Henry's Fork July 2009: Day 2

Date / Time: 7/2/09 Location: Henry’s Fork Idaho The Characters: Kory Kapaloski, Paul Callister (PJ) Weather: Partly cloudy, mostly sunny Water Temp: Mid 50s Water Level / Tide: Low water 600 cfs Water Clarity/Quality: Clear Moon Phase: 1st quarter Fishing: Started in the same spot on lower Harriman’s as day 1. PJ hooked a big fish in the shallows up high and ended up landing it about 100 yds downstream. I was stuck on some risers so didn’t see it. We walked down and I ended up fishing some pigs in the tailout below the deep pool. Several wouldn’t eat the drake, so I switched to one of PJ’s flavs and moved down to another good fish that was cruising and slurping. I put a few drifts over him and he wolfed it down, hooked him and he jumped several times and ripped me pretty good. Eventually he got me into some moss and was gone. Moved down into the sidechannel and spooked a bunch of fish out of there, more than i realized since only one sporadically rose.  Fished up and down through there and worked back up to the flat above the pool. Had a few midsize fish up and got a few eats on flavs. PJ caught up with me and we were heading back up and a good fish rose right in front of us. I put a drift over it and it chowed the fly. Decent battle, 16-17 inch good fish. We then headed up and found a really big fish up below the acces that we spotted from the trail. I moved out to fish to him and overshot it and put him down. Went up into millionaire’s and nobody was there. There were a few good fish up so I went and got a beer and watch PJ. As he got into position a pelican flew right over and then floated right through the fish, pretty hilarious. They came back up, but he never got one to eat and we headed back. Ended up napping and breaking down camp through the afternoon. Early in the evening, we came back to this same spot below millionaire’s. Brown drake spinners just starting to fall. Got one smallish fish on PJ’s drake spinner on the way down. Then I went to the sidechannel remembering the fish in there from the a.m. Sure enough they were in there. I moved in and put a drift over a big fish that was crusing and slurping. He engulfed it and i set too early, whiff! Another fish came up a few times, put it over him, he ate I hooked him pretty good battle but never ran out of the channel. About a 15-16 real pretty fish. Moved out to the middle channel and there were some pigs starting to chow down the far bank and through the middle. PJ was moving up and I was moving down. Some of the biggest fish were at the bottom and I saw PJ was going to have a shot at one of them. Sure enough he made the cast, the fish ate and the battle was on. It jumped, ran at him since he was in the deeper water cover and was off downstream. 10 minutes later he was yelling for me to come check it out. It was a monster another just under 23” and super fat. Beautiful fish! I went back up and proceeded to miss every good fish. Landed a few mid size fish, but kept setting early on the big fish. Too excited, frustrating! PJ ended up getting another giant in the sidechannel and I think one more down below it. He had an epic evening. The Brown Drakes were all over the water that night both duns and spinners, it was quite a sight just to see all those fish and bugs. We eventually departed around 10:30 and did the redeye drive back to slc at 3:30 a.m. Awesome trip!