South Fork
On warmer days we have been seeing good hatches of midges in the afternoons with exception of yesterday when the high was 28 with wind gusts to 40mph! The weather will return to a more typical March by this weekend.
For the next 30 days flows will be stable, low and clear. In addition to midges on the surface you will want to fish some streamers in the deeper pools. We like to use a fast sinking tip line or even a full sink when fishing streramers. If its early in the day and no midges are hatching we'll try a pair of tunsten zebra midges underneath a small foam indicator. Again we are looking for slow deep pools and we fish the midges up to 12 feet beneath the indicators.
At 1000 cfs the river is very wadeable so a boat really isn't helpful. If you do decide to take a boat be aware of the ice on the ramps as you put in and take out. A set of chains or a long rope will come handy. As of yesterday the ramps at Palisades Dam , Husky and Spring Creek are still snowed shut. You can slide a boat in at the Irwin slide and take out Conant but again be prepared to chain or rope the boat out. The ramp at Cottonwood is closed until at least April 15th so the next place you can put in is at Wolf. (I would really advise against floating the canyon due to the slow current which would not leave any time to fish.) From Wolf you can float to Byington and again really think about what you need to do to safely take your boat out. The channel to Twin Bridges is dry and will be until later this year so the next take out is Loenzo. At Lorenzo you drive down the concrete ramp and onto a gravel bar so a 4 wheel drive is a necessity.
March is becoming my favorite time of year to fish the South Fork because of the low water, no crowds and your rod guides stop freezing up! Fly Patterns to use:
Brook’s Sprout-Baetis
Egan’s Silver Bullet-Baetis
Antonio’s Adult BWO
