Basic Idaho report

[Kevin Goding]

Was in the Stanley area, then worked my way down to Jarbridge Nevada. Most of the upper mountain streams are blown out, as they are just getting done with snowmelt in Idaho. I wouldn't say they were ripping beyond capacity by any means, but clarity was moderate, and very few spots that fish could just hold easily. Everyone I talked to said the same thing, fishing was slow, unless you were trolling on a lake. Most of the big rivers are really cold right now as well, keeping the action down. Although, one guy I talked to said, on the Snake the water is warming up about a degree a day, and the fishing was improving. This being the case I hunted around a lower gradient area and randomly found Silver Creek, which is a fairly low gradient stream. The flows were low, and the water was warm, however the brown trout and whitefish were pretty abundant and liked my damselfly imitation.
Finally got to Jarbridge, however the creeks and streams there were running pretty fast to my disappointment, as last year when we were in that area about this time, conditions for catching trout were ripe. They were still getting snow there 3 weeks ago, now it's 90 degrees. I ended up not having anytime to fish anyway, as the drive was further than I had planned and had to catch a flight out of Boise in the evening. But overall in a couple weeks the fishing should be pretty good in Idaho and Nevada, right now everyone in Idaho is waiting for the salmon run. The fish and game just put out the monitoring traps, but no salmon yet.