Henrys Fork of the Snake/Harriman State Park

Fly Fishing the West
Vol. 7, Issue 1
Monday, August 10, 2009
Henry's Fork of the Snake River at Harriman State Park
Island Park, Idaho

The Henry's Fork of the Snake River at Harriman State Park is coming out of Box Canyon. (This land was donated by the estate of E. H. Harriman, the Union Pacific Railroad magnate of the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" fame.) Here it flows into an area known as the Ranches, then the park. The water here is wide, flat and shallow flowing through meadows where sagebrush replaces pine trees. The stream bottom is rich in green, flowing weed beds. Trent, Jerry, Todd, Steve, and I traveled south on Idaho Highway 20 from Island Park Dam at 6:15 am to a fisherman access parking lot, I believe just north of the park. It was still dark and we hiked a short ways downstream after crossing a canal parallel to the stream. Todd crossed the stream in the fog and I lost sight of him. Going up or down stream seemed to make little difference because all the water looked the same, i.e., wide, fast and shallow with an occasional small rock or boulder sticking up in the middle. I fished this water with a dry fly/sinking tip setup. I also added a dropper to some of the bigger dry flies, i.e., a size 18 flashback midge. After fishing for about an hour I went looking for what aquatic life might be in the stream. Turning over both rocks and logs at the stream edge I found, 1) tiny brown 'midge' looking bugs crawling on the rock underside (I have seen these on almost every stream I have ever checked across the rocky mountain west), 2) two leeches, one about an inch long, and 3) a lot of huge "rock rollers" caddis larvae inside rock casings. (The larvae had big yellow bodies with premature wings and black heads.) I subsequently tried two size 4 Wooly Bugger flies, one with a bullet-type bead head and one without. I did get one good strike on the bead-head fly, but nothing else. (A Maribou Leech may do better.) Trent had to leave at 8:30 am, which he did. We did not stay much longer. Essentially no one had any luck fishing that morning.

Other Miscellaneous Information/Observations:

1. Fishing this wide, flat, shallow fast water is altogether different than the more prevalent fly-fishing of riffles, holes, deep runs, slow, meandering water, etc. It would be fun and a challenge to figure out how best to approach this kind of water and learn just how to fish it successfully.
2. A 2009 Idaho out-of-state fishing license was $53 for 7 days, i.e., $12.50 for the first day and $6 for each successive day plus a "convenience" fee of $4.96.