Spring Flowers

The above crocus showed itself in my garden a few days ago.

 

 

Images taken with the Nikon D200 and the Nikon 105 2.8 lens. 

Big Lost River

 

I fished the with these two brothers on the Lost the other day and their stoke to be on the river was very evident which made for a memorable day.  Total enthusiasm and even toward each other.  The above image sums up the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Stoke"

Clouds, A Fencepost & The Big Lost River

"Thunderhead"

"Fencepost"



"Fencepost" is a freelensed image taken with the Nikon 105 2.8 lens.

Still a COLD and wet Spring here but if you are intent on good dry fly fishing, now might be the best time of the year on the Big Lost River.  The water level is about 288 cfs and from roughly 11:30 AM to 4 PM the midge and baetis madness erupts.  Cloudy days have been far better.  It really is a treat to have a great Spring tailwater fishery in our backyard open.  With steelhead season in full swing, many are focused on the Salmon River and have forgotten about the trout thing.  Should be great stuff on the Lower Lost until the water levels go way up sometime in mid to late May.

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...

Spring On Silver Creek

Vole Skull

The skull image above was taken from an owl pellet near the Nature Conservancy Cabin.  For scale, the entire skull could fit on my thumbnail.  The pellet this skull came from contained at least 3 entire vole skeletons...  The Spring clouds and snow on brown hillsides makes for wonderful contrast.  Mid-April through mid-June is my favorite time of year to shoot Silver Creek.

Upper Salmon River Basin Pano

Still lots of snow up high and along the Upper Salmon River while the lower elevation snow, below 6,000 feet or so, is waning.  I have been on the river 7 days a week and have seen all kinds of weather from one freakish, sunny, 60 degree day to lots of wind and snow showers especially in the Stanley area.  No one day has been the same other than the fact my feet have been COLD day after day...  More snow expected in Stanley tonight.

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...

Big Lost River

 

 

New snow and dry fly fishing in March.  With steelhead just starting and the Big Wood and Lost fishing well and others simply thinking about skiing there are plenty of great options...  The flow on the Lost was bumped up almost 100 cfs to 218 cfs.

The bottom image is a 3 frame pano.

Picabo, Idaho

"Winter Wheel Line Pano"

The above image is a seven frame pano looking toward Picabo, Idaho.  I used NIK's Color Effex Pro 2 for the black and white conversion and Photoshop CS5 for the photomerge process.  The Queen's Crown is the prominent hill way in the background.     

On a fishing note, the Lost and Big Wood are both fishing very well.  Baetis and midges on the Lost and midges and a few small stones on the Wood.  This is arguably one of the best weeks of the year on the Lost and Wood.  Keep in mind the Lower Lost now is open year round. 

As far as steelhead go on the Salmon I have been up to the upper river--Stanley area--quite a bit lately and while there are a few fish around it seems like it's going to be a waiting game until more fish start moving up.  The water temp yesterday morning at 11 AM around mile marker 206 on the Salmon was 36 degrees! 

Big Lost River

The image above was taken on the Lost River yesterday.  We were on the river by 10:15 and nothing was happening.  The nothingness lasted about 3 full hours and then the full on midge and baetis madness erupted.  There were almost too many bugs.  A little technical but lots of fun.

I have been playing around with trying to get the reel blurry and other parts of the image in focus.  Think strong fish ripping line from a reel and better yet a little water on the line spraying in different directions. 

Image taken with the Nikon 35 f2 lens at 1/30 of a second.

Lost River Rainbow

              "Lost River Rainbow"  

 

The above image was taken today on the Lost River.  Lots of baetis and midges to be had!  The color on the fish right now is extrodinary. 

Image taken with the Nikon 35 f2 lens.