Silver Creek, Idaho

silver creek idahoEast Oxbow.  Silver Creek.  February 2012

Nikon D3s & Nikon 24 pce lens

There are only two more weeks to fish the section of Silver Creek downstream of Highway 20 before it closes for the season.  We have through the rest of February.  If you go, be armed with olive and black buggers and if you can go on a cloudy day even better.  Don't worry if the water is a bit off color as that will make the fish far less spooky and more likely to hold anywhere besides tight to the bank.

The Burn

Overexposed Burn Area.  Sun Valley, Idaho

Nikon D3s & Nikon 24 pc-e lens

This image was actually an accident.  I hiked through this burn area recently and dramatically overexposed a few images by mistake and after uploading them felt I could be on to something.  Generally I am on the side of slightly underexposed but I will certainly be playing around with dramatic overexposure...

November Sawtooths Pano

Sawtooths, Idaho.  November. (4 image pano)

Nikon D3S and Nikon afs 80-200 f2.8 lens 

I am using my Really Right Stuff macro rail mounted on a Really Right Stuff ballhead to find the nodal point on any given lens prior to shooting a pano.  If you want a great explanation of a nodal point and how to accomplish finding it click on this link HERE to go to Really Right Stuff's site and see their concise breakdown of what is and how to find a nodal point.

 

Silver Creek In November

 

 

Silver Creek, Idaho.  Early November

The above images were taken this morning about twenty minutes or so after the sun came up.  While setting up to take the top image from just off the road, a small agricultural truck at high speed swerved at me to within a few feet and effectively "buzzed my tower."  The two in the mini white truck caught some air as they uncontrolably left the road and somehow managed to get back on the road and vaporize in a cloud of dust and out to a field adjacent to Silver Creek...

Nikon D3S & Nikon 35 f2 lens

I am often sent articles, images videos, etc..., which for many reasons illicit all kinds of different emotions. Some, like the Wall Street Journal article I have a link to HERE, serve as controversial, thought provoking pieces.  In the WSJ article, the question, on a small section of California's Silver King Creek, is whether or not to rotenone and effectively "kill off" an entire section of the creek which would include a voluminous quantity of macro invertebrates in order to start from scratch and reintroduce the indigenous Paiute Trout.  The question I believe needs to be asked, rather than how to improve the fishery, is how to improve the watershed?

On a similar note, should you come across images, video or an article that you think is worthy of sharing, send it on to me. 

Here's a LINK to an incredible video on Tarpon fishing. 

 

Thunderstorms

We had a good thunderstorm last night and I was a little slow in getting out of bed.  I made it out though and didn't get the shots I was looking for, but here are a few anyway...

 

The Big Wood River is fishing almost like the Fall.  It has been fantastic with plenty of dry fly fishing starting around 9:30 or so and slowing down between 2 and 4 depending on the weather.  Baetis, midges, cream craneflies, #14 tan caddis and anything else fished with a zebra below.

 

Thunderstorm brewing and moving in:

 

 

Sun through the cottonwoods on the Big Wood River near Ketchum:

 

Back light and sun rays on the Big Wood.

High Elevation Summer

"The real world goes like this: The Neversummer Mountains like a jumble of broken glass."  That's the first line from James Galvin's novel, The Meadow.  It's been plastered to my mind over the course of the last month or so.  Today's my first day off the river from guiding in over a month.  My suburban is dirty.  Could use a vacuum job.  Late morning iced coffee.  No sunscreen, for now at least.  My lunch plates and cutting board sit clean in the kitchen.  Tomorrow's lunch is marinating in the fridge.  No morning rush to load gear and a fifty pound cooler into the back of my car.  No lunch prep last night.  Just what is it like to guide 32 or more consecutive days?  Every day is different.  Every person I have fished with this year, thank goodness, has been a pleasure to be with!  I have encountered one incredibly rude person on the Lost River.  I have fished with 5 year olds and an 80 year old and just about everything imbetween.  My only criteria is that the client(s) wants to be on the river.  Not too hard to meet that.  My office is the river and my job goes far beyond putting people on fish.  We eat when we are hungry.  Try and fish when the fishing is best and talk about whatever happens to come to our minds.  I have helped 2 people change a flat over the last week on Trail Creek road.  On one of those occassions, I helped Don, the cowboy living and working from cow camp in the Copper Basin.  He needed a tool I happened to have.  While he may have been grateful I happened to stop by, I was grateful to have had the opportunity to talk with him for a half an hour or so.  The social part of guiding is my favorite part and that includes articulating to someone how to get his or her size 14 royal stimulator from the fly-catch to the mouth of a feeding trout.  It includes talking about bugs and wildflowers and contentious issues like wolves, water and overgrazing.  So..., I feel lucky to have the opportunity to be on the water as often as I am and to observe what many can only imagine.

 

 

 

Golden Stonefly Shucks:

 

Sego Lily: