With Aggipah River Trips
Idaho has some of the best-known trout streams in country–and some of the best but least known. Most Idaho fly fishing trips offer a few hours of fishing, but on the Middle Fork of the Salmon fishing time is measured in days. Most of our Middle Fork trips are six days. While many of our customers are primarily interested in a wilderness whitewater trip, we can provide a fishing focus by using two-passenger McKenzie River drift boats or small inflatable boats.
Middle Fork fly fishing is primarily for cut-throat trout. This is a relatively high elevation stream with a short growing season, in a granite drainage. Mature trout typically are 12-14 inches. When fishing from drift boats, fishermen typically land several dozen trout per boat each day. We usually fish dry flies, size 8-12. Elk hair caddis are a classic Middle Fork pattern, but these fish are not fussy. By appropriately positioning a drift boat, casting distances are moderate.
These boats are light and maneuverable, providing maximum fishing opportunity from the boat as we drift downstream. We can hold in eddies to give you time to work a seam, position you to drift a fly to a rock, reach water that is unavailable to a raft normally loaded. Since we leave camp as soon as you are done with breakfast, instead of waiting for the camp crew to load, and stay out on the river until the camp crew has the camp set up, we also spend more hours on the river each day than conventional rafts.
Often our McKenzie fishermen are couples. If one of the partners has limited fly fishing experience, boatmen will help with casting technique. A week-long trip in a drift boat on the Middle Fork with develop anyone’s fishing skills, and particularly a person just getting started.
Fishing the Middle Fork of the Salmon from a drift boat, camping on the river bank each night, is one of the most memorable, classic Idaho fly fishing trips.