Fishing Report - Blackfoot River

This last Friday, after being rained out of a float trip on Wyoming's Green River, I fished on Idaho's Blackfoot River with my dad. The fishing was amazing and we caught around 30 fish with an average size of 18". I landed the biggest cutthroat that I have ever caught - a 25" - 5lb cutthroat. I was by myself when I landed this fish so the picture doesn't really show the size of this fish. The second picture is of a 22" cutthroat that I caught right before the big one. Here are the pictures for comparison:

25" Cutthroat Trout

22" Cutthroat Trout

Fishing was so good that we were catching multiple trout in the + 20" size in the same run which is pretty rare on the Blackfoot River.

We also lost 15+ fish in the 18-24" range. The trout were really aggressive and when hooked they would take off downstream, jump out of the water, and fight like crazy.

The hot flies for the day were woolly buggers. Black woolly buggers with a peacock hearl, green body or orange body, with some crystal flash in the tail and bead heads were the best flies. Fly sizes ranged from 4-12. There was a huge BWO hatch on so I also caught some smaller fish on a BWO pattern. The bigger fish didn't even look at the BWO's.

Surprisingly we also caught quite a few pure rainbows in the 18-22" size. This is the first year in a long time that we have seen pure rainbows in the Upper Blackfoot River. Here is a picture of one of the rainbows:

Blackfoot River Fly Fishing Videos

Here are a couple of videos of my dad hooking into a couple beautiful Cutthroats:

Blackfoot River Fly Fishing Report - July 1

The heat wave pummeling Southeast Idaho took its toll on fly fishing on the Blackfoot River as the day wore on but early in the day, fishing was excellent. My dad and I each caught around 10 fish with the super majority of fish in the 16-20" range. I lost a couple of fish and nipped a few more that were in the 20" + range. Although we didn't catch a lot of fish, the overall size of fish was above average for the Blackfoot River.

Here's a couple of photos of the cutthroats we caught yesterday:

We caught the majority of the fish on black bead head wooly buggers and bead head prince nymphs. Later in the morning I started catching some big fish on blue damsel flies. Even with low water the fly fishing was great on the Blackfoot River. Surprisingly, I also caught a pure 18" rainbow trout - the first rainbow I have seen on the Blackfoot in years.

Warm River Fishing Report

This last Saturday, I went fishing on the Warm River in Island Park, Idaho near the Bear Gulch area. It was a beautiful day and the fishing on Warm River was above average. There was little fly activity but I ended up catching 15+ fish and my dad caught 10+. I caught one brown, a few rainbows, and a whole bunch of mountain whitefish.

I kept a few of the whitefish and ate them for Sunday dinner. If it wasn't for all of the bones in whitefish, they would be an excellent meal because they taste good and are super tender.

The hot flies for the day were a double renegade and a beaded prince nymph fished with split shot above the first fly. We also caught a few on smaller adult stonefly.