Female Steelhead
Old Cabin. Stanley, Idaho
Salmon River
Salmon River
We are in the middle of our steelhead season on the Salmon River near Stanley. Lots of cold and wet and snowy weather so far...and as payday, steelhead too. The water level should finally make a bump later this weekend as high temps are looking to migrate to at least the mid-forties. Any small bump at this point should really get things going as more fish will likely move upstream and other runs will become fishable...
Vole Skull
The skull image above was taken from an owl pellet near the Nature Conservancy Cabin. For scale, the entire skull could fit on my thumbnail. The pellet this skull came from contained at least 3 entire vole skeletons... The Spring clouds and snow on brown hillsides makes for wonderful contrast. Mid-April through mid-June is my favorite time of year to shoot Silver Creek.
April Tree Line. Salmon River Basin
3 image pano taken with the Nikon 35 f2 lens.
Spring Gray. Monochrome.
Still lots of snow up high and along the Upper Salmon River while the lower elevation snow, below 6,000 feet or so, is waning. I have been on the river 7 days a week and have seen all kinds of weather from one freakish, sunny, 60 degree day to lots of wind and snow showers especially in the Stanley area. No one day has been the same other than the fact my feet have been COLD day after day... More snow expected in Stanley tonight.
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...
"Winter Wheel Line Pano"
The above image is a seven frame pano looking toward Picabo, Idaho. I used NIK's Color Effex Pro 2 for the black and white conversion and Photoshop CS5 for the photomerge process. The Queen's Crown is the prominent hill way in the background.
On a fishing note, the Lost and Big Wood are both fishing very well. Baetis and midges on the Lost and midges and a few small stones on the Wood. This is arguably one of the best weeks of the year on the Lost and Wood. Keep in mind the Lower Lost now is open year round.
As far as steelhead go on the Salmon I have been up to the upper river--Stanley area--quite a bit lately and while there are a few fish around it seems like it's going to be a waiting game until more fish start moving up. The water temp yesterday morning at 11 AM around mile marker 206 on the Salmon was 36 degrees!
"Sawtooths After A Storm"
I drove up to Stanley today and poked around looking for steelhead. There are fish in the upper river--Torrey's and upstream to Redfish-- but there does not appear to be that many from what I saw today. In about a week there should be substantially more fish in the upper river to make the trek to the Salmon River worthwhile. While the recent storm produced lots of rain at lower elevations, that was not the case at higher elevation. New snow on Titus was reported to be 14" with storm totals in the Sawtooths up to 30".
The above pano was taken handheld with the Nikon 50 1.8 lens.
"Red Winged Blackbird"
So...here's one just edited on NIK's new Silver Effex Pro 2. The selective color control point--essentially lets you decide where to restore color to a monochrome image-- is MUCH easier to use/work with than Photoshop and can yield some unique results. If you don't use any of NIK's plug-ins you can try them out for free for 15 days... Be advised, you will want to purchase after trying them out. They are pretty amazing!
I am off to Stanley tomorrow to look for and hopefully find some early season steelhead before the hordes show up in mid-April.
Every once in awhile I will be sharing another fly fishing photographer's website that really, in my opinion, stands out. Here's one by Matt Jones: http://theflyphoto.com/
In particular his underwater shots are phenomenal and his desire and willingness to share photography insight is exemplary... Anyway, check out his site.
It's his site, after all, that led me, yesterday, to purchase a Go Pro. I have not received it yet , but I am really looking forward to getting underwater video footage. If you have not been to the Go Pro website it's worth checking out the video that immediately pops up: http://gopro.com/
I am still adding to my galleries and this one above just made the cut. It was taken early last fall and like many others didn't grab my attention when I originally uploaded it from my camera...
While the image above makes me think of warm summer nights, today was a real blast of spring with highs around 46! More precipitation forecast for tomorrow and tomorrow night. We'll see...
A winter view from Gannett Road. Two wheel lines and rolling hills. This is a 3 image pano taken on a tripod. Each image was composed with the Nikon 14-24 2.8 at 24mm.