Snake River
Featured Listings: (add your listing)
Mad River Boat Trips - Scenic and Whitewater!
Exciting whitewater trips or scenic flat water wildlife viewing floats. We have multiple options to get you out on the famous Snake River. Most trips include meals!
(800) 458-7238
Reel Deal Anglers
The only private launch on the Snake River in Jackson Hole! Enjoy fishing without the crowds! Trip includes flies, gear, an amazing riverside lunch & true western hospitality.
(307) 413-0669
Snake River Listings: (add your listing)
Jackson Hole Fly Fishing Trips
24 years of profesionnal guide service ensures the serious anglers needs are met! Also offering 5 person trips great for families or 2 couples. Orvis Endorsed Guide.
(866) 484-3464
Snake River Kayak and Canoe: Boat Rentals
Canoes, sea kayaks, fishing drift boats, whitewater kayaks, 2 person inflatable duckie rafts, 8 person whitewater rafts & sit on top kayaks! Classes and guided trips, too!
(800) 529-2501
Snake River Park KOA and Whitewater Rafting
Join us for exciting whitewater raft trips down the Snake River: 8 or 16 person rafts & dinner trips. We are located right on the water w/ camping too.
(800) 562-1878
While relaxed and laid-back in its own sort of way, the very nature of summer in this town simply doesn't lend itself to lazy, dog-day afternoons. Because of its precious time limit beneath the Tetons, summertime in Jackson is different than in other parts of the country, where people sit on back porches drinking tea and watching kids play baseball in a farmer's field until nightfall.
Things are more rugged here, and people tend not to lounge but to labor even for fun. This is due in part to the dry heat which enables people to play all day and avoid the type of humidity smothering the country east of here like a hot, wet blanket. But it's also due to the value local residents place on an active day, and the Snake River provides a common destination for Jackson Holes summer seekers.
Trout time on the horizon
The Snake, while large enough to provide both laughs and livelihoods, is still small enough to know intimately.
One can learn the quirks and circumstances of current, of runs and riffles, of gravel bars, eddies, hydraulics, holes and pieces of quiet, flat water. This is particularly true for those who find themselves on the water every day, for fun or profit or both.
"I think anybody who likes moving water likes home water and this area serves as the home water for an increasing number of people every year," said local fishing guide Reynolds Pomeroy. "What's great about the Snake is that it presents a new face every year. For a paddler, that might mean hydraulics or whatever. But for me it means fishing holes."
Seeing clearly
Jackson Hole is surrounded by freestone streams, meaning their early season character is dictated primarily by a muddy spring runoff. While most mountain streams experience some form of this annual high-water cleansing, not all turn into the brown, raging debris-filled phenomena found in Jackson Hole. For example, the Lochsa and Selway rivers of northern Idaho, while large, swift and scary in their own right, run off crystal clear from source to junction, hence the name of that river which they combine to form the Clearwater.
But a muddy river just seems scarier, meaner, like it will suck you under where you can't see and where you never will be seen again. Consequently, it is not just the temperature of the river rising that helps the Snake become friendlier, but also the sight of rocks, becoming visible just a bit deeper with every passing day.
"When the river clears, kids get hypnotized by watching the rocks at the bottom," says Tom Guheen, a 10-year veteran scenic guide on the Snake for the Grand Teton Lodge Company. "And you also see the osprey and eagles fishing a lot more. It gets so clear, people start asking if it's drinkable.
Nobody asks that in the middle of June." Guheen is one of many guides in the valley who have spent time in other river communities, but he says he knows of no other town that can offer so much to so many. "Ever since the late '50s, when Charlie Sands and others started running trips, Jackson Hole has offered most people their first river experience, explains Guheen. It has always sort of been on the cutting edge and there's just not a lot of places that lend itself to a three-hour, round-trip scenic or whitewater excursion, where people consider it the highlight of their visit. Folks on vacation can have a high-quality, whitewater experience and still have the rest of the afternoon off to go to Yellowstone."
River etiquette
Local rivers, particularly the Snake, are experiencing increasing popularity and user numbers each year. Occasionally, crowded launch site conditions and congested water traffic have caused avoidable conflicts.
If you've brought your own raft, canoe or fishing boat with you on vacation, or intend on renting one, please consider the following suggestions to help make things run more smoothly for everyone.
At the launch site
1. Most launch sites have preparation and set-up areas away from the actual ramp. Please use them to totally prepare your craft before hauling it down to the water. When your boat leaves the trailer, be ready to hop in and go.
2. If it's necessary to launch first, in order run a shuttle or park the car for instance, then be sure and slide whatever craft you have far enough downstream so others waiting to launch may do so without difficulty.
3. If the actual ramp has room for two or more launchings at once, then back in far enough to one side that other vehicles may fit.
4. Refrain from launching right in front of other boats and try to let a party get around the next corner before putting in behind them. Obviously, this is difficult on straight-aways and three-day weekends, but everyone is here to see something besides other people. Be considerate.
On the water
1. Be extremely courteous when approaching people fishing from shore. They have worked a lot harder than you to get to that spot so reel in if you're fishing and give up that hole. You'll be covering a lot more water than they will. If there's any question as to which route is best, yell ahead and ask "Which way do you want me to go?"
2. It is considered bad etiquette, when approaching a group fishing a bank from their boat, to pass them in the fast water and then pull in front of them. Either switch to the opposite bank, or slow down and wait to fish behind them.
3. When anchoring, know when water is too fast. This is not just an etiquette issue, but a safety issue. Try and drop it only in eddies and slower water. Also, keep a knife handy and be ready to sacrifice your anchor if necessary. When in a narrow channel, try not to anchor in the middle so other boats can still get by.
At the take out
Move your boat immediately up or downstream upon landing and don't use the ramp as your break-down site. Nothing is more frustrating than arriving at the take out only to have it occupied by a half-disassembled raft and a dozen piles of gear and garbage.
Finally
With more crowded conditions, we all need to be more tolerant, not less. Remain good sports and use common sense and courtesy.
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