5 Day Fly Fishing School at South Fork Lodge

I’m sitting here in my cabin on the banks of a completely blown out South Fork River in Idaho. We had three days of rain and the warm temps of late spring have finally arrived. Warm enough that the snow is melting at mock speed and therefore raising water levels on every river, creek, irrigation ditch and even some new waterways have formed off the sides of mountains. This year’s runoff will be a monster!

I’m not here to fish in such conditions but rather helping teach a five day fly fishing school for students here at South Fork Lodge. If you’re not familiar with South Fork Lodge, it is located right on this magnificent river and has everything you could need on a fishing trip from a fly shop with excellent fishing guides, luxury accommodations and great food and drinks. The lodge basically offers all you need to live large and fish one of the best rivers in the entire Rockies every day you’re here. To get more familiar with the fishing here, just go back to summer of 2010 and check out my blog. You’ll find at least a story a week from of my fishing days over here because last year was one of the most productive on record.

Other instructors include Bob Jacklin, Todd Lanning, Ed Emory, Ian Malepeai and Zack Payton. We began with two days mixing classroom time with outside casting in the rain. The students have become proficient with just about every cast you can think of, learned the hatches, knots, fundamentals of equipment and you name it. We’ve all had a really good time.

Today we actually got students on the water to fish. The day was really about how to hook and land fish. With the South Fork unfishable till runoff lets up, we were lucky to have access to some private ponds nearby. All I can say is that the fish were big and provided excellent practice for everyone. Shocking to us all was this massive cuttbow that Bill caught on his last cast of the day!

That about sum things up for now. We are so busy with this school that I probably won’t post again for a couple days. But it should be good as we are heading south to fish some not private water and on the last day sneaking into some spring creeks. Even though I wont’ be fishing I can hardly wait!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website