Thanks to Jessica and Brett for this Idaho fishing report and photos from July 13th.

Hi Theaux,
We had a great Idaho trip – and I had a great time fishing. Caught rainbows and a small brown trout this week. Water levels were record highs which made it tough to fish most streams (lots of mending the line!).
-Jessica

Well, Jess and I are back from out Idaho trip. I can assure you that it is “all that” and then some. We had an outstanding vacation, although all the running around out there wore us out pretty bad. Selfishly I have to say that the first day of the trip was the highlight for me. We were set to float the S. Fork of the Snake River. Out guide warned me that it was high and muddy. He wanted to divert us to the Henrys Fork, which was the only stream that wasn’t blown out with the record snowmelt. We planned to fish the Henrys Fork on our own for several days, so we stuck with the plan. Overall, fishing was pretty slow. We caught many whitefish and a few nice rainbows, but it took lots of effort. I didn’t catch the big cutthroat I was looking for, but I did manage to hook up with a monster brown trout. Our guide freaked out. It was the longest brown he had a client catch in his 10yr career, just short of 26” on the tape (although it wasn’t very robust). Most of the fish were caught on nymphs and san juan worms, but I got a few rainbows on a streamer. Jess did fantastic, and nearly (notice I said nearly) outfished me on the trip. Her casting lessons at Backwater Angler helped tremendously.

We got some nice fish from the Henrys Fork over the next few days, all rainbows. It’s a magical place, crowded with both wading and drifting anglers. Lots of hatches coming off. I had to make daily trips to the fly shop to pick up the fly that the fish wanted that I didn’t have… My best was a 17” rainbow. All the fish were built like tanks, there’s just so much insect life there. Each of us actually got a few fish off the “Ranch” section, which is a famously difficult section to fish. It is simply awesome.
-Brett