South Fork 8-15-14

The South Fork continues to fish very well. We have benefited from cool water temperatures and some great overcast weather and rain showers. The flow dropped another 1,000 cfs earlier this week bringing the river down to 10,300 cfs at Irwin. We should continue to see additional drops in the flow as irrigation demand goes down.

Each drop in the water exposes more cobble and causes the wingless golden stone to emerge. The decreases are also making the riffles more defined and creating more riffles. We are seeing good hatches of pink pale morning duns during the day and caddis in close to dark.

The lower river below Byington has been productive with big hopper and chernobyl patterns. The riffle fishing has been good to which is probably due again to the cooler temperatures this summer. The morning water temps at Lorenzo have been cooler(58 degrees) than the upper river at (60 degrees).

We have been having good success fishing a pair of dry flies in the riffles even before the hatch starts. Try a #14 or 16  parachute trailed by a thorax pale morning dun, thorax pink albert or a parachute pmd spinner. Once the hatch starts and the fish start rising to the actual bugs be ready to change patterns from duns to emergers to nymphs and then maybe back to a dun.

In addition to caddis in the evening fish a #6-10 gold or purple bodied chernobyl against the bank and over the drop offs.