Small water, some snow and a dog’s first fishing trip

Thought today would be a good day to introduce the pup to
fly fishing. A favorite small stream seemed like the best place
to ease into things. In the interest of time (an 8 week old pup
can only do so much) I decided to head straight to a known
hole.

Small  
stream and some snow

After checking out the water, Ruby James decided to
hunker down and stay warm during some snow showers. This
gave her a front row seat, although I’m not sure how interested
she was.

Ruby  
James keeping warm

I don’t know if I could’ve hooked a prettier trout to show
the pup. The colors on this fish were fantastic and the size
wasn’t bad either (it’s great when small waters surprise you!)

Fall  
Beauty

Ruby James’ first trout encounter. She didn’t seem to care
much which is good for fish and fisherman.

Rubys  
first fish

Beautiful spots up close and personal. (should make for a
cool painting this winter)

fine  
spotted spots

While not native to the Rockies, I do have a soft spot for
the Brookie; especially when their showing off their spawning
colors.

Brook  
trout gem

Snow showers moving through the valley signify an end to
the summer/ nice fall weather.

Snow  
showers

New pup at the casa

Rain’s falling and a bit of snow’s predicted, elk are bugling and the leaves have changed and are now dropping. Must be fall in the Tetons. We’ve had a great September ’round here. Dry fly fishing on all waters has been stellar, with fish rising to everything from big hoppers and drakes to small BWOs and Tricos. A weather front moved into the valley the other day and seemed to slow fishing, although a few hardy anglers have embraced the cold, wet weather and are pitching BWOs to picky fish.

Here at the Bennett household things have changed dramatically. Last week Jamie and I drove over to Idaho Falls and picked up a new black lab puppy. Ruby James is eight weeks old and full of energy. She’s been a lot of fun (and work) and seems to have had no problems joining our pack. We’ve informed her that she has some big shoes to fill. Sage, our previous lab, was the greatest dog (and fishing companion) in the world and Ruby will have to work hard to follow in her footsteps. Something tells me she’s up for it….

Ruby James familiarizing herself with the Adipose driftboat…

Ruby James in the Boat

Fall fishing and some pictures

Around here, fishing takes precedent over blogging. And
while I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything lately, I am pleased
to report that fishing around here has been fantastic. Aside
from a few stray cold days, we’ve been having beautiful fall
weather. Skies are blue with the contrasting yellows and
oranges of changing cottonwood and aspen trees along the
river banks and temperatures, while cold at night, continue to
warm things up during the day.

Over the past few weeks I’ve gotten to take guests out on
some of my favorite waters around here in Wyoming. Some,
like the Snake and Firehole are well known, others are
sleepers. Regardless, it’s been a lot of fun putting folks on
fish, especially return guests that I’ve fished before. Below are
some photos from the past week; putting long fall days in
perspective and hopefully illustrating what it’s like to fly fish in
Jackson Hole, Yellowstone and surrounding western Wyoming
waters!

Here’s Mark casting to a rising rainbow trout on the
Firehole river in YNP..

Mark  
on the firehole

Up Close and Personal with the Alpha Female; I took
it as a good omen..

Black  
Alpha Female

Chris finding a remote YNP stream both challenging
and rewarding (not to mention beautiful)

small  
stream brown trout in YNP

A wild Yellowstone Cutthroat trout! (author’s note:
I’m a little ashamed of the streamer in his mouth, but you
gotta do what you gotta do….)

Yellowstone river cutthroat

Black Canyon of the Yellowstone River; makes for a
long, but awesome day!

Yellowstone River; Black Canyon

Trout are already Wet

What’s up with all the rain and cool temperatures (not to mention whispers of snow in the high country)? It seems that monsoonal moisture has found us here in the Northern Rockies and is wrecking havoc on the last few weeks of our proper summer. Typically here in Jackson and the surrounding area, summer is filled with sunshine and the occasional brief thunderstorm/rain shower. Sure, we might get a wet day here or there, but most of our moisture comes from snow in the late fall, winter and spring. Summer = sunshine and pleasant evenings. Lately the rain has been coming down in sheets, testing out the toughest of Gor-tex wearing fishermen. Just when the Snake was fishing awesome, and I mean awesome- big flies, in the sun, while wearing sandals- this weather pattern comes along and slows things down. Fishing’s still good, but the past week challenged anglers a bit more than usual. There were no easy ones, no second chances. Each fish had to be earned. It looks like the forecast will be improving in the next few days; good news for anglers and guides hoping to get in a few more shorts and sandal days on the water.

I’ve been staying busy (and sort of dry) lately guiding folks on my usual haunts. For the most part, days have been good. Especially for guests like Joe who fished with me for a few days over in Dubois. Another memorable day was spent with Dave and his wife Jean from ME. I introduced Dave to the Green river, helping his catch several nice trout, including the brown in the photo below. The next few weeks look busy and hopefully folks will have fun as I try and help them get a few fish!

Not bad for a sporting gentleman in his 80s….

Dave's Brown trout

Dry Flies, Dry Flies and a touch of streamers

Visitors and locals alike are experiencing some fantastic
fishing around Jackson Hole. Fishing on the Snake is keep both
experienced and novice anglers busy, with native cutthroat
trout feeding like champions on the surface. In my opinion,
the action, especially with big rubber-leg patterns is the best
I’ve seen in years. Fish of all sizes are coming up and making
anglers (and guides) smile.

Dan  
showing off a cutt

I’ve been busy taking folks fishing, spending days on the
Snake, Green, Flat Creek and Dubois area. It’s always nice
when the toughest decision to make is where to take guests to
fish. We dealt with a rainy few days last week that made
conditions challenging for some, but great for others
(particularly anglers casting streamers at brush piles)! Below
are a few pictures from recent weeks.

Derek getting it done subsurface…

Nice  
Brown Derek!

Flat Creek on the Refuge offers challenging fishing and big
rewards…

Teton  
Fly Fishing on Flat Creek

Everything’s fishing

As we close out July, the fishing around here is red hot. I’ve been busy taking folks fishing on a variety of waters around here in Wyoming. Both the Green and Snake rivers are providing folks with good fishing; smaller waters are also great too. We’ve caught some really nice brown trout down on the Green, mainly fishing subsurface. The Snake’s really turned on too. Dry fly fishing on it with big foam/attractor patterns is the best I’ve seen in a while.

In addition to the float fishing, I also got to get out of town for a few days, taking long-time return client and friend, Andrew, from Houston, TX over to the cabin in Dubois for a few days of fly fishing. We fished some of my favorite waters; getting waaaay off the beaten path, where native Yellowstone Cutthroat trout rose aggressively to various dry flies. The fish weren’t huge, but there were some nice ones and they kept us busy all day long. It was a great few days and nice to over to Dubois.

Andrew showing off a beautiful Yellowstone Cutthroat trout…. 

Andrew with Yellowstone Cutthroat

Off the beaten path…

Fly Fishing near Dubois Wyoming

The upcoming weeks should continue to provide guests with some great fishing. I’m looking forward to more fun days watching clients pound the banks of the Snake with large foam patterns, as well as some more overnight trips to Dubois.

Small water

As some of you know, I have a soft spot for small wild trout streams. The other day I had the pleasure of introducing Ross and his son George to one of my favorites. Streams like this are never featured in magazines or on “current fishing condition” boards at the local shops. They are however as wild a place to fish for trout as you can imagine and full of eager brook trout and cutthroat. Over the course of the day, both anglers enjoyed the small water; catching pan size trout on bushy stimulators. Here’s to the small water and the beautiful trout that inhabit them!

George and Ross working the water with dry flies…

backcountry water

Ross showing off one of his many trout from the day

Ross with brookie

Two happy anglers…

ross and george

Long days and biting fish

After taking some great folks fishing up in Yellowstone last
week, including a fun return client from Texas,  AND providing
my brother and his lovely wife a luxurious comfortable futon for a few
days, I found myself with two free days and a desire to check
on a favorite native cutthroat stream of mine. Jamie joined
me and boy did we have a great day. Long slow pools were full
of eager Snake River Finespotted cutthroat trout. We traded
casts, throwing big, bushy Stimulators and Sofa Pillows to
likely runs and rising trout. All in all a great way to spend a
Monday; capped off with streamside cans of cold Coors.
Today’s another beauty here in Jackson Hole. I’m gearing up
for some guided trips this week into the Shoshone National
Forest with guests. Should be a blast fishing dry flies to wild,
aggressive fish. In the meantime, I got a brisket smoking I
should get back too. Happy 4th to everyone!

Mark celebrates his birthday in style with a Firehole
brown trout. Abundant caddis made for fun fishing and the
Grizzly sighting only added to a fine day on the water!

Mark celebrates on the firehole

Jamie releases a jewel of a cutthroat trout.

Landing one

 

native cutthroat

Jamie hooking up on a nice pool. It seemed every
fish in the stream wanted her fly!

el  
jamie

Firehole River Fly Fishing

It was a good week of fishing around here in Jackson Hole. Several wade fishing trips proved successful despite some colder weather.

I had the pleasure of taking Kevin C. from Chicago up to Yellowstone National Park Thursday and introducing him to the Firehole River. Water clarity and levels are ideal up there and we had a great day hooking acrobatic rainbows and browns (some of which jumped four feet out of the water when hooked!). We started off swinging wetflies, then switched to various PMD patterns to target rising fish. In addition to great fishing, we got to see some of the sights and animals that make Yellowstone famous. A fine way to spend a day on the water and a fine angling job done by Kevin!

A pretty Firehole River brown trout that took a well presented PMD cripple off the surface..

A firehole river brown trout

Kevin showing off one of many trout brought to hand over the course of our day in Yellowstone. Note the steam from the geyser basin..

kevin on the firehole

 

The coming week should be a good one too. Temperatures are warming up again and fishing will continue to be good. Hopefully this warm weather will help get the Green river in shape so I can start taking folks float fishing on the upper Green river. In the meantime, Yellowstone’s not a bad place to be!

Fishing in June sunshine!

It seems like we’ve stumbled into summer around here.
Temperatures in Jackson Hole lately have been around 70 and
daily sunshine is melting away our snowpack. While rivers in
the region remain high, there are certainly plenty of fishy
options.

First evenin’ fish of the summer! This beautiful
brown trout inspected my size 6 Sofa Pillow three times before
deciding to take the tiny Copper John dropper…

a  
spotted beauty

For the next month and a half (well really all
season
), Yellowstone National Park is a great place to
go fly fishing. Waters in the southwestern part of the park
(Firehole, Madison, Lewis, Gibbon, Nez Perce) all fish best this
time of year, providing anglers with good hatches of PMDs and
caddis. The Firehole canyon also gets a salmonfly hatch at the
end of the month. If you’re into casting BIG dry flies, this can
be a fun place to be. Area lakes are also fishing well around
the valley. Most smaller, hike-in lakes below 8,000 feet are
free of ice and crystal clear. These are fun to spend a day at;
pack your lunch, a fly rod and do a little exploring. Jamie and I
hiked into Bearpaw lake in the Tetons the other afternoon.
Fish were active, but so were the mosquitos!

After a long hike in to this fantastic Yellowstone
cutthroat fishery, I found half the lake ice free. Quickly rigging
up a rod, I landed a nice bright cutt. Unfortunately storms
rolled in with high winds, snow and sleet, forcing a hasty
retreat.

Teton  
Fly Fishing in the High Country

The Grizzlies bears are out and about. This guy was
feeding on grass along Togwotee pass..

Grizzly in the Sun

We’re headed out this afternoon to the fishing cabin in
Dubois to get it ready for summer guests. Also planning on
checking some trout waters… More to come…