Coeur d’ Alene River Fishing Report 10.5.2017
—North 40 Coeur d’ Alene
Coeur d’ Alene River (ID)
Fishing has been solid. The overcast and rain we got had lots of fish looking up. BWOs and mahoganies are still the go-to bugs. Still plenty of October caddis around as well. The mornings have been pretty slow due to colder nights so nymphing and streamer fishing will be the go-to rigs early until about noon. As the temperature warms we will start seeing fish up. Fish late into the day as it only gets better as the sun rises higher. There are plenty of salmon in the system from the lake now, so this will get the cutties looking for flesh and eggs too. Trout beads under an indicator with a dead-drifted flesh fly behind the salmon will get you some nice fish. Think Alaska rigs! Looking forward, it will be getting colder at night so the mid day fishing will be best. If you can get out on an overcast and rainy day you will be rewarded greatly.
St. Joe River
What a beautiful river right now. One of my favorite places to fish in the fall. Trout are very active on October caddis and BWOs. When fishing your October caddis try quartering downstream and letting the fly swing and give it plenty of motion. You won’t see many caddis on the water, but twitching or swinging your fly will produce some great strikes. Later in the day the fish will be looking up for smaller offerings like BWOs and mahoganies. A Parachute BWO or mahogany with a small soft hackle or emerger will be a great rig for the sipping trout. Longer leaders , tapered down to 5X, will help your battle with selective fish as well. Cooler weather is in the forecast and the St. Joe has tall canyon walls so it takes a while for the water to warm in spots. That means so later in the day offers the better fishing.
Clark Fork, Montana
Fishing incredible. I fished it on Monday the 2nd and had an amazing day. Slow start to the day, but did manage to get fish on top and nymphing when there weren’t many fish up until about noon. So, did very well on a tandem pheasant tail nymph rig in the riffles and foam lines. No need for a long leader here—a 5-6 foot leader did the trick. Also did well with a large orange Stimmie with a #12 pheasant tail dropped about 18" down. Things really kicked off about 1 p.m. and the BWO hatch was incredible. Fish were doing push-ups in the flats on very small 18-20 BWOs. You had to be very accurate and if you made the right cast you were rewarded. Fish were still up and rising until 4, when we had to hit the road. I imagine we could have kept catching fish until dark. The sunny weather in our forecast will force you to do more subsurface fishing, but later in the day the fish will start to come up, especially when shade hits the water.