21 August 2010
Up at 0700 with coffee, MS soon follows but heads out to the hot tub for a morning respite – is this "roughing" it just like the old cowboys did? I try to remember if we saw Clint Eastwood take a hot tub break in his sphaghetti Western movie days….. We see a fair amount of horse trailer traffic this morning on the ranch as the Rockin M is hosting a big horse ride that morning – lots and lots of horses.
Today we will address MS’s last cutt for the Slam, a Colorado River Cutthroat. We will be fishing up high on North Horse Creek where the fish are smaller but pure genetically (at least that will be our story). It takes about an hour and a half to go the 78 miles to North Horse Creek where we park pretty much exactly where we did 6 years ago! The beaver pond from 2004 is gone but there is still a variety of structures although the water level in the stream is low. The pools by the large woody debris are where most of the fish are to be found. They are of course highly motivated for little flies but also very wary. Everybody finds a way to hook up with some of these fine little fish on some little fly – AB uses beetles, BWO’s, ants, and stimulators; AM uses parachute adams as do JR and GK; and MS uses his parachute adams to upgrade to a four inch trout!
Nice Flowers to look at while fishing is not memorable
Sometimes you have to share the water with the locals
Now today served also as one of those memorable days. GK, JR and I are fishing upstream from AB and MS where we have a gusty wind crossing across us from the right to the left looking upstream. For "lefties" like JR this is a good thing….but for normal folks like GK and AM, this condition requires some thought to avoid the fly blowing back into you from the wind. This was a new lesson for GK who in fact planted the parachute adams he "borrowed" from JR in his right ear. Ouch! However, AM is there to pull out the barbless hook which should be no big deal – it is barbless right? "Of course it is!...." When I try to back the hook out, it will not come back – after a couple of attempts, I decide this is not a good strategy (all this screaming is distracting me) and we elect to head back to the trucks to resolve this issue. The good news for GK is that the fish are small – if these were 16-18 inchers rather than dinkers, then my view would be that the bleeding is just not that bad… and if it were, we could always put tourniquet around the neck to stop the bleeding and screaming….so hang in there. But the fish are small, so we head back to what would become our local MASH unit.
This is what was left of the last fellow with a hook in his ear!
Back at the truck, we prepare the surgical suite for Dr Andy (Hook remover and sometime proctologist?), and JR captures this whole procedure on a video (hopefully posted here!) on how to remove a hook. AB uses the "loop-method" to remove the fly, where a loop of strong line is place into the bend of the hook. Then the shank of the offending hook is "pressed down" to cause the entrance hole to change from "round" to "oval" providing space for the barb to exit without doing more damage. Once the hook shank is pressed down firmly, the loop of line is jerked quickly, removing the fly in an instant. This is the 5th time AB has been able to practice hook removal in the field, the most serious event was a 6/0 barbed salmon hook buried deeply in the lower thumb of a fishing partner 50-miles out of Ketchikan, Alaska. The "loop" process worked great and avoided a long run to a Ketchikan hospital. GK pronounces the process "quick & painless".
This turns out be a great experience for us all, well, except perhaps for GK (for the record it turns out JR’s fly barb was crimped, but it had just a tiny bit of the top point off to the side, more than enough to stick when trying to pull it out of somebody’s ear). Afterwards, I discuss with GK how to change casting strokes to deal with a cross-wind like this! I think he has a good grasp now of why casting over the "other" shoulder is a good skill to develop! To be fair, it is easy to forget this little advice for any of us – particularly when it has been a while since we had to cast in the cross-winds.
Heading back to Alpine, we see quite a few antelope along the road – looks like a good place for "road hunting" although I don’t know how legal it is – never mind the ethics. MS/JR spot some Dahl sheep although we miss them in our rig. Also we see smoke from a forest fire in front of us on the highway. I guess it is August in Wyoming – got to be a few forest fires.
Arriving in Alpine, we elect to head to the Little Grey’s River which we have heard has good fishing farther up. Heading northward, you turn at the Sinclair gas station and head up the Grey’s River Road but turn left on Road 10124 to head up the Little Grey’s River, a tributary of the Grey’s River. We park in a camp ground and spread out on the river far enough away that most people wouldn’t want to walk that far. Nice looking smaller water.
We find lots of small fish on things like parachute adams, trudes, trico’s, lightning bugs, and orange soft hackles. Everything works for the little guys but nothing works for the bigger ones.
We pull up about 8:15 pm and head back to Gunnar’s for a late dinner – Burgers and Calzones tonight – good hearty fare.
Back to the fort for a quick night cap and crash after a long day.