Big Wood River Midge Shucks
Midge. Big Wood River
Warm temps and lots of bugs on the Big Wood at the moment. By Saturday and Sunday we could see daytime highs around 60! Now is the time to be on the river...
Nikon D200 & Nikon Micro 105 lens with extension tubes
A photography niche of mine is certainly fly fishing. I am on the river quite a bit and I usually or almost always have a camera with me... In any event, I am still inspired by many other photographers or genres regardless of their respective niche. Surfing photography would be a genre I am inspired by and despite the fact I do not surf I still look forward to my quarterly delivery of The Surfers Journal.
On that note, I have been devouring any current info I can get on large format photography--mainly 4 X 5. Eventually I would love to shoot with a 4 X 5 view camera for many reasons including the range of movements and the finest quality available when it comes to the final print. In my quest to learn more I have come across a wonderful podcast that covers many types of photography and many of the great photographers too. The podcast and web site is: The Art Of Photography It is ceratinly worth checking out and hopefully learning a bit about either a great photographer or a type of photography.
Big Lost River. March
Lost River & Storm. Pano
The above images represent two recent days on the Lost. Spring weather for sure. Colder than it has been but highs are looking like they could hit 60 in Mackay on Saturday.
Nikon D3S & Nikon f2 35 lens
Big Lost River, Idaho
Nikon D3S & Nikon f2 35mm Lens
Late Winter. Salmon River, Idaho
Matt Sherman getting the most out of a switch rod. Salmon River
Late Winter & Brown Hills. Salmon River Near Challis, Idaho
Fully 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
A Rainbow slices through the foam and midges on the Big Wood River. There are many, many midges on the water during the heat of the day now and the Big Wood River is giving up some of the best technical dry fly fishing of the year.
Nikon D3S & Nikon f2.8 afs 80-200 lens
I did a family shoot last week and here are a few of the images...
Nikon D3S & Nikon f2.8 80-200 afs lens
Also, I just watched the documentary, Annie Liebovitz: Life Through A Lens It's a great story and really dives into who Annie is and has been.
Yellowstone Wolves from nick price on Vimeo.
February 2012. Mollies Wolf Pack
This is a short video I took while in Yellowstone in February. It's of the Mollies wolf pack and shot in the Little America area. I used the D3S and Nikon 80-200 lens. It was completely dark. At the time, the Mollies had wandered north from the Pelican Valley to look for better hunting. They happened to be really close to the Lamar, Agate, & Blacktail packs.
Lost River Rainbow
Lots of fish up on the surface mid-day right now on the Lost River. Very few baetis but lots of midges. Highs are expected to be in the low 50's the next few days. Should be stellar.
Nikon D3S & Nikon 35 f2 Lens
Rainbow. Big Lost River, Idaho
Post release rainbow on the Lost
A release...
Nikon D3s & Nikon 35 f2 lens
The Nikon f2 35mm lens has become my favorite lens to haul around while guiding or on the river. First, the focal length--when mounted on a 35mm sensor or full frame sensor-- is generally exactly what I want and if it's not I can move around until it is. Yeah, it's not super wide but it does have a minimum focus distance of 9.84 inches which is great for non-macro close-up shots. It is small and easy to carry around for a full day on the river. And, finally, it has a pretty fast max aperture of f2 allowing for some more creative shots and the ability to really minimize depth of field. This was the first Nikon lens I owned and I carried it around for over a year before purchasing any other lenses.
On another note, while it is snowing here at the moment the forecast for later in the week is for unseasonably warm weather which should make for some great days on the river. Here's a clip from the current NOAA forecast for Ketchum, Idaho:
A Bald Eagle takes off near Silver Creek.
While Silver Creek is now closed to fishing it's still a great place to go walk around. I took this image yesterday. Trumpeter Swans, Harriers, Eagles, Elk....
Nikon D200 & Nikon f2.8 80-200 afs lens
Picabo Hills Winter Wheel Line Pano
Above is a 7 image pano taken this winter near Picabo. I shot it at 200mm. When using a longer lens for panos I highly recommend learning how to find the "nodal point". Here is a good piece on how to find the nodal point on any given lens.
Nikon D3s & Nikon f2.8 afs 80-200 lens
Moonrise, Milky Way & Caster
I took this image late last summer and well after dark at Silver Creek. The mosquitoes were fierce despite the short-sleeved weather.
f2.8 and 3 second exposure at 12,800 iso
Nikon D3s & Nikon f2.8 14-24 lens
Lower Big Wood River. Fall
Nikon D3s & Nikon 35 f2 lens
The above image I took last fall on the Lower Big Wood River. It's a 9 image pano. It's hard to believe this fantastic tailwater fishery is only forty minutes from Sun Valley. It's stays open through March and is certainly worth investigating.
Release. Big Wood River
Nikon D3S & Nikon 35 f2 lens
Here's the opening paragraph from, Hole In The Sky, a memoir by William Kittredge, a college professor of mine at The University of Montana:
"Maybe children wake to a love affair every other morning or so; if given any chance, they seem to like the sight and smell and feel of things so much. Falling for the world could be a thing that happens to them all the time. I hope so, I hope it is purely commonplace. I'm trying to imagine that it is, that our childhood love of things is perfectly justifiable. Think of light and how far it falls, to us. To fall, we say, naming a fundamental way of going to the world--falling."
Big Wood Winter Rainbow
Great stuff on the Big Wood River right now. Highs hovering around 32 and very few people on the river. Good midge fishing on the surface mid-day with even better nymphing. By mid-March, the dry fly fishing should be super good on the Big Wood and even better on the Lower Big Lost River if you can tolerate the longer drive.
Nikon D3S & Nikon 35 f2 lens
Rope Swing. South Fork Payette
Steel Bridge. South Fork Payette
Stanley Basin
Nikon D3s & Nikon 24 pc-e lens
Lamar Valley Cottonwood
While the snowpack was not super deep, the daytime temps were pretty cold and once the sun dropped the temps quickly plummeted below zero. The cold overnight lows helped produce the great whoar frost on many trees in the Lamar Valley.
Winter Cottonwood. Lamar Valley
Lone Bighorn. Upper Lamar Valley
Winter Morning & The Gardner River
Long Exposure. Gardner River
Long Exposure. Gardner River
Note: The nearby town of Gardiner is spelled differently than the Gardner River. The town and the river are named after the trapper, Johnson Gardner of the American Fur Company. The town of Gardiner is a misspelling.
River Of Tracks. Lamar River
I could see doing an entire project on tracks in the snow... Obviously, not all animals wander in a straight path.
Jeff Hull watching a lone wolf calling out to the 19 member Mollies. Slough Creek, Yellowstone
Leo Gaertner, the co-owner of Buns "n" Beds in Cooke City, Montana gets the lunch time BBQ going. His prime rib and pork ribs are fantastic. Buns "n" Beds is a great lunch and dinner stop. They also offer simple cabins for around $65 a night. The drive from the Lamar Valley to Cooke City is less than a half an hour.
Predator & Prey. Yellowstone National Park
Tracks In The Snow. Lamar River, Yellowstone
Mouse & Raptor. Yellowstone
Soda Butte Tributary & Tracks. Yellowstone
Wolf Tracks. These particular tracks belong to a member of the Mollies. My friend Jeff Hull and I watched this particular wolf cross the road the night before and we went back to check out the tracks the next morning. Yellowstone
Two sets of wolf tracks.
A super high iso image of a Mollie crossing the road. My friend Jeff and I watched many of the 19 Mollies cross the road to find 3 or so of their other members. The Mollies are generally bison hunters and have apparently left their home turf, the Pelican Valley, due to a low snow pack and tough hunting conditions. The Mollies are on average 15 pounds heavier than other wolves in Yellowstone. At the time I took this image the Lamar pack was only about 5 miles to the east and the Blacktail and Agate packs 2 to 5 miles to the west.
Many of the 11 member Lamar pack in their home turf, the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone. This is an 11 member pack. Not long after I took this image I watched a helicopter come roaring into the Lamar Valley with a side door open and a gunner standing on the outside rail. It was the Park Service and they darted two of the Lamar members. They also apparently on the same day darted two Mollies out of my sight. If the darted wolves were not already collared, collars were put on them and additionally blood and tissue samples were taken.
Bison & Wolf Tracks. Slough Creek
At the time I took this image a lone wolf, presumably a male, came within a hundred yards of the Mollies and called and called to the Mollies. The Mollies occassionally called back, and my intrepretation of the mollies' calls was, get the hell out of here. It's mating season and this wolf was likely looking for a mate. I am sure by now something played out and I will likely never know if this wolf was killed by the Mollies or if it was able to successfully mate with a female and then sneak off.
Bison & Slough Creek
North Hills & Moon. Lamar Valley.
East 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.