Fly Fishing the Snake River in Idaho

Last Monday, I went fly fishing for the first time. Benton had gone with our guide, Woods, the previous Thursday, so we knew we were in for a treat. We went with Teton Valley Lodge and were very impressed. I think it would be awesome to go up there again for a couples weekend and stay at the fishing lodge. Their lodge prices are all-inclusive and include your room, food, and guided fishing trip each day - and they have no other activities besides fishing!

As you can imagine, the scenery was amazing! The water was pretty clear up to about 6 feet deep and in the deeper places the river was almost a mossy green color.

The native trout to the area is a Cutthroat species. We each caught 6 or more cutthroats - you can tell which type of trout they are by their bright orange gill slits. I used a plastic orange indicator bulb to help me know when a fish had taken either the wet or dry flies on my line. Since we were floating along with the current and the flies weigh so little, it was sometimes hard to know when I had a bite. Our guide kept yelling "take!" when we thought I was getting a bite and I know I missed several fish during the day.

There are also brown and rainbow trout in the river as well. Our guide told us that there is a local movement to banish brown and rainbows from the portion of the river because they aren't native species. We only caught a couple of brown trout, although I had a pretty good sized one that I couldn't get into the boat. I'm going to blame the current and 30 mph winds, rather than admit that I was still trying to get the hang of fly fishing. Benton caught one baby rainbow trout but our guide didn't keep it long enough to take pictures. Woods was more into fishing than waiting for us to take pictures of each other. He said they would all look the same in the pictures - little did he know that I've taken lots of fish pictures and studied plenty of fish to know the difference!

We fished seven miles of river and were out form about 10:30am - 5:30pm. We had a great day and I can't wait to try fly fishing again. Thanks to Benton's parents for watching Parker all day so we could have some alone time on vacation!