Henry's Fork, Box Canyon - Sept 2018

Finally fished the Henry's Fork, after so many years reading about it. I actually fished it on my last day during my late September trip to the area and had driven by Harriman's ranch numerous times on my way to other nearby rivers (Madison, Gallatin). I decided to fish the Box Canyon section, which is immediately above the famous spring creek section of Harriman's. 

The Henry's Fork is very close to Yellowstone and the grizzly bears from there are branching out. Read reports of people sighting them along the river, even eating salmonfly nymphs by overturning rocks.... I decided to take the bear spray just in case. I did see two separate piles of bear dung on the trail--BIG piles and were probably no black bear's.

Was immediately struck at how beautiful the river in Box Canyon is. The river was surprisingly shallow in the lower end of the canyon, which was where I started and worked upstream. You could easily wade across it at about mid thigh to waist deep. At times I was fishing smack dab in the middle of the river, fishing upstream, then to one side, then the other, catching fish 360 degrees from my position. Also had a bit of a spring creek feel to it with relatively even soft currents, and lots of green vegetation on the rocks underwater. 

Caught tons of 6"-8" rainbows while indicator nymphing with a rubber legs and a frenchie combo. Did hook into a decent 14-16" fish and lost him, and did land a 15" fish that put up a great fight. Otherwise I was surprised at how small the fish were. Maybe I have gotten spoiled with the Truckee & East Walker's average sized fish (though overall much less numbers of fish there).

Some baetis and oct caddis were flying about. I had the river almost to myself, until I reach the upper section and started running into a few drift boats. The river in the upper section narrows and the currents are faster and there are some deep runs there. Probably bigger fish too, but I decided to cut the day short as I was freezing and had a long walk back to the car. I think I stopped near the campground area. From the campground I think it is about a 1/2 mile to the dam upstream.