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Silver Creek rebounding from spring flood
Four months after an unusually large flood swept through Silver Creek, depositing silt in favorite fishing stretches and skewing insect hatches, most anglers say the prized trout stream near Picabo is fishing as well as ever. "There's nothing wrong here. The fishing's been good," said John McGough, of Hailey, as he changed out of his waders after a morning of fly fishing last weekend. "I'm seeing a whole lot of active, young fish, which is good news." During a warm, wet spell at the tail end of one of the snowiest winters in the last 25 years, flows on Silver Creek were measured at a swollen 460 cubic feet per second (cfs) on April 6 and 7, 2006. Average flows during spring runoff top out at about 200 cfs. When the waters opened to fishing in late May, many anglers complained that the physical structure of the creek had changed dramatically.
On the fly: Fish chix
Members of the Colorado Women Flyfishers made what is becoming an annual pilgrimage to the Pan, where some seriously dedicated anglers were in the river from morning til night and beyond.
Two guys returning to their vehicle on the upper river at dusk on Saturday night found more than a few women staking out a spot for the anticipated rusty spinner fall. The evening feeding frenzy was memorable on Friday night, club members assured anyone who wasnt there (this angler, for one).
The spinners, pale morning duns that fall dead into the water after laying their eggs at dusk, are apparently delectible to trout. The pockets of calm water along the bank can boil with glutonous fish during a spinner fall. (The mayflies turn a rusty color at this stage hence the name.)
The pattern with sparkle wings was the hot call on Friday night, but Saturdays overcast, rainy weather apparently put a damper on the PMD hatch earlier in the day, and the evening spinner fall as well.
Fishing Notebook: Most trout are not keepers
Pennsylvania anglers release well over half the trout they catch, according to a new study by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and Penn State University, which compared anglers fishing stocked streams for the first eight weeks of the 2005 trout season with those fishing wild trout streams mid-April to Labor Day in 2004. The stocked stream anglers averaged more than one fish per hour and released 63.1 percent of their catch, while the wild trout anglers averaged one brook or brown trout every two hours on large streams and two brook trout per hour on small streams, and released 92.7 percent of their catch. They preferred large over small streams by a ratio of 57.5 percent to 42.5 percent. More than 21 percent of the 2.1 million stocked stream trips were made on opening day weekend.
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