Hot Diggidy- Dog Days of Summer!

This is that special and sometimes not so special time of the season... why? Well, by now most of the early summer hatches are over with only isolated hatches occurring and most of those are early and late in the day, perhaps before and after the fiberglass hatch. In addition, area rivers have dropped to great low fishing flows but the flip side to this is water temps can rise over 10 degrees in about 4-5 hours and good fishing can literally shut off, not to mention kill trout if caught otherwise. Lastly, pressure on all the rivers have some trout super selective... I see fish refusing flies all day that would have been snatched up just a couple weeks ago- I personally love a challenging fish yet when guiding it is nice to run across a few gullible 18"ers.  Now for the good stuff- trout are looking up! With lower flows and a variety of nice fat terrestrials falling into the water our trout are on the feed and when it is on it can be awesome! Most of us hate windy conditions but those windy days in August can lay down a lot of bugs from the grassy banks... put it in there and twitch it! Take off your barbs and handle the trout as little as possible... 65-68 degree water to a trout is like 95-105 to us, try a good sprint in Phoenix next time.

Finishing July every year is a relief... I love the fishing on the Green, NF & SF but the driving is brutal... from now till October my eyes are on the Snake River in JH, chasing those wily cutthroats. Thanks to everyone for a fabulous July- Scott