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South Fork of the Snake River Fishing Report 8/8/2019

josh heileson fishing guide south fork of the snake

Happy Thursday everyone and thank you for reading our weekly fishing report.  Fishing remains excellent on the South Fork of the Snake, Main Snake and pretty much all tributaries.  Our long Winter and wet/cool Spring are paying dividends for our fishing!  Palisades Reservoir is at 87% capacity with a flow of 8,500 cfs being released from the dam.  The water is cool, clear, and perfect.

I’m going to divide this week’s fishing report into two categories, banks, and riffles.  For fly fishing the banks a big dry/dropper rig is your best bet.  We are still seeing fish focus on big foam golden stones tucked in tight, especially on cloudy days.  It’s a great time of year to start experimenting with flies the fish just don’t see from everyone else, hoppers are starting to come on the menu, what about that fly your Grandpa used to catch them on?  It will probably work!  Early morning and late evening are great times to try a streamer.  For the riffles it’s still a PMD game, but you’ll probably notice the fish are getting wise so having a good selection of PMD cripples and emergers is required to win this game.  Or, as I mentioned for the banks, try throwing them something they haven’t seen, flying ant, lime green humpy, the smallest grasshopper in your box, etc.  Trail that fly with a size 16 or 18 PMD emerger and your riffle game will be strong.

If you read last week’s report you saw the big fish coming off the Main Snake.  A few of our guides headed that way again this week and the results were smiling clients.  Smallmouth Bass, Carp, and Trout to 30″ were reported (and photographed!)

As usual, give us a call or stop by the shop. We have a huge selection of the best foam dries, sexy bead heads, and PMD emergers the fish are looking for.  Thanks and have a great weekend!