The planning for the trip to Wyoming started quite a few months ago with the Fly Shop of the Bighorns interested in putting on a fiberglass fly rod conclave of some sort in the future. I had never been to the area and worked out with Peter Widener, owner of the Fly Shop of the Bighorns, to come out on a short junket to scope out the area, do some fly fishing on both public and ranch lease waters, and hopefully catch a few trout along the way.
The trip involved an early morning flight (in and out of three different airports) but I was on the ground in Cody, Wyoming at noon and minutes later heading east towards Sheridan. The drive involved a stunning zig and zag on curvy roads up through the mountains with some breathtaking vistas over the valley to the next mountain ranges. This was a part of Wyoming I had never seen before and it was beautiful in every way.
The plan for this first afternoon was to meet up with Peter and Zach and fish some local public waters for dry fly eating cutthroat. We parked and walked up creek a ways to find some fresh water. Looking down into the stream we could see large cutthroat in the slow corners sipping bugs. This was going to be a fun afternoon.
The creek braids through the dense brush and we all stayed close to each other but fished different spots of water. I found several large cutthroat which were in a deep corner and watched as one moved up near the grassy undercut. A small yellow foam body caddis dancing along the edge of the undercut was tasty looking enough that the cutthroat edged over, sipped, and then ran deep into the undercut. What fun this was to be high in the mountains tossing dry flies for cutthroat.
The rest of the afternoon and into the evening was more and more dry flies from mayflies and caddis. About an hour before dark it seemed like every cutthroat was looking up and then as the sun dipped behind the mountain, it cooled quickly and was time to walk out. We dodged a few moose and there have been enough man/moose incidents this season to warrant being careful.
We cracked tops off brews at the tailgate of the truck and celebrated a great afternoon. This was just the start of a few excellent days with the Fly Shop of the Bighorns and Rock Creek Anglers.
GEAR NOTES - I tried to limit the number of fly rods and fly reels that I took along on this trip and picked fly rods that I thought would be well suited for the trip. On this day I used the C. Barclay Rod Co. 75p which was paired with the Ross Reels Colorado LS and Scientific Anglers Mastery Trout fly line. This outfit did everything perfectly together. Chris Barclay really is doing some special things in his Winston-Salem, North Carolina (formally of St. Louis, Missouri) shop.
The trip involved an early morning flight (in and out of three different airports) but I was on the ground in Cody, Wyoming at noon and minutes later heading east towards Sheridan. The drive involved a stunning zig and zag on curvy roads up through the mountains with some breathtaking vistas over the valley to the next mountain ranges. This was a part of Wyoming I had never seen before and it was beautiful in every way.
The plan for this first afternoon was to meet up with Peter and Zach and fish some local public waters for dry fly eating cutthroat. We parked and walked up creek a ways to find some fresh water. Looking down into the stream we could see large cutthroat in the slow corners sipping bugs. This was going to be a fun afternoon.
The creek braids through the dense brush and we all stayed close to each other but fished different spots of water. I found several large cutthroat which were in a deep corner and watched as one moved up near the grassy undercut. A small yellow foam body caddis dancing along the edge of the undercut was tasty looking enough that the cutthroat edged over, sipped, and then ran deep into the undercut. What fun this was to be high in the mountains tossing dry flies for cutthroat.
The rest of the afternoon and into the evening was more and more dry flies from mayflies and caddis. About an hour before dark it seemed like every cutthroat was looking up and then as the sun dipped behind the mountain, it cooled quickly and was time to walk out. We dodged a few moose and there have been enough man/moose incidents this season to warrant being careful.
We cracked tops off brews at the tailgate of the truck and celebrated a great afternoon. This was just the start of a few excellent days with the Fly Shop of the Bighorns and Rock Creek Anglers.
GEAR NOTES - I tried to limit the number of fly rods and fly reels that I took along on this trip and picked fly rods that I thought would be well suited for the trip. On this day I used the C. Barclay Rod Co. 75p which was paired with the Ross Reels Colorado LS and Scientific Anglers Mastery Trout fly line. This outfit did everything perfectly together. Chris Barclay really is doing some special things in his Winston-Salem, North Carolina (formally of St. Louis, Missouri) shop.
7 comments:
Terrific, thanks for the fun report and photos CM
Terrific, thanks for the fun report and photos CM
The colors on that setup and the colors on the cuties match well!
Wyoming is becoming more and more my home away from home. Glad you could fish it.
I've been eyeing that Colorado LT for my 4wt, what did you think?
Nice plug for Hook and Gaff watches
Middlemac... Thank you, Sir.
RM Lytie... I'd like to say it was planned that way but just dumb luck.
TRD... It's not too far away for you. I'd go there more and more too.
Andrew... The Colorado LT is a great little clicker and I am partial to the looks too.
Ken... Yep, H&G is a local brand for me and glad to support them.
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