Opening day on the Railroad Ranch came and went, another year passing by with not much good to say. The weather was nice, and the bugs were there, but the fish? Where have the fish gone?

The morning of the 15th of June, the crowd of eager anglers spread out along the banks of the river, each finding his favorite spot to wait for the fish to come to the surface. There was a lot of waiting. I sat in my spot and scanned the water for two hours, only spotting a couple of small fish in a run that had a trio of friends sitting and watching, apparently missing the sight in front of them.

The seagulls were flying, gracefully dipping their beaks to pluck a bug off the surface as they swooped low, or banking suddenly to change trajectory and pluck a drake from the sky. I got in the water and waded out to scoop up the first bug I saw drifting along, a green drake for sure. I carried it over to the trio to get their assessment, “Yup, that’s a drake alrighty.”

I decided to cover some ground, nothing was happening here.

A few hundred yards up stream, I finally spotted a nose. It was pretty close to a guy that was sitting and watching, but he hadn’t seen it. As I stood there scanning the water, I saw another one, and then another! There were at least three fish feeding in this slot that was created by a slim log laying in the river, making a current seam.

I spoke up. “Hey, do you want to take a shot at that fish right there?” He said he was watching one a little farther up, and I was welcome to target it.

You don’t have to tell me twice!

I stepped into the water and made my way into position, hoping to lay a downstream cast about two feet in front of the fish so my drake would just drift right into his open mouth. My first couple of casts were off target, but in a scene that would be rarely repeated for several days, the fish came up and ate my fly the first time I got it in front of him! WOOHOO! I raised the rod tip to the side and felt the weight of the fish as my fly found purchase, but only for an instant. The fly didn’t stick and shot out of the water, landing in the grass behind me. Aw shit.

But I spotted a fish, and I fed it the bug I tied. That was pretty great.

I waded back out and suggested the guy take a shot, as there were clearly at least two other fish in the lane. He waded out, unfurling his leader and taking some line off the reel, but he just stood there with his fly in his hand, watching. In a span of ten minutes, the fish stopped playing. He could have gotten off a few shots, but didn’t.

And that was it for that run. I crossed the river and walked the far bank, looking for more players, but there were few to be found. I didn’t see any fish until I came around a corner and saw one really good nose come up at the front of a big rock. He was rising smack in front of it, and then on either side, so he was moving around a bit. This fish also took a few casts to home in on, but he also came up and ate my fly. Again with the rod lift, again I felt the weight… but this time there was a POP! as my tippet broke, and that fish swam away with my fly.

So it wasn’t the worst day on the river that I’ve had.

Every day after that though, I failed to spot any rising fish. Last year, I stuck at it for two solid weeks. Each day somehow hoping that TODAY was going to be the day it turned around. But it didn’t.

This year, there was at least one day where I didn’t fish at all. It was just demoralizing. In past years, I’ve walked the bank from the camp area at the Gravel Pit up to Osborn bridge, and there were always a few fish to be found, feeding close to the bank. This year, there were none. Well, almost none.

One afternoon in the middle of that first week after the opener, I found a great hatch of green drakes coming off just below the bridge. The birds were going nuts, lots of plump juicy bugs floating by, waiting for their wings to dry before they could lift off the surface. I actually heard one old curmudgeon in camp blaming the gulls for the poor quality of the fishing. “Those damn birds eat all the bugs before they can mate, so the next generation of drakes just keeps getting smaller!”

OK buddy, sure.

On what I’d decided was my last day, I had given up on the dry fly and tied on a couple of wet flies to swing downstream as I waded downstream back towards camp. I did catch one small rainbow that way, and I was surprised how much bend the twelve-incher put into my four weight, but it isn’t the same as feeding a fish on the surface.

The breeze was pretty stiff, blowing in my face from downstream, and I managed to tangle up my pair of flies with a bad cast. I stood there grumbling to myself as I cut off the wad of monofilament. How does two feet of 5X manage to do this?!

I saw the nose then, over the tops of my readers. Two rod lengths downstream from where I stood, and about 6″ off the bank. No way. I looked down at the surface to see what bugs might be floating into his lane, and didn’t really see much. Some small pale mayflies, too small to be PMDs? The wind made a cast from this position impossible, so I had to get around behind the fish. I crouched as low as I could get and slowly moved up the bank, then walked way down below the fish before getting back into the water. I switched my trashed leader for a 14 foot long 5X version and had to decide what bug to tie on.

As I looked for the fish, afraid that I’d spooked it, I scooped up a bug floating by. It was a decent sized mayfly dun, with a maroon colored body, not a bug I recognized. My box happened to have a reasonable facsimile, a sparkly House of Harrop cripple with a CDC wing, and I tied it on. Now where is that fish.

I’d gone farther down than I realized, and it was many paces upstream from where I thought I’d left it. I made a couple of casts, with the wind helping unroll the leader next to the bank, but the fish didn’t show. “There he is”, I whispered to the fishing gods. He’d moved six feet up from the last rise. I took a few more steps up, and watched his timing, then made a cast… and the first time my fly landed in front of him, the nose came up and he ate it!

No screwing up this time, I got him well hooked and he peeled off into the middle of the river, leaning into the heavier current as I applied side pressure. I had to trot downstream a bit to keep the fish in control, and I was pleading with it, “Come get in my net so I can make a pretty portrait, to show all the humans what a great fish you are”. Which it finally did, and I did. (sadly there was water on the lens.)

That fish on day seven was so satisfying that I started to pack up as soon as I got back to camp. It was very unlikely to be repeated, and there are other rivers with more eager fish to be found. The Madison river for one, just 40 minutes and one low pass over the Continental Divide to cross.

---

Previous Henrys Fork articles:

• Opening Day on the Ranch – 2026
• Another June Day on the Henry’s Fork in Idaho, 2023
• Henry’s Bugs: Opening Day at Harriman Ranch, Henry’s Fork, Idaho, 2022
• Brown Drakes on the Henry’s Fork, 2022
• Seven Hours at Last Chance, 2018