Well it’s here. After months of uncertainty, canceled trips to Mexico, long spring days full of social distance in the Wyoming backcountry — the visitors have again flocked to Jackson Hole and our 2020 guide season has begun to shape and fill in the calendar.

The Snake is currently 2800 CFS from Jackson Lake Dam and the fishing has remained a subsurface game. The water is high and stained, and most guides have found the best success running a two or three fly nymph rig with rubber legs and natural colored bugs like princes and pheasant tails. Anything flashy becomes a disco ball near the bottom where the fish are currently most prevalent, appearing unusual and detracting interest.

The feeding lanes near the bank continue to lay vacant as most trout have held along current seams and deep eddies. This will change soon however, as large PMD’s 12-14s have appeared in the afternoon beneath riffles and within trickling side channels.

Below Pacific Creek, the water is still a week or two out from fishing. The Buffalo Fork continues to run color under highway 89 and the ramps at Deadman’s Bar and Moose and Wilson continue to satisfy only those in rubber rafts looking up at the mountains and not within the chalky margins of the Snake.

Tributaries have taken some shape, with runs, and troughs and cutbacks all gaining definition. Think the smallest of tributaries, Brook trout sized streams with Cutthroat trout equal in size as the best current backcountry opportunities.

Jenny Lake has seen spurts of surface feeding with ants and caddis along the placid shores lee side of the wind. Target tributary mouths, bars and points for scattered Lake trout and larger Cutthroat.

Morel Season has come and gone. Agates now appear across newly swept gravel bars. Grizzlies persist on rotting carcasses scattered from the winter and yellow bursting Balsomroot. Pronghorns break between and alongside herds of shedding Bison. Forest Service roads have baked and rutted into 4x4 shape, as clouds of dust trail the Jeeps and trucks crawling beneath Shadow Mountain. Summer is here in Jackson Hole.

#RiverRangeAdventures

#wherethewildstillholdsdominion