Great to see (and feel) the warmer temperatures the past few days! Lulu and I are over at the Teton Fly Fishing cabin getting it ready for the upcoming season. LOTS of cleaning and random maintenance stuff on the agenda as well as finishing a few painting commissions. Lu gave me the look (and bark) around 10:30 this morning, and while I had other things to do, I couldn’t resist the urge to go wet a line. We quickly hopped in the truck and drove to a nearby small stream that’s known to hold a few trout.

I rigged up my 8.5′ Winston with a small parachute adams and Lulu and I headed to the water. I immediately saw a nice fish holding in the gin clear water. Unfortunately Lulu’s excited state sent the fish running for cover. We’re still working on our training and despite being a great dog, Lulu’s fishing skills leave a little to be desired. At 11 months, there’s still no differentiating a trout from a bird; it seems both need retrieving….. Soo we moved upstream to the next hole and I manage to miss a nice strike. Another run up, I hooked a nice cutthroat. Lulu lost her cool and tried with all her might to get to the fish. In the battle with her, I lost it. Oh well, we’re training right?

So that’s how the next few hours went, a few fish were landed, numerous fish were spooked and one nice brown trout was retrieved and dropped in my net (and swam away)by an overexcited labrador. I can’t say that the time on the water was super relaxing due to my 4 legged companion. However it was nice to fish dry flies in a t- shirt and watching lulu leap and bound over the Wyoming countryside brought a smile to my face; even if she did spook dozens of fish!

A nice spunky rainbow put a bend in the rod!

Lulu on point looking for a released trout. I swear she can smell them; that’s gotta be why she swims around in all the fishy holes when off leash right? Ah, the training continues…

I love small stream fishing. It reminds me of my early days fly fishing in PA. Although I don’t think I’m as good at it as I used to be… Too many days on big open rivers. Definately fun though today. Some holding water I walked by, just observing the fish rather than trying to put a cast under all those willows

A good size brown for this small stream. I saw ( and spooked) some other nice fish, but a lot of the bigger ones were stationed up in root balls.

This time of year the water is LOW making it extra challenging. It’s amazing how fish can sense you and spook from so far away. I only had one cast per run and if I messed up the fish would let me know by shooting by.

We had some nice weather here in Jackson Hole this past
weekend. Naturally the best course of action was to go fishing.
Saturday, Jamie, Lulu and I headed south to fish the Snake river
canyon. This was partly to get Jamie on her first fish of the year,
but also to do some dog training. For those that don’t know, Lulu
is our 11 month old Lab pup who has an affinity for retrieving
hooked fish. While you can’t blame her, the behavior isn’t ideal
and needs to be improved in order to make her a good fishing
companion.

We immediately found fish rising to midges and small black
stoneflies. Jamie caught one spunky cutthroat trout after another
while I worked with Lulu. After a while we traded off; more fish
were caught and Lulu got better with each fish. After about two
hours we decided to quit while we were ahead (plus Lulu was
getting tired and cold). We headed back to town, picked up
supplies for cocktails and settled in on our tiny deck with friends
for the rest of the day.

Sunday I headed over to the Henry’s Fork with my neighbor
Chris. We decided to float despite our late start. The weather
seemed perfect; partly cloudy, no wind and kinda warm. As we got
the boat ready and pulled on the waders we saw a few fish rise.
There were all kinds of bugs hatching- BWOs, midges, caddis, a
few larger mayflies, what you expect from the bug factory. Right
off the bat I hooked two trout on a skwala pattern. Seemed like
we were in for a good day. WRONG! That was about as exciting as
it got as we battled our way down the river. I hooked another nice
brown on a streamer and Chris managed a few fish on a dry-
dropper combo. I ended up with more whitefish than trout and a
massive sucker that I swear was a brown trout until he got to the
net…. The highlight however came in the last bit of water when I
got a solid strike on my streamer. Brown trout, nope a PERCH!
Yeah, I caught a perch on the most famous trout river in the
world. That summed our day. Oh well, they all can’t be diamonds
right?

Ran over to the Teton Fly Fishing cabin in Dubois last week to spend a few days working on some paintings and other odds and ends. Lulu joined me and we had some fun roaming the river bottom and finding tennis balls in the Sage brush. I was particularly excited to organize and add a bunch of new fly tying materials to the cabin’s tying desk. It’s nice to be able to tie flies while at the cabin and also offer guests a place to tie. Every fly fishing cabin needs a fully stocked fly tying desk!

Friday I had the pleasure of guiding some great folks from Mass. Rob and his two boys, Jake and Bo joined me for a fun day of fly fishing. The weather couldn’t have been better and the guys did great learning how to dead-drift nymphs and hooked some fish. The highlight came at the 11th hour when Jake, after loosing several fish, hooked a hot rainbow. The ‘bow ran up and down river, taking line off the reel in an effort to allude us. Jake did great, keeping pressure on the fish but letting him run and eventually got him close enough for me to net. He was all smiles as he admired his catch!

It doesn’t happen often, if ever. My fly tying bench is a collection of materials, flies, and coffee stains. I try to keep it fairly organized, but seldom give it a full on cleaning. With the arrival of new fly tying materials the other night, I decided it was time to do some spring cleaning. It felt good organizing thread, tinsel, glues, chenilles and everything else that seems to get out of control over the course of a year. I’ll do my best to keep it tidy, but I suspect that as more flies are tied for the upcoming season, things will get back to a type of organized chaos.

Whoa! look at that clean bench. I can see the surface and find what i need!

Threads are organized. Tying enough flies for me and my clients requires a pretty good selection of thread, tinsel and wire.

 

Fishing around here has been good lately. I spent yesterday scouting some water with Lulu. We covered A LOT of ground and fished a bit too. Today I spent the day guiding Jason from TN. We had a great day fishing midges to rising cutthroat trout. Tomorrow we’ll pick up where we left off today, hopefully finding more rising fish and enjoying the sunshine!

Jason casts to rising cutthroat trout on the Snake river today as a moose watches from the other bank.