After what amounted to something in the region of 23 hours travel….yes! 23!! I finally arrived at Idaho Falls. You will have to look hard on the maps of the USA to possibly find Idaho Falls, but even in the few years I have been coming here, I have watched the “old” down-town area become swamped by strip Malls, fast food chains and all the trappings of a modern USA town…but for all that, there is uniqueness about this area and I am including the Western states here: Wyoming, Idaho and Montana and that is the people. And they do say, “that places are people”.

Whether, the folks are resident or attracted  to the area by the clean air, crystal rivers, high plains and surrounding mountains, there is one pervasive quality: Friendliness.  
I have never known a group of people that are so fundamentally decent or friendly. It’s infectious.   
OK. No, I agree, it is madness to generalise – not everything here is probably marvellous – and there is a certain rose-tinted lens view as a visitor…but people that move here to live, do say same. It is so easy and friendly. Gentle on the soul – even their speech is not staccato but measured and gentle.

Richard from the camera store (I wanted to check out a Light Meter) exemplified this and  took at least ¾’s of an hour to NOT sell me anything, show me how he used his light-meter in his studio and then gave me a whole host of web sites and places I should try in order to get the best possible deal. He moved to Idaho Falls from LA, having been a Homicide Detective. Need I say more? Probably not.  
It is also home, one the very finest Bakeries I have found on this planet – I will get some  recipes …no, MUST get some recipes for the food page. Awesome – they even give you free chunks of bread with your coffee – bread with Orange and Cranberry, Banana, Cinnamon, Dill and Potato, and all the usual Sourdoughs’ and Wheats’ and so on – people just come in off the street and grab a “slice” pay nothing and go – how very English….Maybe not. But it is a philosophy that seems to permeate the society here. Help and kindness are their structure.

Then I visited Jimmy’s; my personal Idaho Falls shrine. Jimmy Gabettas and his father – and Jim, run one of the best tackle stores you will ever see. Please see the images – just awesome for the fly tying aficionado. As usual, I succumbed to latest “best” fly tying material – well, it would be rude not to. More of which later.

But it is essentially on with the show and the clans are arriving – dinner last night was with some the gods of USA fly tying, Bill Heckel, Bob Lay, Bob Long, and many other innovative and inspiring folk; I also bumped into, literally,  one of the “greats” of current USA Western Fly fishing and the mastermind behind the vaunted – and much copied – Jackson Hole One-Fly competition: Jack Dennis. I have known Jack for many years and he has always a tale to tell and news to tell, too.  I will report on his vies later. For now, I am in recovery and await the show
Actually it’s like a “gig”; the Roadies are in building the stage and the sound system and we are rehearsing and going through the playing orders – the same hushed expectancy, the same excited electricity. What fun: a fly fisher ….on the road!  

More tomorrow – adios.  

This is going to be a quick one I am afraid. It’s about 01.00 in the morning and I have just finished tying a mass of soft hackles (USA lexicon!) North Country Spiders or Wets to everyone else. My eyes hurt and I need sleep – early start tomorrow and the snow seems to be driving in all-around – thankfully, here in Idaho Falls My good doctor friend Dennis Butcher driving back to Jackson hole this morning encountered the worst ground blizzard that he can remember for years…. so much for spring.

I elected to fish the Fun-Farm bridge area of Henry’s Fork at St Anthony – Ashton a little more upstream might have been better, but some dear friends have a house right by the river there, and the promise of hot drinks and a place to change was very seductive- and won.  

Lord! It was cold. The whole of the Teton mountain range – and it is big snaggle toothed series of jagged points became utterly obliterated by snowstorms driving end on a scything icy wind.
Amazingly, when I arrived – about midday - a few sand martins where careening and cavorting across the surface. Interesting: after a rejuvenating steaming mug of coffee, a freshly baked bagel and a mass of layered clothing – God bless Bill Klyn from Patagonia who rescued the Jardine shell and extremities with layers of the new Fly fishing clothing range – and damn warm and excellent it has turned out to be! -  It was time to actually fish. Carol and Leonard Razin kindly showed me the prime lies and lairs of the neighbourhood trout and pointed me in the right direction. Mercifully it was close to the house and in the lee of the worst of the blasts of wind. Just as soon as I started chunks f snow dropped menacingly from the sky; this was going to be a short-lived experience!

I worked my way up one of the abraded channels using a two-fly Czech nymph arrangement due to the overall shallow nature of the runs in that particular area. I am not sure why I thought I would use ten foot #4 rod – a smidgeon light – but use it I did; and the overall leader length was, I guess, about eight foot.
Out of nowhere in truly shallow water the line between the rod tip and the wind blasted surface just seem to stutter – no more – just a flicker that was different to the usual downstream movement. The first fish of the year from the USA pounded beneath the icy surface – this was good. A good ‘bow of about 14 inches had taken a CJ bug on the point. Great start an then it happened…driven by if that were possible, an even more waspish wind, even more flurries of snow and even more drops in the already frigid temperature.
Little wings everywhere – a tiny regatta of tiny dark wings gripped, rolled and sped down the undulating angry gunmetal grey river. Western blue winged olives – anglers would know them to be a 16-18 - were hatching in abundance: it was a sight that just had me stopping fishing and taking photographs: just marvellous: magical. Why we fish, actually.

But what amazed me was the density of the hatch in such perishing cold; what didn’t surprise me was that trout were slightly disinterested in eating anything! I think even the fly had little overcoats and woolly scarves on!  

I switched fishing styles after trying “manfully” to get a shot of these tiny little up-winged, to a classic wet-fly-cum-spider style of several flies, a long leader and a slightly up and across and down style in order to try and recreate the hatching process subsurface of these extraordinary little creatures. It didn’t work – well I am not sure anything would in that cold – at a guess – 2 c! – Ice was not collecting like a rather interesting looking sorbet at my rod tip – and that has happened for a while. I did manage one really big – rocky mountain bonefish – the whitefish so disparaged by the natives! I tell you, if you put a bloomin’ great sail like dorsal fin on the back called them something exotic (and they still have an adipose fin remember) like an “East-slope sail finned silverling” people would queue in the river to catch it! Brilliant fish to catch, the Whitey!

Still I have woken to a sunny day no snow – still cold though and the promise of a bout of interesting nymph fishing with Tim.

The winner though, without doubt, was this extraordinary landscape.  Deer crossing the river, sweeping curtains of snow across the horizon, Osprey and hawks playing with the wind, the hatching tough little flies – and of course, the kindness of the people.