Brown Drake Spinner Fall

Last night's Brown Drake spinner fall was a spectacle. We usually have one super heavy night and last night was it.

John Huber searches for a riser in the midst of a crazy Brown Drake spinner fall.

Waning light and spinner fall madness. Ray Gadd.

From dun to spinner. A Brown Drake sheds a layer.

Spinners

Guide hat and Drakes.

Brown Drake Spinner.

Silver Creek Brown Drakes IV

Here are a few more images from the last few evenings on Silver Creek...

Nick Anderson finds a target during a decent post 9 pm emergence.

John Huber and an after dark Brown.

Silver Creek Brown Drakes III

The Drake thing this year in addition to coming off early is creeping upstream at a snails pace. There was a small emergence and spinner fall late this morning as we had a little cloud cover. Hopefully tonight is a good as last night...

Brown Drake & Negative Space. Silver Creek, Idaho.

Brown Drake. Silver Creek, Idaho. There were not many bugs in the grass this morning but I did find a few including this one.

Silver Creek Brown Drakes II

Below is what happens when you get a couple of guides together and there really are no bugs but there are a few beers in the cooler and a pretty great night otherwise. It was about 39Ėš when we left the water around 11 pm and the bugs essentially didn't happen where we were. This could be a long drawn out Drake year...

Another version of utilizing a fly rod when there is no hatch... Silver Creek.

Silver Creek Brown Drakes

The Brown Drakes on Silver Creek started two nights ago. This is one of my favorite times of the year to be on Silver Creek. Expect to have about 5 more good nights with tonight and tomorrow night likely to have the most prolific bugs...

Bent Rod, Brown Drakes and Silver Creek.

Opening Day Silver Creek

In lieu of fishing with the masses on Saturday, opening day of fishing this year, three of us headed out to Silver Creek to get our first casts in at the stroke of midnight and the new season. We were just mousing around... Below are a couple of milky way images. There was a meteor shower on Friday night too but was not that spectacular from our vantage. The milky way, however, was lit up and spectacular.

First casts of the 2014 season on Silver Creek.

Silver Creek, two fishermen and the milky way.

Silver Creek, Idaho

Below is an image that I took near the end of February on Silver Creek this year. Note the lack of snow. While Picabo got some much needed rain today, Silver Creek is near an all time low for this time of year. The current flow has gone up to 85 cfs with the average for this time of year around 124 cfs. Diversions from the Big Wood River following Gannett Road are now full and the loss from those diversions will eventually make a positive difference with the flow on Silver Creek.

John Huber. Late February. Silver Creek, Idaho.

The Restoration of Silver Creek On The Double R Ranch

For those of you who have not seen this video yet, here is a great piece on the Purdy's portion of the Silver Creek restoration project. This is from the Picabo Angler You Tube Channel. Nick Purdy, in addition to operating the Picabo Livestock Company, K-K and Double R Ranch, also owns Picabo Angler in Picabo, Idaho. I am a guide for Picabo Angler.

Kilpatrick Pond Panorama

Below is a panorama--26 images in this case--of the entire Kilpatrick Pond. I took the images a couple of days ago and included both the Nature Conservancy and Purdy sections of Silver Creek. For those of you who do not know, the Kilpatrick Pond on Silver Creek has undergone a major restoration project which essentially culminated a few weeks ago with the "re-filling" of the pond. The pond was lowered to a stream level and diverted to the north while the old dam was taken out and the new dam installed. The impetus of the project was to mitigate warming water temps in the summer months by narrowing the channel and installing a dam with a bottom release in lieu of a top release. Over the summer months the water temps would gain over ten degrees from the upstream to the downstream end of the pond. A dredge was also used downstream of the Kilpatrick Bridge to pump out tons of silt and in doing so deepening the channel as well. Opening Day of fishing this year is on Saturday May, 24th.

Silver Creek Panorama.