If you have a pulse and you fly fish then you have heard of Silver Creek. Big fish, technical water, and the Picabo Anglers fly shop shares a building with a burger joint. What more could you want?

I have always wanted to witness the brown drake hatch at Silver Creek. One year I was a couple days too early. The next year I was a few days too late. However, this year I got a little taste of it.

My buddies Jon and Steve accompanied me on this trip. We left our homes between 4:30 and 6:00 a.m. so we could maximize our time on the water.

The first half of the day was tough. We only saw a handful of rises and a storm blew in around noon. We picked up a few small fish, but nothing to write home about. Feeling sorry for ourselves we decided to head to Picabo to eat a burger.

While we were chatting away one of the fly shop employees interrupted us and said, “you need to get to the bridge right now.” We jumped out of our chairs and ran to the truck like kids trying to chase down the ice cream man. When we pulled up to the bridge we looked into the water and there they were. The brown drakes.

We quickly took our place along the creek. The hatch wasn’t spectacular, but it was still fun to see a drake now and then. It was enough to get the fish feeding.

After some trial and error I heard Jon yell and drop his rod. Lost him. Ten minutes later I heard him hollering again expect this time he landed him with the help from a friendly nearby angler.

I walked back to my spot, threw a few casts, and Jon started shouting again. The funny thing is his second fish was still really nice, but since he just landed a 22 inch brown it didn’t seem as impressive. I had to ask what fly he was using this time. He gave me one, and I walked back to my spot. I tied it on, made a few casts, and…….. Jon is screaming again.

I run back over. No way!

From this day forward Jon will be known as Johnny Spring Creek.