two weeks, green drake life cycle patterns. Fish here are not present in huge numbers because a 200-300 cfs flush out of the lake was not performed earlier and flow out of the lake has been around 50 cfs for several weeks.  But there are always some big surprises in the river flowing through this Ranch.