Fishing the Gros Ventre

In the summer months we normally avoid the nearby national parks like the plague. There are just too many people and so our preferred months to visit are May and September. However our friends wanted to fish the Gros Ventre, it is one of the classic Wyoming cutthrout trout streams, and so we packed a picnic lunch and headed off to Grand Teton National Park.
My former teaching buddy Bob and his wife were in Dubois, and so we all planned on meeting at Kelly warm springs. From there we would head up the road about ten miles into the national forest where we hoped to find clear water and less wary fish. The road became progressively narrower and by the time we reached Lower Slide Lake the road was high and narrow. It was definitely a road for the acrophobic to avoid!

Continuing the lake became muddy, from all the recent rains, and by the time we arrived at Crystal Springs campground the stream was simply to muddy to fish. We checked out the campground and decided it was a place to come back to and so we headed back down to an access below the slide.
It had been a place we had both fished, a long time ago, and we were disappointed to find the area had become overgrown with brush. Not only that, but the stream itself was full of a bright green algae, which is normally not seen in rivers here. It bespoke of high concentrations of nutrients, what was that all about?
Further down we talked with another fisherman and after his report we headed back into the park and fished at a place I had fished and written about last year.

Renita, Val, and Nancy set up their lawn chairs as we donned our waders and headed down to the fast moving stream. Bob and I went upstream and George the other way as we waded to likely looking current breaks and lines. Casting I soon had a nice fish make a pass but it was at my strike indicator as it ignored my nymphs. I changed to a wolf dry fly and it got no response.
Grasshopper flies also drew nothing and so I went through my fly box but nothing seemed to work Returning downstream I met Bob and we greeted the ladies as they told us they had watched another fisherman pull fish after fish from the first spot we had tried. Hmmmmm.....

George returned to tell us he had had the best day of fishing cutthroats since he had fished the Yellowstone thirty years ago. After lunch we watched him as he showed us the way he was reading the water and he caught another nice fish in a place I wouldn't have thought to try. It was amazing to watch how he read the water and all his fish were caught, and released, using the same nymphs we first had tied on.
Still it was a beautiful day with the Tetons in the background and the added bonus was the sight of two bull moose right across the river. Luckily they had moved back into the willows and presented no danger to us and so our fishing turned into a dues day, (you got to pay your dues before you can catch fish and believe me I have paid a lot of dues). Anyway beautiful sights, a picnic with friends, and Wyoming Wildlife moments, who could ask for more? Clear skies