One Fish, Two fish...50 white fish

Idaho’s South Fork of the Snake River in is one of the more beautiful drifts that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing and who doesn’t love catching 14” – 20” cutts, bows, and cutt-bows on a dry fly? But after three days of watching our friend Buck catch whitefish after whitefish on nymphs out of the back of the boat, it was time to switch up.

Ryan and I re-rigged with golden stone point flies, black midge droppers and thinga-ma-bobs at about an 8 foot depth. Todd pulled the boat over in a quiet back channel and proceeded to cannonball into the river. Emerging from the water with renewed energy, he spent the next several hours on the oars and net. It turned into an epic day as we announced “pig on!”, “double!”, “triple!”, and the like (we could have toned it down a notch for the guides with paying customers but we were having one of those days!).

Now, I’m not going to pretend that it is remotely exciting to take a fly out of their mouths, but whitefish fight like rainbows and they will hone your skills with respect to hook-setting…and after all, they are a river dwelling fish. The South Fork advertises 4000 fish per mile and our lab results after one week on the river would suggest that 2500 of them are white fish…but seriously, what a fantastic river and yet another unbelievable time spent with friends!

An aside - Some say drift boats are made for three (one oarsman and two fisherman), but I say there are very few absolutes in this world. We often fish two at the bow and one aft. It gets cozy in the leg-locks and patience is a must but I wouldn’t trade it.