Fly Fishing Silver Creek Idaho
This includes a Silver Creek fishing report updated weekly.
Fly and Gear ordering and delivery: We can get flies to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Please see the bottom of this column for ordering options.
We also have custom Perfect Fly selections in 3 different price ranges for this stream that come with or without fly boxes. They make excellent gifts. Click Here To Order or Call us at 800 594 4726 or email us at sales@perfectflystore.com.
Type of Stream
Spring Creek
Species
Rainbow Trout
Brown Trout
Brook Trout
(Wild)
Location
Central Idaho
Size:
Medium
Nearest Towns
Ketchum
Season
Opens Memorial Day Weekend in
Preserve/Different in other areas
Access:
Good
Special Regulations
Yes, Check Current Regulations
Non-Resident License
State of Idaho
Weather
National Weather Service Link
Recommended Tackle & Gear
Fly Line:
5 or 6 weight
Leaders:
Dry fly: 9 & 12 ft., 5 or 6X, Nymphing:
71/2 ft., 3 or 4X, Streamers 0-2X
Tippets:
Dry fly: 5 or 6X, Nymphing: 3 or 4X,
Streamer 0-2X
Best Fly Rods:
Perfect Fly Superb Five or Ultimate Six
Fly Reels:
For 5/6 fly line
Fly Floatants and Misc Items:
Floatants, KISS Strike Indicators
Tools & Accessories:
Nippers, forceps, retractors, etc.
Fly and Gear ordering and delivery:
Email us at (sales@perfectflystore.com) with the dates you will be fishing and we will send you a list of our fly recommendations. We can get flies and gear to you within two to three business days from the time you place your order via Priority Mail. If you provide a budget for flies, we will select them to match the budget and get them to you on time for your trip. Your can also call us at 800-594-4726 and we will help you decide what flies and gear to use. All orders are shipped free in the U.S. If under a $100 order requiring Priority mail is a charge of only $8.10. Orders over a $100 are shipped free via Priority Mail.
Copyright 2013 James Marsh
Silver Creek Idaho Fishing Report – December 19, 2024
The stream is still flowing near a normal level with very clear water. It helps to use flies that look like the real things when you are fishing this clear, spring creek. The trout get a good look at the fly. We call them Perfect Flies. If you haven’t already done so, you should check them out. Keep checking back with us. We update the Silver Creek fishing report weekly.
Rate: 96.6 cfs Ht. 6.81
levels: 6.80 water Temperature: 39
Clarity: clear
Real Time USGS data at Sportman’s Access Picabo ID
Weather:
Trout Flies:
Midges: Cream and Red (Blood) midges sizes 20/22, larva, pupa and adult. Our larva and pupa midge flies, pre-rigged in tandem, are very popular here. You can fish them under a strike indicator keeping the larva fly near the bottom. https://perfectflystore.com/product/pre-rigged-tandem-midge-larva-pupa-tippet
Brown Sculpin and White Belly Sculpin and Articulated streamers, size 6/4
Black Matuka and Olive Matuka Sculpin, size 4/6
Winter Stoneflies; size 16/18, nymphs and adults
Perfect Flies are designed and tied to to imitate and behave like the natural foods the trout rely on to survive as much as possible. The more your fly looks like and moves through and on the surface of the water like the real things, the higher your odds of success.
Strategies, Techniques and Tips:
Various species of Blue-winged Olives are the most plentiful and available aquatic insects at this time. They are hatching, mostly on cloudy, overcast days.
Scuds are available year-round and the trout eat them year-round.
Brown Sculpin and White Belly sculpin are great flies to use in the fall on Silver Creek.
We still think the best strategy is to fish a tandem Midge rig under a small strike indicator with the midge lava as the bottom fly and the midge pupa as the top fly.
Fish the adult midge only when you observe trout feeding on the surface. Aquatic worms are working. Spotted sedge caddis are hatching.
Fly Fishing On Silver Creek In Idaho: This is one of our favorite trout streams. It provides the opportunity to catch a very large trout, but it doesn’t make it easy for you to catch one. When you do catch one, you can be proud of it because you have done something few can accomplish. Fly fishing Silver Creek is challenging but that’s what fly fishing should be. Many anglers cannot accomplish catching any of this creek’s trout. There’s a simple reason for it. The trout have already been teased by many flies and most all of them have be spooked a few times by other anglers. It’s has plenty of water to fish, but it isn’t a fifty mile long freestone river. It’s glass slick, clear water challenges an angler’s skills to the utmost. Silver Creek is located near the middle of the state of Idaho. It is well known nationwide for its large size brown and rainbow trout. It’s currents are complex and tricky to say the least. Getting a drag free drift isn’t easy. It’s trout feed selectively on numerous species of aquatic insects, crustaceans and terrestrial insects. Fly fishing Silver Creek successfully isn’t easy. It takes some time on the water and a lot of skill.The area around Silver Creek is mostly farmland. You can see mountains but they are a long way off. It begins near Gannett in a very marshy area. There are lots of bushes and small trees as well as some very high grass that well hides the creek. It doesn’t have any one source of water. There are many little tributary streams and small streams that form Silver Creek.The creek is full of aquatic vegetation of many types. Fish have no problem hiding from their predators or anglers. The stream is full of nymphs and larvae but getting an imitation of them down to the fish hiding in the grass and weeds on the bottom is almost impossible.The headwaters of the little stream flow into Silver Creek Preserve. Prior to the establishment of the Preserve, the lack of regulations made the habitat and quality of the fish less than average for a large spring creek. The surrounding farms and ranches used the water for irrigation and the levels fluctuated widely. This day in time, there’s no better spring creek in the nation. Silver Creek Preserve is owned by the Nature Conservancy. They allows anglers great access and exceptional fishing opportunities. It is strictly “catch-and-release” regulations all the way down to Route #20. When you fish this section of the stream you are required to sign in at the Conservancy headquarters building at the top of the hill. Most of the upper part of the Reserve can be waded. The bottom is soft and wading isn’t exactly easy but it can be done. Most of the lower section of Silver Creek is too deep to wade and you either have to cast from the banks (which isn’t easy due to bushes surrounding the creek) or use a float tube. Access to the creek outside the Reserve is limited. You can fish from float tubes but access isn’t possible in many areas. You can float through the private property sections, but you can’t enter or leave the stream on private property. The lower section ponds, as they are called, has much slower moving current and getting from one access point to another isn’t easy in some cases. If you fish below Kilpatrick Bridge, you just about have to use a float tube. The creek can be access downstream of Highway #20 is a few places and it can be well worth the effort to fish. The size of the brown and rainbow trout remain very large and there’s plenty of them. The trick is fooling them into taking your fly. That’s the tough part. Fishing the lower section all the way down to U.S. Highway 20 is good but it’s usually accessible below Kilpatrick Bridge to float tubers only. Below Highway #93 the river is not very accessible. Fly Fishing Silver Creek is as good as fly fishing gets in our opinion. The water stays a constant temperature throughout the year. It’s currents are smooth and slick but very tricky. It is very difficult to get a drag free drift. The changing currents are not easy to detect and difficult to see. The bottom of the stream is a solid mass of aquatic vegetation.The stream’s hatches of aquatic insects are huge. The trout feed on most of them selectively. Matching the hatch is necessary most of the time. You not only need to be good at presentation, you also need a good knowledge of aquatic insects to be consistently successful at fly fishing Silver Creek.
Fly Fishing Guide To Silver Creek: The section of water within the Preserve is only about a mile long. It gets a lot of pressure from anglers from all over the world. It takes a lot of patients to fish this stream successfully. The trout are very leader shy. They have also seen just about every trout fly there is. Keep in mind that they have probably been spooked more than once by other anglers. You will find a little current in the very upper end of the Preserve where the stream is small. Some of the images shown in this section shows part of the stream near the upper end. You can catch trout easier there then anywhere we know of in Silver Creek but they are certainly no pushover. The speed of the current just helps disguise the fly enough to fool them. The problem is, the trout are mostly small rainbows that feed in the current. The larger trout tend to stay in the larger bodies of water downstream. One of the problems you have fishing Silver Creek is maneuvering around in the aquatic vegetation. One step in the wrong place and you will be stuck in the soft bottom. Wading takes a little getting used to. The other problem with wading is the depth of the water. Much of it is just too deep to wade. You can use float tubes in the creek. They are effective, especially in the ponds, as they are called. These are large pools, or areas where the water flows very slowly. Wading in the lower section of the Preserve is difficult or impossible because of the water depths. You can wade most of the upper and middle areas of the Preserve.To catch trout consistently in Silver Creek requires paying very close attention to the hatches. If nothing is hatching, and that isn’t very often, then you need to pay attention to what is going to hatch next, or what insect is most plentiful and available to the trout at the time. Fishing nymphs and imitations of larvae can be productive, but it is usually difficult because of the vegetation. You must “sight fish” around the vegetation and use the correct weight on the fly or you will either stay hung up or not catch anything.The other key is the same key to fishing any spring creek with slow moving water. It’s almost always better to find a trout and fish to it, than it is to blind cast. Sneaking around and stalking trout is a big part of the process you will need to go through to catch trout. Blind casting usually just results in spooking a lot of trout.
Silver Creek Hatches and Flies: Our information on aquatic insects is based on our stream samples of larvae and nymphs, not guess work. We base fly suggestions on imitating the most plentiful and most available insects and other foods at the particular time you are fishing. Unlike the generic fly shop trout flies, we have specific imitations of all the insects in Silver Creek and in all stages of life that is applicable to fishing. If you want to fish better, more realistic trout flies, have a much higher degree of success, give us a call. We not only will help you with selections, you will learn why, after trying Perfect Flies, 92% of the thousands of our customers will use nothing else. 1-800-594-4726.
The hatches on Silver Creek are usually large. In fact, most of the summer you will be challenged with multiple hatches. The water chemistry is great for aquatic insects and there’s plenty of them. The pH is high, perfect for many insects, and that’s the number one reason why the trout average a large size. They have a lot to eat. One insect that you will find abundant at times, especially during its fall hatch, is the Blue-winged Olive. There are several species that exist in different sizes, so you need to pay attention to the actual sizes of the hatching BWOs. They can range from a hook size 16 up to a size 22. The first hatch occurs from about the middle of May through June. The second hatch, which is larger, occurs from about the first of September and can last all the way into the first of December. In June, you will find both a Green Drake hatch and a Brown Drake hatch. Since these insects hatch at different times, you will need to stay busy all day long in June. The Pale Morning Dun mayflies can start hatching as early as the first of May, but expect the largest hatches to occur during June and the first part of July. The single largest hatch of mayflies is the Callibaetis hatch, or Speckle Wing Quill. These insects hatch in huge quantities, starting about the first of June and it can last hatching in August and usually continue on into September. These little mayflies are important because there are fewer hatches occurring at that time. You will also find some Mahogany Duns that hatch during the month of September. Caddisflies are also very plentiful. Often they are more plentiful than anything for the trout to eat. The most abundant ones are different species of Spotted Sedges. They hatch from about the first of June on into the middle of August. The Green Sedges, consisting of more than one species, hatch from about the first of June on into September. These are important because the trout eat a lot of their larvae called Rock Worms.There are several other species of caddisflies that hatch on Silver Creek. Some of the longhorn species and several other small caddisflies, especially the little micro caddis, can be found hatching throughout the summer and early fall. About the only stonefly of any significance are the Little Yellow Stoneflies, or Yellow Sallies. They hatch in limited quantities during July. Don’t overlook the midge. They hatch throughout the year and may possible be about the only thing the trout are eating on some days. We suggest you always have some imitations of their pupae and the adults.There are a variety of different types of minnows and baitfish and of course, some sculpin that exist in Silver Creek. You will find that trout can be taken on streamers mostly during very low light conditions. Early mornings, late afternoons and times when the skies are heavily overcast are best for streamer fishing. There’s a huge amount of terrestrial insects around this stream. Grasshoppers, ants, and beetles are plentiful during July, August and September. You should have imitations of each of these. Damselflies and Dragonflies are both very plentiful. Trout can be taken on imitations of their nymphs throughout the season. Craneflies are also plentiful. Scuds are extremely plentiful in Silver Creek. Imitations of them will catch trout year-round. We have the best flies you can purchase for fishing Silver Creek. “Perfect Flies” are available for all the insects found on this stream. They are highly imitative of the naturals and proven to be very effective on this spring creek. If you haven’t already done so, we hope you will give them a try. You will not be disappointed.
Stream Report Archive: 08/13/19 The creek is just about always in good shape. The numbers of fish caught always depends largely on the anglers fishing. Matching about what is going to hatch and what is hatching is very important. Good presentations, just as important.
08/21/19 We continue to get some good reports from customers. There are lots of insects
hatching and our terrestrial imitations are also working good. The weather is nice and cool
and the stream in excellent shape.
09/06/19 The creek is still in great shape with decent numbers of trout being caught by our customers. There are lots of hatches taking place and our terretrial imitations are also
working good. It is getting cooler and there a good bit of rain in the foreast and both should only help.
09/28/19 Things are about to change on the creek. The weather is going to be much cooler with a chance of snow showers each day this coming week. There will still be some hatches taking place and our terrestrials should continue to work until the first hard freeze
09/16/19 The stream is in good shape with some of our customers sending in good reports
and others not so good. It isn’t the easiest stream to fish but this is what we think makes it a great one. There are new hatches taking place.
02/08/2020 The creek remains in very good shape with good hatches of Blue-winged olivesand Midges. Afternoons are warmer on the angler, but makes little to no difference in the water temperature except a little on the lower end of the creek.
04/17/20 Fishing is permited below the Preserve and trout are being caught in good
numbers.. This coming week should be good as well..
05/20/20 The creek is in good shape with multiple hatches. Opening day in the Preserve
should be great.The Preserve section opens Labor Day or this weekend. There are some
hatches taking place.
06/02/20 The creek is in very good shape in all respects. There are multiple hatches taking place. This coming week should be a very good one.
06/19/20 The creek is in great shape with lots of hatches taking place. Our customers are
sending n good reports.
06/30/20 The creek is in very good shape with lots of hatching insects. We continue to get good reports from customers fishing it. Terrestrial imitations are also working good.
07/11/20 The creek is flowing low but in good shape otherwise. There are still multiple
hatches taking place. Terrestrial imitations are also working good. This coming week should be another good one.
08/16/20 The creek is still flowing at a low level. Many like it like that as it opens up more
water that is not too deep to wade. In all cases regardless of water level you have to use
stealth and stay hidden from the trout. We continue to get good reports from customers
fishing the creek.
Note: We are discontinuing posting the archive section due to the
number of reports we already have posted.
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