René Harrop Though its length is more than eighty miles, the Henry’s Fork is a river of extreme diversity. Beginning small at its spring-fed source, the river is ever changing as it gathers volume from other springs and numerous tributaries on the way to the confluence with the Snake River. Undulating through changing terrain and elevation, it can seem as many rivers as it courses through pine forest and open meadows where its flow may be wide, slow, and gentle or surging through narrow stretches of intimidating rapids. Ever growing, as it courses through deep canyons and over spectacular falls, the Henry’s Fork leaves mountainous terrain and runs across the vast Snake River Plain. Although my days on the Henry’s Fork
number in the thousands I have not fished it all, and there are many lessons left to be learned. What’s it like to fish a certain river for as long as you have fished the Henry’s Fork? To have a river as magnificent as the Henry’s Fork close by is to live in a condition of happiness, if you are a fly fisherman. Time and distance are never a factor in determining whether I can fish on any given day, and only prohibitive weather keeps me away from the water. Few men can work and raise a family while still enjoying more than a hundred days each year on the water. The two homes I own are separated by about forty miles but both are only a few hundred yards from the Henry’s Fork.
