How Not to Fish the South Fork of the Boise

Definition of insanity:  Pounding a Chernobyl Ant into a bank that 27 other boats just hit with the same type of Chernobyl Ant pattern – and expecting different results.

Having a boat is a definite advantage on the South Fork of the Boise this time of year. However, if all you’re doing is drifting along hammering away at the banks with foamasaurus rex, you’re doing exactly what a majority of others are doing – wasting time and pissing away some great opportunities.

With so much pressure on the river, you can’t expect to achieve any level of success simply by going through the motions. South Fork bows are conditioned to boat traffic and are entirely unforgiving to the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ approach.

Barraging foam flies into banks may work on some streams but if you really want to get into fish this time of year on the South Fork, you’d better have more than one play in the play book. Salmonflies are out, but don’t assume all fish are feeding opportunistically. At this stage of the game fish are weary and attractor patterns are looking less and less attractive.

We were on the river recently and had a solid afternoon of outstanding fishing. And it wasn’t because we were the first boat on the water or because we had magical foamus giganticus flies. We had a great day because we were willing to do something others weren’t – ditch the boat and work the banks on foot.

The fact of the matter is, people are missing a lot of prime water because they’re too busy busting down stream as quickly as possible. Parking the boat at the bottom of the run and working to the top will allow you to observe the conditions more effectively, get to the level of the fish, and actually understand what they’re eating.

I don’t know how many times we saw guys try to force feed Salmonfly patterns into fish up on Caddis Emergers. In fact one particularly considerate individual slapped his foam right into a pod of fish I was working and they scattered like rats.

Boat etiquette is a topic for another time, but the moral of today’s story is this: Busting downstream pounding the bank with the same old cookie-cutter salmonfly patterns is a minimalist approach to South Fork fishing. If that’s all the effort you’re willing to put forth, don’t be surprised with your minimalist results.