Several years ago I was able to be fortunate enough to time the famed Silver Creek Brown Drake Hatch just right. It was actually the first time I had tried and my fishing buddy PJ raved that I should make it happen, so I did. He and my brother had been there for a day or so and I headed up solo to meet up with them. At the time I was working at Trout Bum 2 and living by myself a single, fishing crazed man (still am fishing crazed but happily married). I headed up after leaving work and arrived in the late evening. That evening the hatch never materialized, but it was a beautiful evening and great to be there with my brother and PJ hanging on the creek.
The next morning we got up lazily and I made a trip down to the Picabo store. We figured the day would be spent messing around on the nature conservancy water upriver which had decent PMDs coming off and then head back down and try to time the evening Brown Drake emergence on the lower river. As I drove down across the creek, I looked upriver and there was literally a blizzard of drakes and fish exploding everywhere! I rushed down to the store and back and tried to call my brother and PJ but they didn’t
have a signal. I strung up, headed out and had an amazing few hours of fishing with virtually nobody around since most people look to that section as an evening affair. It was truly spectacular with several huge browns chowing the clumsily hatching drakes. It was a slayfest. Unfortunately, I was by myself, but able to snap a few pics.
As the hatch subsided, I caught up with my bro and PJ and we headed to the conservancy. We had some fun messing around with PMDs and streamers in some of the undercut areas including me ripping the fly right out of the mouth of a leviathan that my brother and PJ watched in disdain.
Since I am writing this from memory and photos several years later, now sure the chronology of the next events. Ultimately on the last night which may have been that night, my brother had taken off headed back to work and PJ and I hung out waiting for the drakes. As the sun drifted lower in the sky, the drakes started to appear and the fish started on a rampage. There were plenty of people around unlike the morning emergence, but so many fish that it was not an issue. I was able to capture the beginning of the epic evening on film and put this clip together, but my camera battery died before the truly epic action of the late evening. The spinner fall was simply amaizing and the fish began to subside feeding around 10 pm. As we were preparing to leave we noticed that more drakes started to emerge and the fish resumed feeding and didn’t stop until after 11 pm! It was truly an amazing evening. The 5 hour drive back to Utah was brutal and I had to work the next day but it was all worth it.