Wyoming Trip, 2010

Wyoming 2010

It was already late June before my wife and I finally decided to go to Wyoming for our summer vacation. We only had 10 days this time but we figured it would not be too far to drive in relation to the time we could spend there. I found a cool cabin online and reserved it. We would be roughly halfway between Pinedale and Jackson in a remote cabin overlooking a little valley. I immediately ordered maps of the Bridger-Teton National Forest and began researching the streams, lakes, and rivers of the area.
I settled on trying to fish a few of the following waters: the upper Green River and Green River lakes (awesome beauty and supposedly great fishing), the Grey’s River which I had read about a couple of years ago, the upper Snake River in Yellowstone, the Gros Ventre river near Grand Teton National Park, the Green River about 40 miles from the Wind River Mountains, a few of the mountain lakes of the Wind Rivers, and a creek known as Granite Creek.
“Nothing ever goes as planned, it’s a hell of a notion.” Nothing was truer for this trip. Though beautiful and remote, even by Wyoming standards, the cabin was a long way from most of the waters we wanted to fish. Our first day plan of hiking to and fishing the Green River lakes and upper Green River in the Bridger Wilderness of the dramatic Wind River Mountains turned into a total bust. While buying our licenses we learned that although it was open to hikers and fishermen, there was no camping allowed. A large male Grizzly had gotten into someone’s food over the Fourth of July weekend and was now hanging around the campsites and being aggressive with people. We had our dog with us and my wife is not too keen about aggressive, rogue Grizzlies so we had to substitute a hike to a different area that I was completely unfamiliar with. As it turned out it was still a lovely hike along a huge lake.
Much of the rest of the trip went this way. Although we did not fish our first choices in some cases, we did fish some stunning waters including the Grey’s River, which is long and large, beautiful Granite Creek which is cold, clear, and runs through a high mountain valley, and a section of the Green River on the plains away from the Wind River Mountains.
If you have ever fished an area and thought that the fishing was great but the catching was not, this was sort of how things went. Strangely enough, even though it was high summer in the high country we saw very few bugs hatching of any sort, some, but not a lot. Consequently, we saw even fewer rises on all of the water we fished. During a total of 2 ½ days of hard fishing I saw fewer than 5 rises total. If you are primarily a dry fly fisherman like my wife and me, this can be disheartening. We did catch fish on all of the rivers we fished but not a lot and not very large ones. We managed to land about 10 to 12, 8”-12” Snake River Fine-spotted Cutthroats, which were a new species for us, and some nice Yellowstone Cutts, but nothing of any other species. But that is fine with me; I love Cutthroats and the waters they inhabit.
We did include a couple of days in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks and saw lots of wildlife in the parks, on the streams we fished, and during our hikes. A list includes:
Ospreys, Hawks, Elk, A Grizzly Sow and three cubs, Sandhill Cranes, Blue Herons, geese, ducks, swans, Bison, Mule Deer, Marmots, and possibly a Sasquatch howling in the middle of the night in the valley below our ridge top cabin.
Despite not having 35+ fish days and great surface action, we fished some truly gorgeous water in wild, beautiful high country and had a blast doing it. Here are some pics from the trip. I hope you enjoy them.

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Amazing photos!

Brook T,

You jammy so-n-so! "I'm not envious" ( Not Much anyway) That was a fantastic trip you took! Wow, the beauty of the area and the natural environment of those waters, are absolutely breathtaking. Your photos are great, just seeing the wildlife and the wilderness they inhabit, would encourage anyone to take a trip to Wyoming!

Thank you for sharing that experience with us!

Mostyn

The jokes on you, I was sitting behind a desk while you were fishing.
Amazing stuff, someday the wife will be talked into a "nature and sight seeing" trip to Wyoming for two weeks.

Nice brooks. Great pics. http://users.dakotacom.net/~jeepster/tipshades.gif

Planning to move to western wyoming/eastern idaho for a year or two beginning late this fall and your pictures absolutely made what was otherwise a fairly "blah" day at work....great shots, many thanks :)

-Dave

thanks very much. glad everyone liked them.