We have been very busy getting ready fro our summer show season. So its been a while since I last wrote an entry. I have been concentrating learning how to work opals, Koroit Boulder Opals and Opalized Canadian Ammolites. Renita has been making her kumihimo braided necklaces and we both will be ready for our biggest show of the year.
So when George and Val returned from their Colorado hay ranch, ( George is 82 and Val 69 and they had both been bucking bails from their first hay cutting), they asked us to join them and go fly fishing. I hesitated a bit but luckily agreed. The rivers had been muddy but the small Salt Creek had cleared a bit and was fishable.
Packing a lunch we headed over the pass stopping at our favorite walk in spot. The land here is private but Wyoming Game and fish has an agreement that allows fisher people access to the stream. As we set up I asked George and Val what they were going to use and of course George was going to opt for nymphs while Val was going to start with her dries. I decided to put on a dry, an orange stimulator with a dropper fly.
With high hopes I hurried to my favorite spot and made repeated casts but all to no avail. I next tried a parachute dry and then a royal wolf but again I didn't have any takers. I looked back and saw George set the hook on a nice fish and so I changed to nymphs.
As I cast along an undercut bank I missed two fish. It usually takes mne a while to set the hook properly and so I started zero fro two. seeing some fish rising to a hatch I changed back to a parachute and missed a nice rise before setting the hook on a small but feisty cut throat.
A little further up stream I had a nice fish take an elk caddis and gently fought the fish in before releasing it back to its home. I didn't have any more takers and so I returned to the truck where Renita was setting out our lunch. She wasn't fishing as she is taking a strong medicine and cant do anything strenuous so she had actually brought her kumihimo.
George and Val had beaten me to the car and George was all smiles as he told me he had caught and released fifteen fish. Val had been blanked on her dries and the trash talking was on as George told us we need to change to wet flies, (wet flies sink and so you have to use a strike indicator to see when you have a bite.
After lunch we headed back to the stream and I watched George catch three fish in a row. I knew of a hole downstream and so I headed there. On my first cast the line reached an eddy and my strike indicator disappeared. Setting the hook I fought in a nice mountain whitefish. Now I don't care what I catch and so after releasing the fish I cast again and had another whitefish. I made eight casts and had eight bites in a row.
Meanwhile George had caught and release his own whitefish! We fished a bit more before deciding it was time to head back to the Ranch. We had caught and safely released eighteen fish. It was a great start to the season and a great break from grinding rocks, (although I enjoy working stones). Thank you George and Val!
In a sad note tourists speeding though Grand Teton National Park killed two bears yesterday. One was a female black bear and the other was a new grizzly cub, the son of one of the most famous bears, grizzly 399. The last anyone saw was the sow dragging her dead cub into the woods. Oh and the tourists didn't even stop.
Slow down idiots!
Great fish story. I think the tourist are just nuts when it come to wildlife.
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