A Visit from Long Time Friends, Part 1

We have been blessed with so many friends in our lives, and so when Bob and Nancy, (I taught Science with Bob for thirty years and he was my fishing partner in eighteen years of walleye tournaments), decided to visit us here in Star Valley we were excited and could hardly wait for their arrival. They arrived here last Sunday after driving the thousand plus miles from eastern Kansas.

Bob had already bought a nonresident fishing license, (Wyoming now has a five day for only fifty bucks), and so we headed out for a day of fly fishing at one of my favorite streams. The stream is hard to get to as it involves some walking but as soon as we reached the stream it only took Bob three casts before he landed his first Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat, (he has caught them before).

After the second fish I also started to fish, and we played leap frog from hole to hole. Reaching my favorite hole Bob caught a nice fish and then landed the best fish of the day, a fourteen-inch cut. We safely released all the fish. Our total for the day was twenty-two fish!

The next day we changed the directions and headed to the Greys Lake Refuge. The refuge was established to support the breeding grounds of Sandhill Cranes. The drought had shrunk the lake considerably and many of the areas we visited were dry.

Still we saw lots of cranes! The cranes had left their nests and so family groups were feeding close to the roads. The large flocks haven’t yet formed up for their migration, but it won’t be long as some of the trees are starting to get yellow leaves.

A beautiful red-tailed hawk left its perch before we could take its image, but a Harris hawk perched proudly on a telephone pole and allowed me to get a pretty good image. We did not see many other birds, due to the lake shrinking so far from the road, but we did see an immature yellow headed blackbird, lots of little grey birds we couldn’t identify, and several ducks. Unfortunately attempts to take images were less then stellar and so we not going to post them.

Still it had been a great day with lots of sandhill cranes and we stopped for a picnic at a campground along Tin Cup Creek. It’s a great trout stream just across the Wyoming Idaho border and one we have never fished it as we would have to buy an Idaho license.

Eating lunch, we talked of plans for more fishing and planned a day in Grand Teton National Park The bears there are heading to the berry patches, and the fall is one of the best times to see them. Bob had never fished from a pontoon boat before and also we decided to float the Salt River.

Both of those adventures are for anther blog entry so for now let’s just wish you all, clear skies