Another season has come to an end on Flat Creek. Elk are
starting to move onto it from the hills and it won’t be long
before several thousand batten down for the winter. I
managed to fish on the Refuge a few more times over the last
couple weeks, trying to fool the large, stubborn trout that
inhabit its waters. I thought it fitting to post a nice series of
photos taken from a recent day spent on the water with Kurt.
Last Friday, Sage and I drove the 11 hour round trip to
Helena, Montana to pick up my new Adipose driftboat. As
many of you know, for years I have used a raft to float the
local rivers. And while the raft treated me and my clients
great, and allowed us sneak down skinny water and stop
almost anywhere fish were to be found, I finally gave in to
temptation and pulled the trigger on a shinny new drift boat.
The Adipose skiffs are built by fisherman for fisherman;
looking at the design and layout, this couldn’t be clearer. The
boat has lots of room for storage, a walk-around interior and
removable casting braces. Before towing the boat back to
Jackson, I let Sage get in and check it out; making sure she
approved before taking off with it.
All in all, I’m really happy with it and can’t wait to get it on
the water next season! Enjoy a few pictures…
Thomas and his girlfriend fished the Snake with me in August as part of their Wyoming, Montana fishing road trip. While floating, Thomas filmed some cool footage from his perspective and was nice enough to send it to me. Check it out. Thanks Thomas!
The Snake continues to fish well! Keith got his first taste of western fly fishing, fishing dries all day long!
September was a blur around here; lots of fishing trips with
great folks. While most days have been spent on the Snake,
I’ve also had folks over in Dubois, down on the Green and on the
Elk Refuge, fooling cutthroat, rainbows, browns; even the odd
brook trout. As guiding slows down for me in another week or so,
I’ll be posting more content on my blog. In the meantime, I
thought I’d share a picture of Grant and his Green river rainbow
trout; caught on a double humpy dry fly! Grant’s was able to
sneak in a few days of fly fishing with his dad before having to
head back to college.
As some of you may know, I’m a bit of a Flat Creek junkie. I
love the challenge of fishing to selective trout in slow, clear
water. I’ve spent some days over the past few weeks guiding
folks on it, but today was my day. Despite having a long list of
things to take care of on my day off, I managed to fish it this
morning for a few hours and had a blast. Here’s one of the fish
that fell for my fly…
Fishing continues to keep me busy around here. I’ve had the pleasure of fishing with some great folks over the past few weeks; both return clients who have become friends, and new folks that I hope will come back. Below are a few snapshots from our adventures….
One of the nice local trout that was brought to the net…
The ladies from NYC enjoying their first fly fishing outting…
Rick showing off one of the many cuttroat trout he caught while fishing the Snake..
Mark with a beauty..
Craig connecting on Flat Creek…
a hard fought battle ends!…
It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been spending
nearly every day out on the water with some great folks and
haven’t found the time or the energy for typing; my apologies.
We’ve been having some fun dry fly fishing on the Snake
lately. Clients have fished everything from Royal Wulffs to tiny
PMD emergers; raising cutthroat trout of all sizes. Many of the
bigger fish we’ve picked up have come from fast seam lines
and deeper riffles, but bank fishing is coming into it’s own too.
I’ve also spent some time guiding folks out on Flat Creek
in the Elk Refuge. While this stream isn’t for everyone, it’s one
of my favorites to take folks out on. I love the challenge of
finding rising fish and helping anglers choose and present their
flies correctly. This is PhD fly fishing and a good day means
catching one or two NICE trout (many fish in Flat Creek exceed
20″) The other day I had Dan and Steven out on it to test their
skills. Both did well hooking and landing a few fish. The
highlight of the day was helping Dan get a MASSIVE cutthroat
to rise in slack water to his emerger pattern. Unfortunately,
once hooked, the beast of a fish made a run for it, snapping
Dan’s 5x tippet. Despite this, Dan said that experience was
one of the coolest things he’s experienced on the water.
A nice rainbow caught last week on the Green River. Nice
work Tom!
Dan passing Flat Creek’s challenge!
The dry fly fishing on the Snake has been great lately! It’s
nice to see the river in such good shape; clear, ample fish
holding channels and riffles and lots of bugs. Each day I’ve
been having clients fish a variety of different flies to the local
trout. I’d say PMDs, Yellow stoneflies and parachute adams
are my favorites at the moment. We also have started to cast
some large foam bugs now that the grasshoppers are out and
about. Here’s Jim with a nice Snake river cutthroat trout.
After spending the week on the water with some
great clients, Jamie and I thought we’d get out of town and do
a quick camping trip. Our destination was the Tri Basin area,
more specifically, LaBarge creek. A small stream high in the
Wyoming range rumored to contain pure Colorado river
Cutthroat trout, LaBarge and the surrounding wilderness
seemed to be just the adventure we were looking for.
Somewhere between Jackson and Alpine, we decided that
since we were headed to the Tri Basin area, we should take a
shot at catching 3 of the 4 native cutthroat trout needed for a
Wyoming Cutt Slam. We ammended our drive and squeezed in
some fishing for the rare (thought to be extinct until
“rediscovered”) Bonneville cutthroat trout. Fortunately we knew
of a tiny stream not too far out of our way that held lots of
them and within a few minutes of wetting a line, Jamie and I
had our Bonnevilles. Here’s Jamie showing off one of the pretty
little guys….
Feeling confident, we pressed on, traversing miles of
Forest service roads, all while taking in the sights. Eventually
we came to the Tri Basin (3 water basins begin here. one goes
to the Pacific ocean via the Greys/Snake river, one to the Gulf
of California via the Green/Colorado and one to the Great Basin
via the Bear River) and our camping destination, LaBarge
Creek. Along the way we encoutered numerous historical
markers as we traveled on the same trail that pioneers had
traveled in 1859 during their journey west along the Oregon
Trail. Below is a little info on the meadow we fished. Pretty
cool to think of what went on here 150+ years ago.
A wide shot of LaBarge Meadow… Jamie’s fishing while
Sage looks for trout
Unfortunately for us, the trout were no where to be found;
not a rise, look, fly refusal, etc. Didn’t even see any spook.
This, despite reading numerous accounts of the healthy
population that resides in this stream. I’m not gonna lie, after
fishing the LaBarge hard, as well as its tiny tributaries, we
were a bit bummed. I’m not really sure what happened. The
only thing we could surmise is that the recent forest fire
nearby might have had something to do with the lack of fish…
Who know? If anyone out there has any info, I’d love to hear it.
Regardless, we had a great time camping along the stream
under the vast Wyoming sky. Heading home to Jackson, we
followed the Grey’s river all the way to Alpine and redeemed
ourselves in the fishing department, catching several pretty
Snake River cutthroat trout. Now that we’re home, we’re
already thinking about a reunion trip and other places to find
some Colorado cutthroat trout.
Fishing around Jackson has come into its own lately. Just
about every river and stream is fishing great right now, with
clear water and eager fish. I’ve been out with folks, fishing
numerous places.
The Green continues to fish well with grey drakes and
yellow sallies. Mornings are best, but fish have been rising
throughout the day to well presented dries.
The Snake is clear and full of rising cutthroat trout. We’re
currently seeing lots of smaller fish (6-12″) take PMDs, golden
stones and yellow sallies in the riffles. Hot weather has also
brought the first of many hoppers out, and it won’t be long
until we are fishing bigger patterns. I suspect that larger fish
will start feeding on the surface shortly….
The Dubois area is also coming into it’s own. The Wind
river is clear and fish can be fooled with nymphs and hatch
appropriate dry flies. Tributaries in the area are all good
options for the adventurous angler (just be sure to pack your
bear spray and mosquito repellent). Look for some great
hatches in the evening.
Here are a few pictures from the past couple weeks:
David caught a beautiful rainbow on the green; fooled it
with a well placed rusty spinner.
Fishing in Dubois…..
Lauren worked the Dubois water and was rewarded with
her first ever fish on a fly rod
One of Shane’s numerous fish on the Green. We had a
fantastic day of dry fly fishing
Pretty Brown….
