Small Streams, July 7th, 2023

A Willow Creek Beaver Pond

This conversation is going to be general. But because so many area cutthroat spawning streams opened to fishing a few days ago there is a particular reason for fishing these, and that is because of hosted beaver ponds. Beaver ponds provide so many advantages for trout. They offer relative overhead cover, cool water this time of the season, a rich variety of food forms from damsel flies and speckled duns on down to leeches (easy protein), scuds, and even mice and snakes. You will find these pond only on low gradient sections of small streams (no way could beavers dam the South Fork!), but some can be large enough to host a flotation device (See above photo). Now is the time for best fishing on these because as summer advances they warm like all other waters.

So where does one find these ponds? Many of the best are off the beaten track. The Willow Creek drainage is a good place to start looking. Such as Cranes Creek, Hell Creek, Gray’s Lake Outlet, lower Homer Creek, Tex Creek are good candidates. All Palisades Reservoir tribs host beaver ponds and so do Salt River tribs coming out of Idaho (Crow, Jackknife, Stump, Tincup). Palisades Creek, just above the lower lake, hosts some, and so do several Henry’s Fork drainage streams. The same applies to Teton River and Big Lost River tribs. Use Google Earth and look for their presence.

Fish in these, usually brown, brook and cutthroat trout can attain surprisingly large sizes. Browns up to ten pounds use to inhabit Cranes and Willow Creek and Gray’s Lake Outlet beaver ponds. Cutthroat in Centennial Valley streams range exceed twenty inches in length. Brook trout exceeding twenty inches still inhabit Duck Creek beaver ponds.

Other streams are now worth a visit. Bitch, McCoy, Palisades and Robinson Creeks are near run-off free. Golden stones, PMDs, sallys and PM caddis are active on these. Warm River below it spring offers Brook, brown and rainbow trout (relative solitude compared to nearby Henry’s Fork) responding to the same aquatic insects. b