Fishing in the Rain - IN DECEMBER!

We don’t get a lot of rain in Eastern Idaho.  Summers are dry and during spring when we get most our precipitation it often comes in the form of sloppy snow.  So as funny as it sounds, when I get the opportunity to fish in the rain I take it.  Today Tom Montgomery, Paul Bruun and I kept our late season tradition of floating the South Fork alive while fishing in the rain. 

It’s December for crying out loud.  We should have two feet of snow on the ground.  Every boat launch on the South Fork should be impassible and instead of getting doused by rain when we started today it should have been blinding snow.  But this is a strange year.  There’s no snow on the ground and today it was 45º.

We did a short float from the Spring Creek Bridge to Conant.  I’m still in the “Belize” mode and as Tom rowed I put my feet up and kicked back while Paul meticulously worked a riffle with a tiny dry fly with a midge dropper.  He landed at least ten fish in the time it took me to enjoy a cigar and a beer.

Paul took the oars next and Tom and I smacked streamers against the banks and in the tail outs.  One particular tail out has a new name, the hamburger hole.  Last month a big truck lost control and skidded off the road and plunged into the South Fork.  The truck lost 39,000 pounds of burger and most of it ended up in this one hole.  The place was lined with eagles, hawks, crows, ravens, raccoons and the list goes on for weeks.  Unfortunately there’s a lot of trash lying around also, but not enough to keep this big rainbow off Toms fly.

I had no business fishing today.  I have tons of work to do.  But what the hey, anytime you can spend a day fishing with good friends it should be taken.  That being said, I’m grinding for a week now.  On Wednesday December 12 I present my updated, “Improve Your Fishing Photos”, for the Madison – Gallatin Chapter of Trout Unlimited in Bozeman, Montana.  It should be great fun!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing