Dry Fly Innovations

Well it’s not your classic dry fly fishing, but it’s what you do when the fish are laying on the bottom–162 feet from the surface of this giant lake.  It’s a unique style of fishing, done with copper lines, open-faced reels, and salmon poles.  You reach the bottom by feeding line by hand for the first 100 feet, then releasing the spool and dropping the silver spoon to the bottom of the lake (dry fly fish Idaho).  At that point wearing a metal glove, you thread the copper line between your fingers and yank the spoon off the bottom, and then you let the spoon flutter back to the bottom.  Repeat this yanking motion until the fish smacks the hook.  Then set the hook by hand by holding the line tight until someone reels the slack and transfers the pole to you.  At that point, you fight the fish from the bottom and re-spool over 300 feet of line back to the boat.  About half the fish you hook in this process are lost.  I thought about tying a Black Gold Stimulator (dry fly fish Idaho) off the spoon, but I was assured by my brother that that method would not work, so we stuck to “hodacking” for an afternoon and morning fish.

By golly!  The method works.  There is a real feel about this technique of fishing requiring a lot of touch.  I was a little rusty, but I ended up catching 3 five-pound fish.  It was a good time but I kept thinking how we might be able to lure one up to the surface, but the fish graph said it was impossible.