SHANGRI-LA We knew Idaho’s Henry’s Fork of the Snake River to be sacred ground in American dry fly fishing. The upper stretch, the Railroad Ranch in Harriman State Park, is particularly mythical. Almost every angler we spoke to during the tour told us we had to fish it. The next day was the last fishing day of the tour, and it felt right to spend it at “the Ranch.” This five-mile-long stretch of the river is quite special. The river is 150 feet wide, slow-flowing and knee-deep. You can cross it anywhere. The riverbed con-sists of gravel and small stones, with large tufts of aquatic plants. Most of the water in the river comes straight from the ground a few kilometers upstream in Big Springs. Drift boats are prohibited and there is no road along the river, so you have to walk. There are only rainbow trout there, and the fishing is known to be challenging and highly technical, with large selective fish that have seen everything in terms of flies. We were advised to hike a couple miles without fishing, even if we happened to see rises while walking. The day was hot, with the sun scorching from a cloudless sky—not ideal conditions for green drakes, in other words. After an hour of searching, we found a fish rising gently to tiny spinners. It was Tapani’s turn to fish, and after many fly changes and countless casts, he managed to entice it with a sparse CDC Rusty Spinner on a size-18 hook. The fish was beautiful and well-fed, but it showed clear signs of having been caught and released many times. Both corners of its mouth were damaged and an old, rusty dry fly was stuck in its left jaw, with 15 inches of 6x trailing behind. We didn’t find any more rising fish that morning. In the afternoon, the weather changed, and it started to blow and rain hard. During the day, we had seen a few golden stoneflies crawling around. They’re not as large as the salmonfly, but still enormous. Joona put on an imitation that he got from flyfishing guide Marc Crapo and blind-fished along one of the islands in the wind. Up came the last fish of the trip, a beau-tiful rainbow trout we measured at 21.5 inches. • LEFT TO RIGHT • Marc Crapo with a rainbow from the Henry’s Fork River, ID. We finally managed to talk Marc into doing some fishing himself and it didn’t take long before he hooked this beauty. Waiting for the green drakes to start popping on the Henry’s Fork. Marc Crapo really had us figured out, and his way of fishing was just right. He knew the river and predicted the start of the hatch within a five-minute margin. THE FLYFISH JOURNAL 049
The Flyfish Journal The Flyfish Journal 15.4: Page 47
