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| Chris and Mark exploring the Teton |
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| 900 feet down...hard on equipment! |
Date: July 21st 2010
Location: Teton River (the slide) ~ 20 miles upstream from dam
Trip Objective: Investigate the upstream section of the beautiful Teton River above the old Dam site and below felt dam. This is in the middle of the Canyon area and very, very remote. The only way in is to slide your raft/boat 900 feet down a very steep hill. Once down you are on your own, literally. No other way in or out of the Canyon for the next 7 miles. This one is a bucket list must do adventure…at least it was for me.
Lodging and Adventure Partner: My partner in crime was Chris Jones. Chris is a very good adventurer, someone who is both at home and can look out for himself in the wilds. This was Chris’s first trip with a guide…nice way to break into guided fishing. We stayed in my trailer on a lot I have about 20 miles downstream from our launch site...accommodations were sparse but the price was right and the guests were really good people....
Weather & Stream Information
Air Temperature: Nice weather, clear and in the low 80’s it was a perfect early summer day.
Wind Speed: No wind to speak of
Water Temperature: The river was still running cold, perfect for a early summer fish in the canyon.
Flow & Clarity: Flow had dropped to reasonable floating range 2 weeks before our trip, water was running ~ 2000cfs and was clear
Hatches: Some golden stones, not too much else
Crowds: No crowds in this canyon we did see one other boat from World Cast Anglers with 2 very sun burnt clients.
Results
Fish Caught: Fishing was ok for smaller cutthroat 12-18 inches, we did not see any rainbows although they do, on occasion, show up in the canyon. We didn’t see any of the big boy cuts although they are suppose to love the deep pools and pockets on this section of the Teton. Oh well, there is always next year!
Best Flies: Stone fly dragging a bead head pheasant tail… surprise huh. The fishing got a little better as it warmed up and the stones started coming off.
Detailed Trip Notes:
We spent the day with guide Eric Campbell (208-484-9496) who is currently working for 3 Rivers Ranch (208-652-3750). Eric is a very accomplished guide and equally handy at rowing the raft. He knows this water very well and seems to be Three River’s go to guide for the tough stuff. I highly recommend him! We were in the Puma series raft offered by Aire. It worked fine and a raft is really the only option given the 900 foot dirt slide… but all and all a raft is not near as good to fish from as a drift boat. There is just a lot more piece parts to get your fly and line hung up on.
The float was spectacular, this is a very remote and rugged canyon, certainly one of the most remote fishing areas left in the lower 48. The big deal on this trip is the river access or lack of it. There is only a couple of places where you can get to the river in the canyon area (which is ~30 mile long) and really only 1 way to get a boat into the water….lower it down a 900 foot dirt slide (thus the name “The Slide”. So the guide and another employee from 3 rivers lowered the raft down with ropes (see pictures ). Chris and I got the much more pleasant task of walking down a very steep trail. Even the trail down was a little tricky as it is quite steep with small pea sized gravel to help you slide smoothly alongJ Needless to say this process cuts the traffic down substantially. As far as we can tell the next river access point is a good 7 plus miles downstream and still pretty tough to get to although it is a spot you can get a 4 wheel drive to (barely)..
This should be an annual event as it will be just a matter of time before this section of the river will be civilized or dammed…but for now it is remote and absolutely beautiful. For our trip the water and weather were perfect. Unfortunately, the fish were not as aggressive as any of us wanted and we were not able to see any of the larger cut throats that we expected to see. This may have been caused by a mild cold front that came through the night before…or some pissed off fishing gods…either way the fishing was what it was. We caught fish all day but did not tie into the monsters.
The golden stone hatch was really the only thing we saw come off. Next year I think I will spend a little more time talking to the guide/s and trying to understand if and when the bigger fish are in the Canyon. We hit the water just about right from a flow standpoint but never really saw the big boys. I am not sure if they were there and inactive or just not up into that section of the river yet.
The best fishing set-up was a golden stone front fly trailing a bead head pheasant tail. Nothing to secretive about this set-up but it did work the best. For some reason cuts really go for the hair winged Stone Flies. If they don’t come up on it you should strip the Stone underwater that will usually produce some action.
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