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September 5, 2012
After a long day of traveling from New Hampshire I rolled home into
Victor, Idaho
late last night. I had a short sleep and
in spite of being completely exhausted when I woke up today, Gary Eckman picked
my up at 6:30 and we took off for the South Fork. This weekend the famous Jackson Hole One Fly Contest takes place and I along with several others fish on Gary’s team. I’ve had the pleasure of fishing
on “The Good Times” both in 2010 and 2011.
Today’s jaunt was a guided
trip with Ed Emory. Gary generously brings me on a few trips each
summer. We will go with Boots Allen on
the Snake Friday. I’ve fished with Ed
many times and even though I know the South Fork very well, Ed knows the
gorgeous river best. The days with Ed
are always a treat.
Fishing on the South Fork has
been difficult to say the least. August
is always the slower month on the South Fork but usually the fish snap out of
their funk by first of September. My
immediate assessment after being away almost three weeks is that the land and nature
in Eastern Idaho is just plain dog-tired. It’s been way too hot and dry this summer. The leaves are turning two weeks early and
evidently the fish still aren’t in a hurry to eat.
We did two floats today. First thing Ed put us in at one of his sneaky
put-ins to keep us ahead of most boats and we took out at the Spring Creek
Bridge around 4. Then we floated the mile long Dam to Huskey. Ed is famous for his nymphing and he often
goes by the nickname, “Bead Head Ed”.
I’m not much of a nympher but when he rigged Gary up to give nymphing a try I monitored
the situation closely. Who knows, if the
South Fork is brutal with streamers and dries, perhaps nymphs will be the
ticket for this years One Fly. The good
news for a lousy nympher like me however, after an hour of nymphing to start
off, Gary
landed just one respectable rainbow and two mountain whitefish. I didn’t land a darn thing on my streamer;
however it was my own fault. I screwed
up at least two nice trout.
Indeed fishing was difficult
overall. While mixing streamers and
small dry flies I caught five good trout – a mix of cutthroats, rainbows and
browns. Along with these I caught about
ten small trout. If today were the One Fly I’d of had an adequate score but not enough to help our team win. In order to win you need to measure at least
six trout over 14 inches. This sounds
easy, but it’s not when the tape measure is out. So, bottom line is, the South Fork will
either break us or make us. Gary, I and
our other teammate that will fish the South Fork one day better have our game
faces on. It’s going to be tough. We absolutely need to seal the deal on all
big fish that come to our fly. As for what
fly I will choose – not sure yet. Even though
that decision was to be made based on today’s results, it isn’t. I’ll wait till tomorrow night when I draw my
guide, river section and boat opponent from another team.
It’s great to be home. I’m obviously concerned about Dad but he’s in
good hands. He’s now at a rehab center
in Ossipee, New Hampshire, about ten miles from Mom in
Wolfeboro. From Moms perspective after
day one there it’s a nice place with lots of great employees who already want
to get Dad back to normal. They know there’s
a long way to go.
I liked how you called yourself a bad nympher... what a crock :) Always so modiste arn’t you Jeff. On the other hand you are comparing yourself with some of the best in the world.
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