Palisades Reservoir

While the Palisades Dam impressively looms in the distance, the Palisades Reservoir offers up a wide array of leisure pursuits. Granted, popular activity on Palisades, particularly fishing, is primarily a summer draw but when the weather turns cold and the reservoir freezes solid, another sport emerges. While ice fishing may not appeal to everyone, it is nevertheless a time-worthy tradition for many for its social and sporting benefits. It’s a fun and exciting way to spend time in Idaho’s beautiful winter landscape for both the lone fisherman and those with families in tow. During these colder months and while huddled around a warming stove, anglers can expect to entice cutthroat, brown and mackinaw into their nets.

Fishermen arriving at Teton Springs Lodge & Spa guests in nearby Victor, Idaho typically prefer the warm and picture-perfect days of summer to cast a line in of the many rivers at their disposal. They also travel to Swan Valley, but not to fish the Palisades Reservoir but rather they often have laser focus on the South Fork of the Snake River. It’s a quick jaunt to reach the Southfork. Many anglers may not realize that the South Fork is a tailwater, meaning; it’s a fishery below a dam and in this case, the Palisades Dam. It is indeed this tail-water status that gives the South Fork its impressive muscle for snagging the big browns, rainbows and cutthroats. What most anglers may also not know is that the flows of the South Fork are regulated not for the benefit of the many anglers who covet this river, but flows are regulated for the thousands of farmers downstream who depend on the South Fork waters for the irrigation water that is their lifeblood. However, it’s only fair as the farmers have held the water rights to the Southfork for decades. However, this inconsistency in water levels inevitably changes the fishing outlook as it’s the level of the water that thus determines temperature and flow levels which alters what hatches will appear at any given time. All of these ongoing changes and fluctuations thus play a huge part in determining just how happy SouthFork fishermen will be on any given day.

This is not a stagnant situation; hatches can change multiple times during one outing with ever changing water & air temperatures playing an integral part in one of nature’s more complicated systems. Popular hatches on the South Fork include but limited to; pmds. Yellow sallies, caddis, baetis, stone flies, flavs, hoppers ants and spinners. Neophytes, as well as seasoned anglers can often find the complexities of fly-fishing daunting. After all, as with most sporting endeavors, knowledge and experience equate to a successful fly-fishing outing. Therefore, the staff at Teton Springs will often recommend that a visiting angler secure a bonified fishing guide who will undoubtedly enhance the opportunity to enjoy a bountiful day on the Southfork, and the other dynamic rivers that grace this greater Yellowstone-Teton region.

It’s a quick jaunt from Victor to this glorious and ever impressive waterway. WorldCast is the local and preferred fly-fishing outfitter for Teton Springs Lodge & those choosing one of the elegant three, four- and five-bedrooms luxury log cabins surrounding the resort’s Headwaters Golf Course. You’ll start your day with a cup of fresh coffee and breakfast at the Lodge’s Sage Café as your guide awaits with everything packed and ready to go, including lunch. All you need to focus on is that big brown trout that’s in your future. And that hike to Palisades Lake, well; that’s another day’s adventure!

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