Salmon River Steelhead

It's steelhead time on the Salmon River. The fish seem to be showing up between Stanley and Challis. The image below of the smallish hen was taken today.​ The water is still low and clear but the snow pack at lower elevations in the Stanley Basin is far below normal.

Salmon River Steelhead

Salmon River

salmon river black & whiteLate Winter.  Salmon River, Idaho

salmon river fly fishingMatt Sherman getting the most out of a switch rod.  Salmon River

fly fishingLate Winter & Brown Hills.  Salmon River Near Challis, Idaho

fly fishingFully Engaged...

Spent the day on the Salmon River yesterday.  Warm weather and steel grey.  The high temp in Challis was near 60 and the river slowly crept up all day.  This is only a good thing as far as getting a few steelhead to get moving.  Only the higher elevations saw snow yesterday and last night.  Rains at lower elevations are stripping the snowpack.  It actually is starting to smell earthy and Spring-like as rotten Fall leaves are now exposed and decaying and once frozen dirt is softening and illiciting subtle hints of a cottowood stench that I can only associate with Spring near a river.

 

Nikon D3S and Nikon 24 pc-e lens

Salmon River Steelhead

 

 

 

 

More images from Stanley, Idaho.  The warmer weather finally has brought the Salmon River up a bit and I suspect it will continue to go up until at least Tuesday when the overnight low is supposed to be back in the teens...

On another note, I recently licensed an image to Orvis.  It is a brown drake shot and is being used as a header on their fly fishing web page.  You can check it out HERE.

Salmon River

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...

The Salmon River And Sawtooths...

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...