This will be our last regularly scheduled fishing report of the year. Thank you to everyone who checks in here each week or receives this report via email. We will continue to post fishing reports if conditions warrant and will start the regular Thursday afternoon reports again in April.
After 20 days of dry, warm weather we finally made the jump into Fall last week with snow falling occasionally here in Swan Valley and starting to pile up in the mountains. Some areas of the Tetons already have 20″ of snow on the ground. Cooler weather means an end to the irrigation season and flows out of Palisades Dam have dropped to 2,300 cfs and will continue to drop over the next days/weeks to around the 1,000 cfs mark for the winter.
At this flow there are a lot of walk and wade options and excellent options in a boat to really have some privacy, just keep in mind your floats will take a lot longer than they do in the summer. Good hatches of Blue Winged Olives and Midges are bringing the fish to the surface each afternoon. Brown Trout are spawning or moving into their spawning grounds so streamers are a great option for them as well as the Cutts and Rainbows. Please take care if you’re wading not to walk on any reds. You’ll find some fish moving into their more typical winter-holding waters, deep slow runs. For these fish an egg pattern trailed with a Tungsten Thread Midge would be a good option. (under an indicator of course.)
The weather this weekend is looking quite pleasant for some Fall fishing on the South Fork. Enjoy the Fall and we hope to see you out on the water!
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