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Posts Tagged ‘hopper’
South Fork Boise River 9/15 (Dry Fly Fish Idaho)
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Totally and completely surreal!! If you haven’t fished the South Fork (dry fly fish Idaho) recently you have to put that river on the agenda. There are hatches continuously, the river is the perfect flow and there are enormous hog rainbows patrolling the surface.
My tie-on fly of the day was a Black Searcher #16 (dry fly fish Idaho) thinking that would be the perfect fly for the hatch that comes off this time of year. On about the third cast of the day over a large feeding fish, bingo! he eats the bug, and I put the first big fish in the net at 11:00. I landed one more fish with the Black Searcher (dry fly fish Idaho) then a beautiful hatch of baetis began popping on the water. I changed into a #18 Green Tantalizer (dry fly fish Idaho), and wow! was that the ticket. After wearing out one tantalizer and having another chewed beyond recognition, I put another dozen fish in the net. After fishing through the glassy bottom of the run and systematically hooking the feeders, I reached the faster riffle of the top end of the run. I was having trouble floating the tantalizer (dry fly fish Idaho), so I decided it was “Hopper Time.”
On the first cast with the Bullet Head Hopper (dry fly fish Idaho), another giant fish rolled up on the bug and that set off a run of 8 fish almost back to back on the #8 Bullet Head Hopper (dry fly fish Idaho). I finished the run at the very tippy top in the shallow riffle by hooking another fish that took me into my backing down river and I had to chase him to land him.
In the first run of water I fished, I’d landed over 2 dozen fish; and some of them were in the 20” range. I moved onto the next run of water down river.
I slipped in under a beautiful foam line tight against a steep boulder edge. I still had the Bullet Head Hopper (dry fly fish Idaho) on, so I served it just off the edge of a large boulder and bang! another big fish on. I landed that fish and looking up through the foam lines, I could see numerous large fish sipping emergers on the foam line. I immediately changed to a Pink Tantalizer #18 (dry fly fish Idaho), the perfect fly for a soft foam line. On the first cast I hook a fish, chased him and finally landed him down river 40 yards. The fish were stacked off the edge of the current to soft water and I could see at least a dozen fish almost in a line ahead me. I started at the bottom of the chain and picked them one after another up through the run. I only lost one of the nine fish I hooked because almost every fish was hooked deep in the mouth. They were seriously eating the bug.
I played that group of fish until I reached the hard riffle at the top the run, then switched over to a #18 Adams Caddis Green (dry fly fish Idaho) because of its ability to float in hard water. It worked perfectly and I finished out the run with five more fish.
It was approaching 6:00 so I decided to fish my way back to the car. I tied on the Bullet Head Hopper (dry fly fish Idaho) and landed four more fish before I reached the car. One of the fish jumped numerous times, ran me down river into my backing and I finally landed him 150 yards down river from where he was hooked. Night was creeping in when I reached the car, but I had one hole in mind.
I tied on the Midnight Caddis #14 (dry fly fish Idaho) and made a final run on a riffle below Cow Creek. I positioned in the river so the sheen light would create a backdrop to see the fly, and there were dozens of fish feeding in the glow. So I started casting to heads. The fish were feeding on a small mayfly I could not identify in the darkness and they weren’t that excited about my caddis, but there were so many fish, all I had to do was keep serving it; and sure enough, one would take. After landing four more fish; I could no longer see my feet and decided it was time to call it a day.
It’s a rare occasion on the South Fork of the Boise River (dry fly fish Idaho) to land 40 fish in a day, but when I thought about it, that’s all I did all day was hook and land fish. There were no lulls, the hatches were on the water into darkness, and all the conditions were perfect.
Do not put your rod away; and if you go fishing the South Fork, here are the flies that caught fish:
#18 and #16 Pink Tantalizer
#18 Green Tantalizer
#18 Green Adams Caddis
#8 Bullet Head Hopper
#14 Midnight Caddis
#18 White Emperor Caddis
Tantalizer Series
The “Tantalizer” Series of emergers maybe the most significant break through in dry fly fishing in years. This fly has tested magnificently over every species of trout at every elevation. It’s a super fly that was so successful we featured the Pink Tantalizer in a video we shot on the South Fork of the Snake River last fall.
$1.90
Bullet Hopper
$2.35
Midnight Caddis
Midnight Caddis the absolute perfect sundown to dark caddis fished on sheen water. It has awesome visibility and can be fished aggressively in heavy riffle. This fly was created to match the large black caddis hatch in the high country, but recently it has sparkled on low elevation rivers in twilight hours. It's a party animal after sundown!
$1.95
Emperor Series
Our #1 fishing fly for 2009 was the “Emperor” caddis series. We fished this series of flies at all elevations, from May through September and they are truly super flies. We featured the “Emperor” black caddis in a video we shot in the Idaho Wilderness called “Fishing the High Country,” and it took the place of our Black Flying Ant as the #1 fly for alpine lakes. Every place we fished, these flies it put on a show!!!!
$1.90
South Fork Boise River 7/26 (Dry Fly Fish Idaho)
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Our last few fishing expeditions I haven’t had a chance to fish, so I took a quick run to the South Fork of the Boise River (dry fly fish Idaho) with Ray Shervik to scratch the itch. We hit the river about 10:30 am; the river was clear, clean, and flowing about 1600 cfs. It is perfect fishing water for boating or wading. Over the years I’ve learned a lot of side channels and short fishing runs that you can wade to and those places really produced on the 26th. Even though there weren’t a lot of hatches that came off, the fish were there and looking up.
The day started a little slow on the first run above Cow Creek, but we picked up 3, two on a Golden Stone (dry fly fish Idaho) tight to the edge and one on a Black and Green Emperor Caddis (dry fly fish Idaho). We continued down river below Cow Creek to a side channel and picked up 4 more really nice fish–two on a #16 Black Gold (dry fly fish Idaho) and two tight against the bank on a Black Emperor Caddis #20 (dry fly fish Idaho). The fishing was just beginning to heat up.
I sent Ray up another side channel while I fished a section of the main river. Ray moved up the side channel to a section of boulders; and all of a sudden, the pink adult mayflies began to pop and the fish showed up in large numbers at the surface. He tied on a Dry Fly Innovations Pink Adult #18 (dry fly fish Idaho), and it was exactly what the fish were looking for. He began picking them off one after another, and every fish he targeted was eating the fly. He finally honed in on a giant fish that was patrolling in a tough place to cast. He angled around a large boulder and side around a cast to the fish. Without hesitation the big guy ate the bug and all Hades broke loose. After 15 minutes of brawling, he was admiring a magnificent 22-inch rainbow. Wow!!
While Ray worked the side channel, the main river had no hatches but the combination of #10 Golden Stones (dry fly fish Idaho) and #8 Bullet Head Hoppers (dry fly fish Idaho) was hooking one fish after another for me. At times the fish would jump completely out of the water with the hopper in their mouth; and by the time they resurfaced on the water, I would have already secured the hook in them. That process continued for a large section of river until I settled in on a beautiful deep riffle against the bank. A very large fish came up and nosed the hopper without a take, so I served the fly a couple more times and the fish wouldn’t take. I change flies to a #18 Adams Caddis (dry fly fish Idaho) and served it to the fish’s lair. No take. Another cast, and no take. The third time was the charm and the big guy rose gently and sipped the bug. A soft hook set, a monster jump, and the battle was on. After some hairy moments trying to keep him in the hole and a dive into the willows along the edge, I slid him into the net. A spectacular heavy 20-inch fish was glimmering in the net. Wow life is good!!!
We finished the day in the same place we started thinking that a late evening hatch may have started. There were a few fish surfacing intermittently, but no real hatch. Ray sunk a nymph and hooked a few nice fish and I picked up a few on an Emperor Caddis Black (dry fly fish Idaho).
It was really nice to have a rod in my hand again and the itch got well scratched!
Flies that caught fish:
Bullet Head Hopper #8
Golden Stone #10
Emperor Caddis – Black #20
Adams Caddis – Green #18
Adult Mayfly – Pink #18
Black Gold #12 & #16
Tantalizer – Pink #18
Bullet Hopper
$2.35
Golden Stone
A spectacular dry fly with extended tail, dark hair back, ribbed abdomen and front antennae. It's the best producing golden stone I have ever fished.
$2.05 — $2.25
Emperor Series
Our #1 fishing fly for 2009 was the “Emperor” caddis series. We fished this series of flies at all elevations, from May through September and they are truly super flies. We featured the “Emperor” black caddis in a video we shot in the Idaho Wilderness called “Fishing the High Country,” and it took the place of our Black Flying Ant as the #1 fly for alpine lakes. Every place we fished, these flies it put on a show!!!!
$1.90
Pink Quill Wing
$2.05
Black Gold Stimulator
$1.95 — $2.25
Emergers
$1.65
- Color:
- Black Wing Black Emerger, White Wing Black Emerger, Blue Wing Olive Emerger, Brown Emerger, Gray Emerger, PMD Emerger,
South Fork Boise River (Non Trophy Waters) 9/4 (Dry Fly Fish Idaho)
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The South Fork of the Boise River has been on a steady decline with water levels and it is right now at the optimum level to catch fish. All summer long the water was hovering at 1800cfs, which makes wade fishing almost non existent. Dry Fly Innovations took a personal day on Friday the 4th to see if the rumors were correct about the water levels dropping. It was true, the water was flowing at 600cfs and it looked gorgeous. We decided to head to the bottom of the South Fork where it flows into the bottom end of Arrow Rock Reservoir.
In typical Nate Brumley fashion we decided to walk down River from the truck about a mile maybe more to fish virgin waters. After we walked the mile plus we found a beautiful stretch of water that should have held fish, but the kicker is you can never fish the easy side with dad. So we started to cross the river and let me tell you it is not easy even when it is flowing at 600cfs, and it is bone chilling cold. When Dry Fly Innovations fishes the bottom end we never wear waders because it is too far to walk in waders, so lucky us we were wading in shorts all day. Cold!!!
When we reached our destination I started with a Cricket (#12) and dad had a Bullet Head Hopper (#12). We started throwing these flies and wading up in the river, but the vegetation has not started that far down on the river so there were no hoppers or any bugs. It did not take long to see that we were to far down river to do any good so we started fishing up river quickly in pursuit of a new stretch of water that had vegetation and some sort of bug hatch. By this time it was around 1 pm and the big bugs just were not getting enough attention so we decided to change up flies.
I had put on an Elk Hair Caddis (#16) and dad put on a Black Gold (#16) and on about the second or third cast wham a rainbow smacked my caddis and the fight was on. It was a nice little rainbow about 14 or 15” and heavy. These fish that are coming out of Arrow Rock are fat and healthy. After I released the fish we started fishing again and it was about 20 minutes later I had another fish on my line. At this point dad realized that black gold was not cutting the mustard and he tied on a brown olive CDC Caddis and started throwing that at the fish. We fished down on the lower waters until about 3 pm and caught 2 fish.
After lunch we drove up river to another hole and of course we needed cross the water and we began fishing upriver. Dad snuck in down river to see if there were any fish at where the creek comes in and he tossed his black CDC Caddis and in seconds he had a nice rainbow on the line. He landed that fish and threw his line back and in matter of minutes he picked up another nice rainbow. At about 4:30 or 5 pm there was a nice hatch of PMD Mayflies and the surface of the water was alive with fish. We immediately saw what the fish were feeding on so we switched up flies to our PMD up right wing Mayfly and started picking off feeding rainbows systematically one at a time. It was a great run of fishing with our mayfly, but the hatch was short lived it only lasted about an hour and then the fish were down. At this point we ended our day with a CDC Caddis Green and Black Biot (#18). We caught four more fish before dark with the caddis flies and then it was time to wade the river and head to the truck.
We ended up the day catching 15 nice beautiful trout and 3 squaw fish. The bottom end of the South Fork is fishing funny in terms of hatches and bugs. There is not a whole lot of vegetation so the fishing has not started yet. The fish have no reason to come up river because there is no food. We are still about a week or little more from awesome fishing; as soon as the vegetation gets on the lower end of the river the big patterns and the fishing will be dynamite. (hoppers, crickets, and humpy’s) All I can say is that a slow day of fly fishing is better than sitting in the office talking about fly fishing, and that is a fact!