Visiting the Greys River Slide

We returned from Cody and after a few days rest, decided to concentrate on fly fishing. Two of our favorite streams to fish are the Greys River and the Little Grey. Unfortunately, the Greys has been stained but we hoped that the Little Grey would be clear enough for fishing.

Picking up George and Val we headed up the Greys Road and reached the mouth of the Little Grey. It’s a tributary of the Grey and so we turned up the Little Greys road and quickly arrived at one of our best spots.

Agreeing to meet in a couple of hours. Renita and I hiked up some ways before we climbed down the bank and begin to fish. The water was clear and so we had high hopes that we would catch some fish, (the fish here are all Snake River fine spotted cutthroats).

The first cast produced nothing and as we worked up stream I finally had a hit and landed and released a small cut. We continued to work upstream and while we both had a few rises, but it was nothing like the last few years fishing. There were boot prints and so it had been fished recently, perhaps the same morning, but still we should have caught more fish.

Reaching our turn around point we headed back to the truck. We had only caught three cuts and so we hoped that our friends had found better success. They had already returned to the truck and when we arrived we found out that George had only caught one fish, before Val had fallen down the bank and they had decided to quit fishing as the terrain is difficult and steep.

Talking things over, we decided to forgo fishing the Little Grey and head up the Greys to the spot where an earthquake had triggered a landslide. It had happened earlier this winter and had partially blocked the river, creating a dangerous lake which had threatened to fail and was a hazard to anyone in the lower river valley.

The road construction people had repaired the road and the river had quickly cut through the debris field, so the road had been reopened. It was seven miles up from the mouth of the Little Grey and just before we reached the main slide, debris from a smaller slide was evident.

The main slide was easy to spot as the trees were tilted every which way. It reminded us of the, “drunken forests”, one sees in Alaska, (these are caused when the permafrost melts and the trees fall every which way).

Stopping the truck at the slide, I walked out on the debris field and took pictures of the new lake and the cut made by the river as it eroded through the debris filed. The newspapers had reported that at one time the lake was fifteen feet deep, but the cut had lowered the lake enough that the danger of collapse and flash flooding had lessened, (a game warden and told us that the slide was still moving so there was still danger possible).

Driving back down the road we stopped at a favorite spot and fished for a bit. The water was still high and stained and so we had no takers of our dry flies and nymphs. We stopped at another place for a picnic, before heading back to our home.

We did spot several deer on the way back, which was nice to see after the huge die off from last years harsh winter. It had been a good day with friends, but we will have to fish other streams for a few weeks before we return to the Greys River. Clear skies