April is Awesome Fishing
Sean Visintainer - 04/17/17
The pre-runoff game.
April is awesome fishing. Why? Well this is the month where everything starts to wake up. Insect hatches on the St. Joe and NF Coeur d'Alene ramp up with activity. Skwalas, nemoura stones, March browns (yes, they hatch in April), and bwo's to round out the mix. The cutthroat begin to move out of the winter water into some faster paced currents. Air temps are more consistent in the 50's, water temps in the 40's. The rivers can be in a state of flux, but if you are a little flexible it can be some of the best fishing of the year in north Idaho. Throw in some days on the Clark Fork near St. Regis, and you can have some great dry fly action all around. We have fished the St. Joe a few times in the last couple weeks and have caught virtually all of our fish using dry flies.
A lot of folks are assuming the rivers in Idaho are too high because the Spokane is still running full bore, but remember those streams drop considerably quicker, especially with cold night time temps in the mountains. They also stay fairly clear, only turning muddy in extreme situations of runoff. I personally prefer high water fishing. Fish hang right along the banks, flooded structure and brush turn into new feeding zones, it creates new challenges and areas that fish live in for only a short period of the year.
Thank you to all of you that have responded to our survey on how to improve your Silver Bow experience. We do truly appreciate your feedback good, bad, or indifferent! We will strive to analyze the trends and requests and implement them when / where we can!
One of the biggest reasons folks come in the shop is for our fly selection. If you haven't been in the store recently you really need to come down and check out the new/old fly display. I went on a rampage this season and we have expanded most categories of flies. The Silver Bow just may have your next silver bullet!
Lots of great local conservation events going on over the next few weeks, we hope to see there or in the shop!
- Sean Visintainer
