Blackfoot Valley Fishing Report

Fishing is going CRAZY currently.

The flow is still above normal. The temperature is still cool [thank you mother nature for making this July cooler than the last several years. Feel free to continue this trend]. Salmonflies were still flying around in the evening as of last week. What????? So guides were still using big ole Chernobyls, and fuzzy leggy ugly things.

However we believe a change is in the air. Literally, with smaller flying caddis and size 10 or 12 spruce moths bringing the fish up along the Big Blackfoot, in the shade during the cloudless sunny afternoons and in the sunny quieter water before dusk.

There has been some chatter about the slightly off color of the water in the Upper Blackfoot region. Should be approaching gin clear but it is a ways from that. A suggestion was that the flooding this year undercut some of the banks so instead of running over rocks and gravel the water is continually churning away dirt. Makes sense. But got no proof to that. Anybody else got thoughts?

Brown's Lake is still reporting difficult fishing, but am fairly certain a lot of that is due to fishing from late morning to early evening when the sun is high, hot and unblocked by any clouds. Have heard fishing is prolific before 10 a.m. and after 7:30 p.m., same as the Blackfoot.

Will close this with an off topic plea that has been repeated a lot recently:

While returning from MissZoo along Highway 200, I witnessed two almost head-on collisions. There have been too many accidents on Highway 200 in the last two months.

It is summer time, tourist time; there are a lot more trucks and trailers and motorcycles and vehicles on the road. and a lot of them are unable to do the 70 mph speed limit. PLEASE people, don't pass a string of vehicles, or on blind corners, blind hills, or just because you are impatient. Sit it out. Play some music. Take a chill pill. It isn't worth losing a life over it.

This public service announcement brought to you by all concerned citizens cuz ya'all are scaring the hell out of us. Thank you.