Fly Fishing on the Henry's Fork

The last couple years, me and my dad and brothers have gone fishing up on the Fall River and sometimes the Henry's Fork, and this year we turned it into a full on family vacation.

We stayed at the Coffee Pot Campground on the Henry's for two gorgeous nights, though the second was rainy the whole night. 

When we arrived, the fish were rising and we rushed to line our rods and get in the water to see what the fish were feeding on. It turned out there was a small Green Drake hatch with a few caddis and PMD's, and we tied our flies on and tossed them out. I missed every strike I had, but my brother managed to hook and land a fish. 

We fished for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, and enjoyed the lovely Island Park sunset. 

Sunset at Coffee Pot Campground, Island Park, Idaho 2013

I also couldn't resist photographing the full moon rise. 

Moonrise, Island Park, Idaho 2013

I woke up early the next morning and made a few photographs. And I should point out that I just love being able to carry a darkroom in my pocket. My camera phone and the myriad of photography apps I have come in really handy if I don't want to carry my DSLR.

Sunrise, Coffee Pot Campground, Island Park, Idaho, 2013

Fallen Tree, Henry's Fork, Island Park, Idaho 2013

We had breakfast, and sat around at camp before we decided to go to Big Springs and look at the fish, but there were only three or four, and they weren't the behemoths that have been there in the past. We heard a couple different possible reasons for their disappearance, including the sea gulls just pushing them out, and them being illegally fished.

Fallen Trees, Big Springs, Island Park, Idaho 2013

After Big Springs we picked up a few flies at the Trout Hunter Fly Shop and then headed to the Buffalo River, where we all managed to catch a few fish each. And, I'm actually proud to say I got outfished by my little sister on her first time with a fly rod.

While we were there, a pretty good sized Green Drake hatch came off. 

Green Drake With Two Legs Missing, Buffalo River, Island Park, Idaho 2013

When we were done, determined partly by grumbling stomachs and rumbling thunder not far off, we headed back to camp, where it continued to rain for a few more minutes, then cooked dinner when it finally let up.

Afterwards, we sat and sang and played our instruments and visited with a good friend of ours who is working at the scout camp this summer, before we called it a night and went to bed.

Then Tuesday, after we packed up, we stopped at Upper Mesa Falls to make a few photographs.  It'd been several years since I'd been there, so it was good to rephotograph these scenic falls.

Upper Mesa Falls, Henry's Fork, Idaho 2013

Henry's Fork Below Upper Mesa Falls, Idaho 2013

Upper Mesa Falls, Henry's Fork, Idaho 2013

Henry's Fork Below Upper Mesa Falls, Idaho 2013

Upper Mesa Falls, Henry's Fork, Idaho 2013

I always hate leaving that place, and it was no easier yesterday. It's a good thing I should be going back again in a couple weeks. 

PMD Hatch

Friday after work I headed up Logan Canyon for a little fishing. The fish either weren't in that particular stretch of water I fished, or they just weren't interested in anything I was tossing to them, because I didn't see or spook any fish at all.

Afterwards, I went up Right Hand Fork (a small tributary stream to the Logan River) and found a place to pitch my tent. As the sun was setting, a PMD hatch came off, and the little mayflies were swarming all around the place I had set up camp.

Bucket List

Being an avid back packer, fly fisher, and climber, there are several things on my bucket list. Maybe by writing them down here, I may be held to getting a few of them crossed off.

Fly fish Patagonia
Fly fish New Zealand
Backpack the entire Continental Divide Trail (even if I have to do it in stages)
Climb El Capitan
Climb The Grand Teton (no, I've never bagged that peak)
Go after steelhead in British Columbia
Fly fish for bonefish, tarpon and redfish
I'd put down a trip up Everest, but I have to be somewhat realistic with this list

Lastly, I think the biggest thing on my list is to just be happy and enjoy life whether I'm half way through a pitch on the Nose of El Cap, double hauling to bonefish on the Florida flats, or sleeping under the stars somewhere between Canada and Mexico.

Lessons Learned

If fishing the Logan River has taught me anything, it's this: fly fishing can be inconsistent, frustrating, puzzling, but above all, satisfying and rewarding, even when I walk away without having caught a fish.
Almost every day on the Logan is different. One day there will be plenty of fish holding in exactly the spots you'd think they are. They'll take the first fly you float past them, over and over, and, if you don't lose it to a tree, fly changes are hardly needed. Then the next day, you return, with more or less the exact conditions as the day before, and the fish will be nonexistent. You'll change flies at least a dozen times, trying to hone in on what might be in or on the water. Or, those blasted trees just won't stop reaching out and sucking every fly you tie on.
Despite all the frustration of untying wind knots, or pulling a fly from a branch, or fighting swift current on slick rocks, I still drive away rested and calmed. Not always physically, but mentally, as well as spiritually. After all, I've just spent that time among God's handiwork, wading in a river He's made. Some places, I think, He made just for me. All places, I know, He made for us all.

Runoff

The runoff here on the local rivers hasn't been at all as bad as it was last year. I think it's about hit its peak, and won't be long until they recede back to normal (perhaps lower, considering this winter's low snow pack) levels. The fishing hasn't been hit as hard as it was last year either. Mostly because the rivers are actually safe to wade in. Well, safer than last year.
Once the water does recede, you can be sure I'll be on the water even more than I have been. I just hope I've stocked my fly boxes with enough flies.

Here Fishy Fishy


 


If only fishing were that easy.


Then again, the puzzle of fly fishing, and the mind games that you sometimes have to play are things that attract me to fly fishing. I don't think I'd enjoy it nearly as much if the fish simply jumped into my hands.

The Fly

After the rod, line, and leader, we finally arrive to the fly.
One of the earliest records of people using artificial flies to catch fish dates back to around the Meridian of Time, from one Marcus Valerius Martialis, who wrote:

...Who has not seen the scarus rise, decoyed and killed by fraudful flies...

Then, about two hundred years later, we have this from Claudius Aelianus:
...they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's craft. . . . They fasten red wool. . . round a hook, and fit on to the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in color are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the color, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.

Fast forward another fourteen hundred years or so, and on up into the nineteenth century to Britain, and we come to what most fly fishermen think of when we hear about historical fly fishing: bamboo rods, silk lines, and wicker creels.
The Japanese tied flies by holding the hook in one hand, and wrapping the thread around the materials with the other, without using a bobbin, like we tyers use today.
So, fish have been taken on the fly for at least two thousand years. For two thousand years, fish have been fooled into eating fake insects, and for two thousand years, fishermen have been skunked by fish who were smart enough to know not to eat the fur and feathers that looked like the mayflies all around it.
I guess that's one of the things that draws me to the sport. That one day the fish will be eager to take a fly, and the next, they won't even acknowledge its presence.

The Leader

A good rod can turn over a long leader. A good leader can turn over a small dry fly delicately to convince those picky fish that the bit of thread, feathers, and fur tied on that piece of sharp metal wire is really a delicious meal.
About two years ago, I read an article on, I think MidCurrent, all about furled leaders, and how great they were. So I did some searching the Internet, and found little company that made and sold them, and I paid the higher price (furled leaders are generally 2-3 times more expensive than monofilament leaders), and I soon got the leader in the mail and attached to my fly line. It was almost life changing, not to be too overly dramatic. The leader turned over the smallest dry flies with ease, and beauty. I enjoyed watching the thing lay out almost as much as I enjoyed the whole act of fishing. I learned that they're a little more high maintanence than mono leaders—being made out of thread, they absorb water and eventually begin to sink, so they have to be treated with floatant periodically—but I found it was a trade I was more than willing to make.
After a few months, I started looking into how to make my own furled leaders, and it wasn't long before I had bought the materials to make a jig. I first made the jig according to a formula that some guy shared on a forum, then began playing with my own lengths and tapers, and after a few weeks I had settled on a satisfactory design. The way a furled leader is made, is thread is wrapped in interlocking loops around a series of pegs attached to a board, set at varying distances, and then the thread is twisted together to form a sort of cord, or rope that tapers just like a monofilament leader would, to taper down from the fly line to the tippet, to transfer the energy generated by the rod and line down to the fly to place it in range of a feeding fish.
I've since been selling my leaders through a few different places. It's not as profitable as I'd really like it to be—I'd like to make enough money for it to be my main source of income—but so far it's put enough money in my pocket to pay for my fishing licenses here in Utah, and Idaho.
The leader—and tippet—can really make or break a day on the water. Too big, and they can spook fish, or slap that tiny midge on the water and mess up that needed delicate presentation. Too small, and they fail to put that big hopper out where it should go.

The Rod

I love building my own rods. The rod I learned to fish on was one I built myself. It was just some cheap blank my dad got and then set me loose on. Looking at it now, it shows that it was built by a thirteen or fourteen year old, but it got me into something I enjoyed then, and love now. I still have that rod. It's a couple inches shorter now, so it casts a little faster than it did, but it's something I don't think I'll ever get rid of. Maybe it'll find a spot on my wall one day.
Later in high school, I just sort of got out of fly fishing for whatever reason, and only fished a handful of times until three years ago, when I was sitting in my bedroom one day in late winter, suffering from cabin fever, and figured I'd take up fly fishing again. The rod I got then, a 9' 5 wt. St. Croix, is the only rod I have that was bought complete. Since then, I've built a 7' 9" Sage 3 wt., which is now the main rod I fish here on the Logan and Blacksmith Fork Rivers, and a 9' 8 wt. that my dad had.
The reason I love—and prefer—to build my own rods, is because I have something that's built to my own liking. While I'm bound by what the rod manufacturers make, as far as blanks are concerned, I can take a blank and make it "mine". And then when I catch something on it, there's just that much more satisfaction out of the whole experience.

Picky Trout and Ambivalent Utah Suckers

A month ago my 4Runner broke down (at first we thought it was a bad fuel pump, but it turned out to be a bad timing belt), and being without a vehicle, I haven't been fishing for that long. I even tried riding my bike up Logan Canyon, but this past winter was especially hard on my waist, and endurance. I didn't make it far before it was obvious riding my bike and wearing myself out and then trying to wade a river wasn't going to be the best thing to do. So I've been jonesing really bad to get out. Thanks to a friend I work with, we got the timing belt replaced, and the 4Runner fixed. So today I decided I'd spend the day swinging my fly rod.
I first planned on just going up to my new favorite stretch of the Logan River, knowing that the river was going to be high. I got on the water just before ten o'clock, and tied a new pattern I've been tying lately, a UV Epoxy Back Pheasant Tail Nymph, with a Woven Pheasant Tail Nymph behind it. Once I got in the water, and saw how high and felt how fast the water was, I knew I was going to be leap-frogging from hole to hole more than I thought I'd be. I fished all the promising spots, but if the fish were there, they weren't interested in biting my fake bugs.

After about an hour and a half of fighting the high and fast current, I decided to pack up and head to Bear Lake and go after the big fish there. I'd always thought the big fish that swam between my legs when I was a kid were carp, but I've recently learned that they probably weren't carp, but Utah Suckers. They look similar, and are just as ugly as carp. I first got the itch to go after carp and muskie last year during the high runoff when any of the rivers around here were too high and fast to fish. I figured that if I couldn't go after trout, I'd get a heavier rod, and go after fish in water that wasn't too high and fast to fish. Carp, and in this case, Utah Suckers, are pretty finicky fish. You have to be able to cast a fly right in front of them and not spook them, and they pretty much have to be feeding to hook into them. They're not a fish that you "prospect" for, or cast blindly, hoping there's a fish there that might take your fly. I'm still learning the behavior of these fish, so I don't know exactly what time of day they feed, and exactly what type of fly to use, besides something that imitates a piece of bread or kernel of corn. Today on Bear Lake ended up being just a couple hours of casting practice. I saw plenty of fish, but none were feeding. I did manage to cast my flies right in front of them, and only spooked one, but none of them seemed to even acknowledge my fly's presence.

I spent a couple hours on the lake, which is really high, and really cold right now, not that I'd expect it to be anything else, and then the thought of Blacksmith Fork hit my mind. So I packed up the fishing gear again, and headed back to Logan, and then south to my favorite local river. Since it was so late in the day, my favorite stretch was taken, so I drove a little further up to a stretch I hadn't fished before. Right after I got in the water, a Blue Winged Olive hatch started up, and the water began to boil. I hurried and clipped the nymph off I'd decided to start off with and tied a hackle stacker BWO on, and missed three strikes in all, before losing my fly to tree. I replaced it with a Purple Haze, but the fish were done with any fake flies that were trying to entice them, so I waded up the river, which quickly turned to fast pocket water, so I got out and drove back down to my favorite spot to see if it was open, which it was. This particular stretch has a big deep pool that always has fish in it. I've only been able to pull one fish out of there in the two years I've been going there. It's one of the hardest holes to fish I've ever encountered. The river enters into it after a long run, and it causes all sorts of eddies, and micro currents that really make good dead drifts a big challenge. Two years ago, the run was pretty shallow, and there was a big tree trunk right at the head of the pool. After last years' high runoff, the run is about twice as deep (about up to mid thigh now), and the tree stump is gone, and the sand bar down stream of the pool is a lot bigger. Despite the changes, it's still as challenging as ever to fish. I missed a huge strike, and after that, the fish were done with me. I even tied a beetle on, and one fish looked up at it, but didn't bite.
All in all, it was a fish-less day, but after more than a month of not being able to fish, it was still a very good day on the water. Or should I say, waters.

Waders

When I first learned to fly fish when I was about 14 or so, though I might have been 13 or 15, I did it without waders. I always wet-waded. We fished pretty much only in mid-summer into the fall, so we didn't really need waders to keep us warm and dry.
It wasn't until I got back into fly fishing, almost three years ago now, that I got my first pair of waders. To save money, I skipped out on the wading boots, and went with the only pair of shoes I had that would accommodate the thick neoprene boot: a pair of Etnies skating shoes. The soles were slick, and they offered no ankle support at all. I'm surprised I didn't get washed down the river. I've since upgraded to a pair of boots that grip the bottom a bit better, and give good support so I don't twist my ankle if they do slip.
I sometimes fantasize about showing up on the Madison, Yellowstone, or Missouri Rivers, among all the fishermen decked out in their Orvis and Simms gear (full disclosure: I own a lot of Simms gear and clothing, waders included), and throw on a pair of rubber hip boots, and umbrella hat, and a white tank top, and just start swinging a stick with kite string on it. I wouldn't do anything to spook the fish that the other fishermen are casting to, or be obnoxious, I'd just throw the biggest, ugliest flies, perhaps bass bugs, and act like nothing's wrong.
Sometimes we fishermen get caught up in getting the flashiest, newest stuff. Don't get me wrong. I believe in getting the best equipment you possibly can, whether it's fly fishing gear, or backpacking gear, and taking care of it, because it'll last a long time if good equipment is taken care of. But gear only assists the person using it.