A mild summer thus far continues to produce some decent fishing, with the best yet to come. We expect flows on all our freestone rivers to continue their slow drop to more fishable levels. With the drop will come the hatches. Be patient and be ready with your fly boxes full.
Silver Creek has become a smorgasbord of hatches lately. The Baetis are the dominant bug, with good activity in the morning and especially the evening. There are quite a few Callibaetis around in the morning and the afternoon. The big news is we are seeing the first Trico spinner falls of the season. This activity has begun near Picabo Bridge and should be moving up into the top of the Silver Creek Preserve waters by this time next week.
Keep an eye on the morning temperatures when you head to the Creek. Once the Trico starts, the 70-degree mark becomes the starting bell. The spinner falls should last until 11 a.m. on a good morning. If you have never experienced the Trico spinner falls on Silver Creek, give it a week or two to ramp up and then come check it out and be ready to have your mind blown!
The South Fork of the Boise is one of the few places anglers are finding fishable water besides Silver Creek. The Salmonflies should be at the dam by the time you read this. The Caddis action should stay strong and, as of now, the flows are still wadeable. With the reservoir topped off, this could all change. Keep an eye on the CFS from Anderson Ranch Dam.
Now, a quick word on “combat fishing,” which is a term used when anglers descend on one area in huge numbers. This quickly leads to unhappy anglers and to confrontation. I heard this term used a few times during the Brown Drake hatch based on the angler numbers. Every comment came from social media and from people that were not here. They just saw pictures. If you were here, you would quickly understand that despite the crowds, we are not “combat fishing.” In fact, quite the opposite—we are fishing together as a large group and we are celebrating our sport as we do it. Within these crowds were people helping each other, sharing water and showing the rest of the fishing world that we can get along and have fun without a need to impress Instagram.
Peace, love and flyfishing!
