Greetings fellow fly fishers, welcome to spring and the beginning of another season here in the Wood River Valley. At press time it feels a bit more like mid-July with the past week being unseasonably warm. Consequently we are seeing some of the highest water levels ever recorded for this period on most of our local streams and rivers. This push of water effectively ended our steelhead season on the Salmon River and any trout fishing we had on the few streams that remain all year.

The positive side of this early run-off is that we can hopefully look forward to relatively early start on our local freestone streams with an official opening date of May 26th this year on most waters. It’s pretty hard to predict, but we could have some fishable water on the Big Wood and it’s tributaries a bit earlier than usual this spring. Regardless, we’re blessed with having a spectacular spring creek in our backyard, Silver Creek, to rely on for early season accessibility due to its consistent year round flow. We can always look forward to casting a few flies on “the creek” and then hitting Nature Conservancy cabin for the traditional opening day barbeque.

Of course I’ve only been talking about our stream fishing and don’t mean to overlook some of the great fishing we have right now on our many reservoirs. Whether you’re targeting trout on Magic, smallmouth bass on Anderson, or Crappies on C.J Strike, these reservoirs can provide some great early season action and are open, just waiting for you. As June rolls around we’ll be anxiously awaiting the brown drakes on Silver Creek and a bit later the green drakes on the Big Wood. Until then here at Sturtevants we’ll be working on dialing in the fly shop and our best ever fly inventory ever in preparation for a great season. As the water levels fall and the season commences we’ll have up to the date reports on our local waters and stop by our fully stocked fly shops in both Ketchum and Hailey for the latest in reports and great gear.