Blacksmith Fork River

April 12, 2008

Dan and I fished the Blacksmith Fork yesterday. The cutthroats were plentiful and most of them looked pretty healthy. I imagined we would be the first to fish this particular area, but I noticed some old footprints in the snow along the far bank of the river (only way to get there is by wading the river). So someone else probably was there within the last several days.

The fish were rising when we first arrived (about 12:45) in still pools. These cutts spook fairly easy so we probably put down more than we caught. By about 3:00 most of the rising had stopped but there was plenty of feeding just under the surface.

I used my trusty modified Sprout midge emerger to catch all the fish today. I caught two browns (promptly "harvested") and eight cutts (missing many more than caught—the only thing I don’t like about the Sprout, it’s too small and about 30% of the time I can’t find it on the water).

We were pretty disappointed about the number of "Private Property" signs that have popped up in the past year on the lower portion of the river. I’ll have a post about property rights and trespassing one of these days.

On our way out, crossing the bridge at the mouth of the canyon, we saw a prolific hatch. We turned around and parked to inspect it a little closer. At first I thought they were mayflies, but it was a nice hatch of caddis. I don’t think I have ever seen that kind of caddis hatch on the Blacksmith before. I’ve seen nice salmonfly hatches though. Anyone heading up in the next day or two might want to take a supply of 12-16 caddis patterns.

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