Warmest day of 2011 today with highs in Mackay somewhere around 60! Sunny skies though and the baetis did not explode like they would in cloudy conditions. Still good fishing... Lots of melting snow and the Salmon River has already seen a bump in flow and will continue to see an increase overnight.
Great stuff on all of our water if you can stay warm enough. Water temp yesterday morning on the Salmon was a balmy 35 degrees. Two more days of the season left on the Big Wood River, then it's steelheading on the Salmon and trout on the Big Lost River. High temps are expected to hit 50 degrees by Thursday in Ketchum! If so, the dry fly fishing should be stellar...
Images taken with the Nikon 14-24 2.8 lens.
Salmon River Bull Trout from nick price on Vimeo.
I just received my GoPro Video Camera and Eye Of Mine Housing and gave it a go for the first time yesterday. Right after I turned it on for the first time we hooked a nice Bull Trout. It was trying to eat a small white fish we had hooked... Much more to come.
The image above was taken on the Lost River yesterday. We were on the river by 10:15 and nothing was happening. The nothingness lasted about 3 full hours and then the full on midge and baetis madness erupted. There were almost too many bugs. A little technical but lots of fun.
I have been playing around with trying to get the reel blurry and other parts of the image in focus. Think strong fish ripping line from a reel and better yet a little water on the line spraying in different directions.
Image taken with the Nikon 35 f2 lens at 1/30 of a second.
"Lost River Rainbow"
The above image was taken today on the Lost River. Lots of baetis and midges to be had! The color on the fish right now is extrodinary.
Image taken with the Nikon 35 f2 lens.
"Callibaetis Color"
Here's another image I skipped over last summer. It's of a callibaetis on Silver Creek and the focus is on the body rather than the head. This particular callibaetis had probably just molted which can explain the more vibrant body color. Image taken with the Nikon 105 2.8 and extension tubes.
I am in the process of going through my entire photo library and keywording just about all of my images. While this is a major pain to accomplish it really taught me a lesson: When uploading images--in my case into Aperture--ALWAYS add keywords, copyright and other pertinent info. It is far easier to do when uploading than years later with over 100,000 images to sort through.
Wet weather here today... Snowing. Wet snow.
Girdle bug... "The Gird's The Word."
Spent Midge
Some images taken today on the Big Wood. Sunny and mid-forties today. Looks like highs in the forties through the week with clouds too. We couldn't ask for much more...
Images taken with the Nikon 105 2.8 and extension tubes.
Lots and lots of midges on the Big Wood right now and the dry fly fishing is really good at the moment and probably will only get better unless we see drastic changes in our weather. I was on the Wood in Hailey and north of Ketchum today and while there were certainly more bugs North Valley, there was still plenty of good stuff as far downstream as Hailey. The last two weeks of March really are some of the best weeks of the year for dries on the Wood.
Lots of bugs on the Big Wood these days. Rained hard last night with a strong wind event and it is now about 20. Think ice. Otherwise it's warming and fishing really well. The three images above are of small winter stoneflies we get on the Wood starting around the end of February. They are called neumoras. The last image is to give you an idea of scale. They are small. Smaller than many of the super abundant midges crawling around on the snowy banks.
Here's a 5 frame pano I took and put together this evenning. I used NIK's new Silver Efex Pro 2 for the black and white conversion. It's leaps and bounds more versatile than Silver Efex Pro and worth every penny ($99) for the upgrade. If you have never heard of NIK check out thier site. They have many great free videos on editing which are extremely helpful. I have found NIK's plug-ins to be my go-to source for editing beyond what Lightroom or Aperture can accomplish.
Well, the Store/Purchase section on this website has been a long time in the making and tedious as well. I just added the Store page to this site moments ago! You can now purchase prints from me via a secure connection with Paypal. Many people have contacted me wanting to have the ability to buy prints with a credit card on this site and that is now possible. While I only have a fraction of my images in the purchase galleries at the moment, I will be adding to them daily. I also have the ability to email a secure invoice using Paypal should you want a print that has yet to make it to the purchase galleries.
Yesterday's clouds on Silver Creek East. Steel grey and warmish. Highs were in the low forties and midges were plastered to the melting snow banks. Fishing is now closed on Silver Creek except for a small portion downstream of Highway 93. This is a 43 megapixel, 8 image pano taken with the Nikon 35 f2 lens.
Unknown fly fisherman on the Big Wood River. I took these two images today. It was a brooding, warmish, snowy day. Moody. Midge weather and this guy had it figured out. One more month left on the Big Wood prior to the annual two month closure. March is arguably one of the best months of the year on the Wood. It's staying light noticeably longer and the window of very good dry fly activity is getting longer as well.
I took a walk along the Big Wood today and found MANY midges along the banks. There were quite a few heads up and an abundance of bugs despite the 22 degrees... I was hoping to find a few small stone flies but did not see one.
Images taken with the Nikon Micro 105 2.8 & Extension Tubes