Sun Valley Area Fishing Report - March 23, 2016
Adaptability and having a lot of arrows in your proverbial quiver seems to be the key to success on most of our local rivers these days. Rapidly changing conditions both in the atmosphere and the water itself have made for some challenging days. It seems as though the anglers that have the willingness to switch techniques from run to run, river to river are doing just fine. Anglers that are stuck with one bag of tricks are not doing well.
The Big Wood is fishing well if you are switching to dry flies when the fish are up, nymphs when the water type is perfect and streamers the rest of the time! Anglers fishing closer to Ketchum are doing better than anglers fishing closer to Bellevue. Skwala Stoneflies have suddenly made an appearance on the Wood, signaling an early start to this year’s hatches perhaps? It is also a signal of change in the Wood as this is not an insect we consider most years in March.
Again, adaptability, letting go of what we think we know and believe to be true on our area rivers is important. There is no doubt that we are seeing a fundamental shift in how we fish in the Sun Valley area. Brown Drakes keep coming to Silver Creek earlier and earlier each season, Callibaetis is becoming a season long hatch instead of a heat of summer occurrence and more and more we are seeing odd events on the river and even bugs we’ve never seen before on our area waters.
No alarms here! It is all good. In fact we love the change and we love that it keeps anglers on our toes and keeps fishing interesting, especially for anglers that have been plying the Valley waters for several decades.
If you head out this week to any of our area waters, load for bear! This spring should continue to bring us events we were not expecting. Some good, some bad, but all interesting. Enjoy the warmish daytime temperatures and get out there!
Your best bets this week are the Lost River, the Salmon River for Steelhead, the Big Wood below Magic Reservoir, and the Big Wood north of Hailey continuing north of Ketchum a few miles. Don’t get discouraged by a tough hour or bad run on the river, just stay on the move, stay flexible with your technique and enjoy one of the best times of the year to be a local angler!
Happy Fishing Everyone!