I had a great time fishing the St. Joe in Idaho on Saturday. The fish
were biting and the weather was perfect. I spent about nine hours on the
water and caught 30+ fish! Most averaged 5"-7" with the largest measuring
12". Even though the fish were on the small side, the sheer number of takes
made it a tremendous amount of fun. What a hoot!
The magic pattern was an Elk Hair Caddis #16 but I had strikes on
Stimulator(orange), Green Drake, Madame X, and Turck's Tarantula. The
biggest fish of the day was caught using a Rubber Leg Stimulator. Most of
the time I fished the riffles. I saw some decent size fish holding at the
bottom of a few pools and tried to coax them to the surface but was unable.
I was having too much fun fishing dries to really work the larger fish in
the pools.
This was my first trip to the St. Joe. It's a nice size river. Right
now it's flowing about 1000 cfs and the water is very clear. Easy access
(the road follows the river for miles). Just park and scramble down the
bank. I worked the river a half mile in both directions from mileage
marker 70 (about 6 miles downstream of Gold Creek) and the fish were
plentiful.
Don
(Spokane)
