Warmwater 7-9-13
If you can stand to fish in the heat that is now in the region, there are still plenty of good warmwater options out there to get your fix!
Carp– Blackfoot reservoir and the lower Snake are the main players as far as carp go right now. Lukes Carp Candy in various colors, Dan’s Crayfish sz 8, and Lukes shell back bug sz 6 are producing well at both locations. This time of year carp can be especially picky so smaller, more subtle patterns like the latter two mentioned above are flies you really need to have with you. This can be a great time of year to sight cast to carp so get after them while you still can!
Panfish– All area panfish are done spawning now so focus on fishing deeper water adjacent to structure or off the edges of weedbeds. Full sinking lines with small leeches/nymphs or indicator fishing with the same flies will be your best bets. Small beadhead damsels, bluegill candy, and any darker colored leech will take panfish right now. Fishing has been best early or late, or any day with cloud cover.
Bass– Bass fishing is a little tricky for fly fishers this time of year, but you can still have good days if you work at it. Ririe reservoir has been good for smallmouth, but most of the bass have been small. Fish deeper water 10+ ft to get into the bigger bass. Full sinking lines or indicator fishing with crayfish and baitfish patterns will be your best bet. The smallmouth fishing on the lower snake has been good with streamer patterns on sink tip lines. you can catch fish very shallow, but most of the bigger fish will be in deeper water. American falls reservoir along the dam should be fishing very well for smallmouth right now too. Largemouth are tricky for the fly angler to get at this time of year. A lot of the bigger bass tuck in really tight to cover and are just plain hard to get at with a fly rod. However, early and late in the day the bass will venture out of the cover and can be taken on a variety of streamer patterns. For the bass that haven’t tucked up into cover, they can be taken in deeper water 6ft+ using streamer/leech patterns either on a full sinking line or indicator set up. One other thing to try this time of year is a popper. This typically only works well really early or really late in the day but there are always exceptions. If you head out topwater fishing try and cover as much water as possible and fish when the sun is off the water. We have a great selection of bass flies in the shop and we can get you all set up for your trip!