Flyfishing at the River of Life Farm, North Fork River

On Saturday Tom Z. (of Clearwater Fly Shop, in Columbia) and I hit the river just after sunrise at the riffle by the big bend in the river downstream of where the Life Spring flows in. We fished from there up to The Falls in about 3 hours and caught well over a dozen fish of which 2 were 12 or 13 inches (all were rainbows except for one brown about 8 inches caught right at the falls and it was beautiful!!! The fins were in perfect condition, it made me wonder if the browns have any successful reproduction in the North Fork).

After that we took Tom's canoe up to Kelly Ford and paddled upstream near where Rainbow Spring dumps into the river. At that first run I landed a male rainbow about 16 or 17 inches. Tom also landed a nice fish (over 14 in.) along with some smaller fish. As we were slowly paddling downstream towards Kelly Ford we were watching in the slow moving, deep, crystal clear water for passing fish; we saw one brown trout that was at least 25 inches long and following him was his little brother at about 19 inches. We knew we didn't have a chance to catch them so we didn't even waste our time making a cast to them. We did however come away from that sighting with some new ideas for hunting lunkers on the North Fork (that report will come after our next trip to River of Life Farm).

Continuing down river we gave up all of Kelly Ford to a couple of wading fishermen. We were not able to ascertain how successful they were that day. From below Kelly Ford to the top of The Falls, Tom and I landed several dozen fish, all rainbows except for one chub Tom hauled in just above McKee bridge. Of these fish, over a dozen were mature, meaning they had lost their parr marks and were between 12 and 16 inches.

The techniques required to land fish both days were consistent with most days on the North Fork. The flies had to be pretty near to the bottom. All takes were on a DEAD DRIFT. We saw a few risers to #16 olive/brown caddis and other various caddis, even enough at one point both of us put on a dry fly but there was nothing goin' there. I even felt like I had a pretty good match. Soft hackles and wet flies on the swing were not working where we fished that method, although I know that in some areas that can be a deadly combination. Tom even worked a BIG sculpin on his Sage 7 wt. with a sink tip on the bottom of some great big fish areas but came up dry, although he did get a few strikes that didn't hook up.

The flies I uses successfully were: (with the most preferred being first)
#14 bead headed Prince (Hook TMC 200R)
#14 Weighted Prince
#12 Weighted Mohair Leech Olive.
#12 Weighted Rubber leg Olive Woolly Bugger (Hook Daiichi 1273)
red york bend. It was the first time I had tried it. I have no clue why
it worked so well but it did, and yes, again the hook was indeed red!!!!
#12 Lead eye olive Woolly Bugger

As you can see my fly selection was simple yet effective.

Myron, I've got to run I love you brother, may God bless you in
proportion to how much you've blessed others!!!!

Thanks Again!!

Jeff & Jeanne G.