As a guide on the Snake River in Wyoming, a question I get a lot from clients and anglers is “If you had just one fly to fish the Snake, what would it be?” This is a hard question. After all, the Snake is a dynamic fishery that changes more than most from year to year.
The late winter can see bluebird days in the 50s and 60s where slow glides and trickling riffles create ideal flows for imitating midges, BWOs and even large Skwala’s (an early season Stonefly) on the surface. Pre-runoff also brings about the spawning period for Cutthroat trout. This can trigger mature trout into aggressive hunting patterns of smaller fish or upended eggs.
In May, the high plains begin to warm and pour the winters snow back into the valleys and drainages that grow larger as they tumble into the low lying Snake. The river bloats to massive proportions and flooding ensues. Fishing is nearly impossible in the main channel, but the various springs and side channels that dissipate sediment now congregate hungry trout. San Juan worms and Rubber legs and Flashy Streamers all become choice.
As the Snake begins to drop and drift boats crowd the access areas, the two month precession of foam grasshoppers begins and all but consume the branches and overhangings that line the colored banks. The cobble cutbanks are treated to cacophanies of excited hoppers — buzzing beneath the hot sun. These terrestials will be the majority food source for trout during the summer months.
Then in September — as days grow shorter, colder, and wetter — Snake Drakes begin to emerge in the slow riffles and back eddies. This size 12 Mayfly will have Cutthroat staging in shallow water ready to feed on the abundance of late season insects. And for the guides on the Snake River, September also forces us to answer the very question, “If you had just one fly to fish the Snake, what would it be?”
As the Jackson Hole One Fly kicks off, guides eagerly await the conditions that will dictate their one fly choice. Rain storms and sudden weather events can dirty the water and raise flows that will prevent small dry flies from being seen on the main channels. Besides localized weather, the different stretches and water types will also play into the fly choice. Below the Dam is a placid stretch of water not affected by rain storms like downstream beats. A good angler and a size 16 rusty spinner should fool every fish during a hatch. But does that fly have enough meat to last the day? There are also more Lake Trout and Brown Trout up there making the streamer a tempting choice. The floodplain sections can be disasters of down timber, surging current and root balls — all of which can grab flies and ruin scores. Nymphs can snag easily and dry flies require lighter tippets than streamers, but Cutthroat don’t eat streamers like Brown Trout. With each angler receiving scores for just one single fly throughout the day, these variables of weather, stretch, ability, and tactics all affect this choice in fly.
I had drawn a park section of water beneath the Tetons. The 10-mile float from Deadman’s Bar to Moose would cross through a canyon and then a braded plain with a dozen smaller channels that change from year to year. Down timber and debris piles accumulate and create small buckets where foam flies excel. This section also has several spring creeks that hold large trout that will feed consistently on smaller mayflies. With little productive streamer water and a large population of whitefish that both won’t count and potentially weaken a nymphs’ construction, the choice is to stay on the surface.
Now what dry fly will produce the best? On a normal trip, I fish lots of double dry rigs with a larger foam hopper trailered by a parachute Adams variation. This tandem will take just about every fish in the river, but for the tournament my anglers would have to choose between the two patterns. Foam is quite durable and floats well in the fast main channel. Foam can also be colored to change the silhouette and reshaped with scissors. But the large profile is easy to reject for pickier trout. The small side channels and spring creeks will be best fished with a small and sparse mayfly pattern. A parachute Adams or Hecuba (Snake Drake) will be difficult to keep afloat in the faster main channels, resulting in lots of missed water and potential fish.
So the challenge becomes choosing a fly and the target water that will produce best. I want a fly that will fish small and float big. The pattern must also be tied bomb proof and cannot rely too much on the hackle for its profile because hackle is usually the first to unwrap. We learned this the hard way after one of my anglers’ simple parachute Hecuba patterns began to unravel after a few fish. The rest of the day we glued and glued until the fly didn’t resemble much of bug at all.
A pattern that has worked well on the park water for me has been a Hecuba imitation that is tied with wrapped Antron, hidden foam, and grizzly feathers tied in like a hackle spinner. The pattern floats great in the main channel, is easy to see with a white poly post and can fish small in the side channels.
The game plan had been agreed upon and the 2019 tournament was set to begin. Then the rain came. On Friday we received enough rain that the park water below the Buffalo Fork tributary has risen and stained. Lots of anglers were suddenly digging through their streamer boxes. I expected the greenish color to clear after a few hours and I had never done that well with streamers on this section even when conditions seemed right for it. The plan would be to really target the small water and get out of the boat as much as possible. As Saturday played out, we strung together enough decent fish to sit in the top 10 for boats.
“We gotta Fish in this?”
As Sunday morning rolled around, the Deadman’s access was again thrown with a curveball. The water was stained again after rains up north and the temperatures were in the 30’s with freezing rain. Today looked even more like a streamer day. Most boats cut the 4x and broke out the big feathers but I just wasn’t convinced. Even with dirty water and cold nasty rain, I knew where enough fish would be sitting just waiting for those surface bugs. And the cold nasty days always saw an afternoon emergence of Hecuba and Mahoganies, or so we hoped. One of my anglers decided against the dries and went with a crystal bugger type streamer. My other angler was local and agreed to gamble on the dries.
Snake Drake Hecuba
The morning began, as expected, very slow. We picked up a couple fish on the streamer but hadn’t so much as a tap on the dries. There were no bugs and certainly no rises to be seen. As we made our way downstream to the first set of braids, there was a log sitting in shallow water on an inside bend that no one every considered fishing. But there was a subtle depression, maybe 2 feet deep adjacent to the log, and there was always a big fish sitting there. We drifted the Hecuba through the trough and watched as a 19 inch yellow belly slowly sipped the bug. We landed the fish downstream in faster water that was still quite off color. Our plan was proving to work — target the small water where we knew there were fish.
Side Channels
We continued to pick through fish here and there in the small water, but things still hadn’t materialized. Then, as we fished a small pocket of water between timber piles on foot, we hooked a medium size trout and suddenly both the fish and the fly were gone. The knot had just landed another medium sized Cutthroat and had no signs of abrasion. Was it a root the line caught? Did the trout cut the line with his teeth? It was just an absolute fluke that left us with a low score card for the dry fly. After excessive profanities, we gathered back in the boat and continued fishing. The streamer was still in play and my dry fly angler continued with the same exact fly from the back of the boat.
Hecuba
We managed a few more fish on the streamer, including a 19” lake trout which I had never seen on that section before. As the boat squeezed into a small side channel, the clouds broke and patches of sunlight began to hit the water. Suddenly the Hecuba began emerging in the soft riffles and floating downstream. No slower were the Cutthroat that quickly began surfacing. There must have been six decent fish all rising from a small trough in this side channel. We tried everything with the streamer — deaddrift, fast retrieve, slow retrieve, twitch, and we even cut back the materials to make the pattern smaller, but nothing seemed to interest the feeding fish.
ONE FLY save
At the same time, from the back of the boat, my dry fly angler began hooking fish at will. Every rising target would quickly jump on the Hecuba imitation. As we continued down the side channel, each pool had rising fish. We landed a total of zero trout on the streamer and maybe 10 on the Hecuba, with nearly all the fish above 16”. It was an added insult to our scorecard as we chose the right fly and the right game plan. We would’ve won.
Rainy ONE FLY floats
Back at the ramp, the other teams felt similar results with lackluster streamer scores. Our Hecuba pattern was the right fly and could’ve been catalogued with the rest of the past winning patterns if it wasn’t for an unlucky break, but that’s fishing. And just like our story, there have been hundreds of similar days, where bad breaks and luck and a single choice of a single pattern all create circumstances for memorable triumphs and heartbreaks on the Snake River.
Photo Latham Jenkins