Jackson Hole Fly Fishing Report- Lakes are Turning On!

Our runoff started strong on about May 6th and pretty much shut down the Snake River for weeks to come. It was a great spring fishery while it lasted, in fact we squeezed out an extra week or two this year from the historical blow out around April 25. With a strong heat wave last week the snowpack was ripping out of the upper elevations and shrunk to a scary 60% in just 10 days. This scenario bodes well for fishing the Snake earlier in the summer yet can spell tough late summer flows in which the Bureau of Reclamation have already indicated we should expect dam releases near 4000cfs through August. Not great but not as terrible as some previous years. I hope they can back off later in the season if our spring moisture picks up, it is at the moment so fingers are crossed!

Kae Brockermeyer and Bill Imes did some damage on a Western Wyoming lake in early May.

In the meantime we are having some fun on area lakes and reservoirs looking for the BIG grab. All lakes below 8000ft are iced off(Lewis at 7800ft should be early next week) and the fish are warming up to a new season and should be shallow soon. Jenny iced off on Mother's Day so I took the family for a afternoon cruise and only spotted 4-5 lake trout at about 15'. In the coming days those fish will be in 3-5' of water and very receptive to flies.

2013 Carp Classic- Blackfoot Reservoir, Idaho

The 9th Annual Event produced a good turn out considering the heavy shower activity and falling temperatures from our summer like highs last week. This year the proceeds benefited the Warriors and Quiet Waters Fund and all who participated showed their support by braving the elements and pursuing the reservoirs huge Mirror Carp.

Waiting out the heavy rain and looking for jumpers.

With water temps dropping the carp were backing out of the shallow zones where they are more easily approached with fly gear. My teammates, Jeff Currier and Ben Smith arrived on the 15th and found thousands of carp frolicking in back waters. By the morning of the tournament on the 17th the carp were gone and where we did find them they were laid up and not eating as best we could tell. Jeff got a  10lb mirror that morning in the mouth and throughout the rest of the day we snagged 10-20lb sleepers- frustrating as snagged fish could not be counted.

Jeff Currier with the only legal caught carp of day 1.                                   

The breaks in the rain were just a tease as showers intensified on the last day. The fish had left our spot all together and left us scrambling to find fish in the monsoon. We spotted some jumpers near a deep edge and decided to stake it out for the afternoon. Immediately Ben and I do what we do best, snagged a couple 20lb'ers. We only needed 3 fish in the mouth of that caliber and we could take the tournament. Within minutes Jeff finds an eater near 20lbs and is now fired up but the rains picked up and the jumpers stopped. Time ran out for our team, which by the way is called "It Could Be Worse".

What a fun event and for next year the organizers plan to go National and call it, "Burning Carp".

See you there!

A face only a mother or fly fisher could love.