Silver Creek Rainbow

Heat of the day. Packed SUV's leave dust contrails on their way north with float tubes plastered to the roofs. Pretty soon Silver Creek is left with those who don't know any better or those who hope the weed beds will soon be smothered in a giant blue orgy. I've banked on it plenty of times and come up empty handed. It's a bit of a roll of the dice, but when it happens and enough fish are keyed into Damselflies, it'll make for a memorable afternoon.

A Silver Creek rainbow after taking a Damselfly.

Picabo, Idaho

Of all of the iconic Sun Valley, Idaho area places in the fly fishing arena, I think of Picabo at the top of the heap. It has, namely, Silver Creek running through it's backyard.

The prairie landscape is striking in more subtle ways than the mountains to the north. The culture in Picabo is quite different than that of its more upscale close neighbor, Ketchum (think Sun Valley, Idaho), to the north.  Picabo, while absolutely tiny, is an amalgamation of ranchers and farmers and ranch hands and cowboys and even a few fishermen.

HWY 20 near Picabo on any given morning before the sun rises, is active with mainly the ranchers and farmers driving their respective pick-ups to work sites. 

While being very interested in the specific fishing aspects of Silver Creek, I'm also really interested in the periphery of trout streams throughout the world. The periphery to me is the human and landscape aspect near a trout stream that is not necessarily fishing-centric. Farm workers and laborers, cowboys, hunters, Chilean gauchos, shepards and anyone else who may be a stakeholder near a river are examples of the trout stream periphery.

The Queen's Crown & Picabo. Fall 2016

Silver Creek Rising Rainbow

Cool and cloudy weather and often times flat out wet weather over the last two weeks have really ramped up the hatches on Silver Creek. Baetis and Mahogany Duns have been super consistent except for the days with too much rain. The image below was taken on Silver Creek during light rain and a good Baetis emergence.