Our guide for the next two days is Luke Thompson from Asheville. Today, Sam Dixon of Idaho Falls was conscripted to row an extra boat so we could take some additional pictures. Sam has just graduated from high school, and we were jealous of such a cool summer job. I think my own first post-high summer involved something closer to a mop and bucket than a drift boat and a fly rod. Some early morning talks with the other guides and groups put some pressure on the North Carolina contingency to compete with the Westerners. We are staying at the Last Chance Lodge in Island Park, Idaho. The Hyde Boat Company of Idaho Falls, a maker of fiberglass and aluminum drift boats, bought the property five years ago when it was a flat-roofed, white roadside motel. Today, it is has been renovated and expanded to a 13-room, 12-cabin lodge with a private dining facility. The lodge also has a well-outfitted fly shop and employs eight core guides and as many as 20 during the summer. Philip Chavez, the lodge manager, has overseen the continuous development of the facility for the past four years and walked us about the facility, detailing the expansion of the rooms and rustic accents like the hand-fitted lodgepole pine steps and railings. We are staying in one of the property’s two-bed log cabins that each has a small front porch and, more importantly, comfortable beds. 38
We were fishing the Box Canyon area of the Henry’s Fork River today. The Henry’s Fork is actually a portion of the Snake River. It flows for 117 miles to where it joins the main stem of
the Snake River near Rexburg, Idaho. Unlike most rivers of the west, the Henry’s Fork is not a snowmelt watershed but one mostly fed by springs, which gives it a more constant water flow. The elevation of the watershed area ranges from 10,000 feet in the mountains to 4,800 feet near the river’s mouth. The Henry’s Fork is also a working river, which is to say that local agriculture heavily irrigates its certified seed potatoes from the lower sections of the river. We put in both boats at the Box Canyon landing. The river flows out from a small dam, slowly at first and then more quickly as it rounds a bend past as protruding rock wall. We began fishing with sub-surface nymphs but after about thirty minutes, Luke suggested