Ketchum, Idaho is one of the greatest places on earth and if I had it to do all over I wouldn’t have moved away from there back in the mid-1990s. For the angler, you’d be hard pressed to find a better location to test yourself and enjoy a variety of waters. The area hosts the Big Wood and Little Wood rivers, and the South Fork Boise a ways to the West. It also offers great lake and reservoir fishing for trout, bluegill and bass. It’s premiere fishery is Silver Creek and I’ve toiled on that stream for at least a few hundred days of my life. In my mind it’s the most demanding stream in the West, which means it’s also one of the most rewarding. Seriously, if you arrive to fish Silver Creek and you’re packing those flies you throw on a freestone, you don’t stand a chance. On Silver Creek, which is flat-surfaced and heavily fished, you better have the best ties on the planet or you’ll get your ass handed to you, and the fish will do so with shiteating grins on their faces.
There are lots of great hatches on Silver Creek, but the one that really gets people fired up is the brown drake, which comes off around the time the creek opens in May and early June. Some years the hatch is epic. Other years it’s ok at best. When you hit it right you see beasts feeding on the surface. Recently, while I was “working” I bumped into this great video on Silver Creek, and a relationship between an angler and his guide. I titled this piece a Guide’s Nightmare, but you can tell that this guide and his client have shared a lot of good times together and enjoy each other’s company. You should watch this: there’s a story here and some killer footage of the drake hatch, including the landing of one of those beasts. Have at it. See you on the creek in June.