Henry's Fork June 8-10, 2018

Date / Time: 6/8-6/10/2018. Location: Henry’s Fork Idaho. Fun Farm Day 1 (evening). Vernon to Chester float day 2 and fun farm late evening. Chester to Fun Farm float day 3. The Characters: Kory & Brian Kapaloski Weather: First day, sunny warm, second day sunny warm 70s, last day cool and rainy and temp drop but sunny and very windy Water Temp: Likely mid 50s not checked Water Level / Tide: Ashton gauge 1800-2000 Water Clarity/Quality: Good clarity Moon Phase: Between Last Quarter and New Best Flies: Drake cripple size 12 or 200r, double ugly size 12 and 14. Rusty, other Green Drake and Grey Drakes Fishing: Took trailer up with BK and camped at gravel pit. Was going to be up following weekend with girls and Cara, Joe and kids so was planning on leaving it there and camped up high although fishing was all down low on the commute. Day 1: Set up camp and headed down to Fun Farm since nada happening up high. Fish up good on Grey drakes and we got a few, but went on a whiffing spree. There was a pig right off the ramp right away and only one other dude there that was a guide and lived there. Perfect conditions other than getting very cool as sun got low shutting it down. Fish were up all over and nobody around. Had we hooked and landed all of them, would have been stellar but mostly missed and lost except a few. Double Ugly got chowed and was best fly. Day 2: Floated in morning from Vernon to Chester skipping first half to avoid boats since it was busy out with good fishing only on lower river and ranch closed. Quiet in terms of boats, but wade fishermen around. Launched around 9 did own shuttle. Hoping for Green Drakes, and threw dry dropper before. Got a good fish on the drake dropper, but think it needed to be deeper and no bugs early. Eventually drakes started to show but never in great numbers. As we got into backwater, grey drake spinners and some greens were around and fish were up pretty decent. We worked them and again were on a miss fest and only ended up sticking a couple. Again had we stuck all the eats would have been stellar. There was a raft on the river left side while we were on river right and the raft stayed there for hours and we tried to ditch them but they kept staying next to us and there were better sippers on that side although ultimately found a bunch of pigs on bottom right. Should have just launched at Chester and rowed up. Fun morning. Took a break and headed back to fun farm for evening and it was even better than first evening. Tons of drake spinners, but a lot more boats as opposed to only one the night before. We were on the set this night finally got the timing down and slayed a bunch of good fish. No monsters landed, but several 16-18 good super hot fish. Fun day and evening. Day 3: Major weather change with cold front overnight dropping temps 20 degrees. Overcast, cool, windy so we had breakfast at Trout Hunter and took it easy. Looked around hoping for PMDs but never seemed to materialize, maybe they did but we bailed to go look for drakes down river. Went and put in at Chester and conditions were much nicer although windy. After we launched around noon, bugs were pouring off, pmds, caddis all over and drakes. Started with the streamer on first 1/2 mile for nada and saw risers on the drakes so bailed on that and switched over. Got a pig brown right away above first island. Stuck another Bow that I kind of poached from BK while he was fly changing and lost his net so moved down to look but no dice. Fish were going off so we pulled in and stuck a few more good ones chowing drakes. Wind was ripping but drakes were tumbling and fish blasting them. That went on for another hour or more and subsided and then remaining float was slower with a few fish here and there. Never hooked shit on the streamer, browns must have been chuck full of bugs. Killer few hours on the green drakes and headed home. Brian stayed for several more days and had epic grey drakes. I went up next weekend and had great fishing will report separately.