Welcome to this week’s fishing report, from now through the Fall we’ll do our best to post this fishing report every Thursday afternoon.
COVID 19 Information: The river remains open to fishing but please be considerate of shuttle drivers, public restrooms, social distancing and respect everyone’s desire to stay safe. If you are driving more than 45 minutes to fish, consider your impact in potentially spreading the Coronavirus. As mentioned above the river is dotted with other people who are concerned about your visit to their communities. Be respectful, please. Bring everything you need, especially a license as shops are closed.
The Idaho Fish & Game released these guidelines you can read here.
The water flow out of Palisades Dam increased overnight to about 7,200 cfs, which less than this time last year but quite a bit more than the historical average. You can view the water year graph here. The flows have increased to make room in Palisades Reservoir in preparation for the upcoming snowmelt. Palisades Reservoir is currently 87% full and will certainly fill this year which means plenty of cold, clear water for summer 2020!
If you’re out on the river this weekend nymphs have been the name of the game. The Rainbow Trout are spawning or getting ready to spawn so egg patterns will be effective for the next 6 weeks or so. With the bump in flow a San Juan Worm would be hard to beat and I’d bet a good many anglers will be fishing a worm and an egg. If you’re more traditional, Stonefly Nymphs trailed with a Midge or Blue Winged Olive Nymph pattern will also take fish. It’s always worth throwing streamers, especially deep in slower-moving and even water that isn’t moving. If you’re tossing streamers in the foam or “frog water” keep one eye open for fishing feeding on midges or small Skawala Stone Flies. If you pay attention there is rarely a day that goes buy that you can catch a fish on a dry fly but you have to know where to look; foam lines, back eddies, slow-moving riffles, etc.
Stay healthy and we’ll see you on the river or right here next week.