22 August 2010
Up early for some our own home brewed java, this looks to be another blue bird day! I spot Ranch owner Rob out arranging his drift boat. Ah, the great opportunity! I meander over to the house (this is what you do in Wyoming right? Cowboys meander? Maybe Rivers meander, and Cowboys saunter…not sure, but maybe I will have to Google this up to be sure I am fitting into the local cowpoke culture?). Rob shares that the Salt River is fishing better later in the day as it is coming in from cold spring waters while the Snake below Jackson Dam is fishing a little better earlier as the top warmer water is being spilled now. These are only general guidelines as fish will strike whenever the situation is right! He says he is using big flies with things like legs etc. If the fishing slows, he then goes to bigger flies!! Red is traditionally good for overcast days for Browns but you just gotta try different things.
Since it is already after 10 am by now, we elect to try the Salt River today. It runs by the Ranch and Rob suggested a 5 minute drive to the bridge over the river and then back upstream into State Education Trust land where access is unfettered. We drive up about a mile to the marked boundary and work our way back. Looking at the water, we all head in and then split up with 3 going upstream (AB, GK, and MS) and the other two heading downstream (JR and AM). Upstream, they finally reach some good waters and hook into a variety of smaller fish until MS hooks into a great brown and sets a personal best for the brown. Way to go MS!!
Downstream, we find a lot smaller fish taking adams type small patterns which JR quickly tunes into.
Switching to a large buggy fly, AM starts to work a large (#6 hook) Chernobyl Hopper through a riffle/run/pool side channel. After one heroic cast across the full river, I see a large brown submarine come up from the depths, and, in slow motion 3D just like the Bionic Man TV series, watch him swim slowly up to the hopper pattern, swallow, and turn to go down,…I gently lift the rod and FISH ON! Woo Hoo! This is a big guy! JR runs up river to join me and do the netting – JR quickly nets the big boy, we take some photos and let him go to make more big ones like himself. But, Wow! That is my biggest cutthroat ever! Tres Kewl!! I am jazzed!!
Meanwhile, AB fishing upstream is a bit perplexed by the Salt River. Great looking riffles, deep green chutes with overhanging brush and huge deep pools. All this water looks great, but where to start? AB drifted large hoppers across the edge of the deep pools and into the back-eddies under the brush without much luck. He noticed a pod of small fish feeding in a foam-line and managed a few long casts which produced small Browns & Cutts on a Purple Haze fly. Moving upstream to a long green chute with overhanging brush on the far shore where it was certain to hold big fish. The 5-weight Orvis was the right rod to fish with today as the Salt River is pretty good size and a stiffer rod helps to cut thru the building wind. Working the entire chute upstream with a hopper produced one "look-see" from a large fish who wouldn’t return to several fly changes. AB worked back downstream thru the beautiful chute with a Purple Haze, Black Beetle and Orange Stimulator with no result! Moving upstream he worked a deep pool with a variety of streamer patterns and was a bit amazed to find no takers.
Switching back to the Purple Haze, he found a nice corner pool filled with brush and logs. On the first cast a large fish darted from under the logs but rejected the fly at the last moment. Adding a bead-head, Pheasant-tail dropper produced a Whitefish on the first cast and a Cutthroat on the third cast. Under sunny skies, it started to rain and hail. After ducking under some brush, he waited until the brief storm subsided….then went back to fishing finding only a few more small fish.
Downstream, JR and AM continue to fish water that looks like it should be "fishy" but without anything other than small guys.
I did talk to some folks after this trip who had similar experiences on the Salt River where the small guys were pretty plentiful and, just when you thought that was all there was, up from the bottom would come one of the monsters. Sounds like we had a day pretty much along those lines!
The weather is changing however and the clouds/rains are moving in from the surrounding hillsides. Toward the mid-afternoon, JR and AM are leapfrogging our way downriver and trying to find a way across some large boulders and logs blocking our path on our side of the river. We elect to head up to the road we came in on (it's pretty close) and follow it until we can get better river access. Soon we begin to hear some clip clops behind us and we find Rob ands some of his guests riding down the hill back toward the ranch. We let them pass and follow them down the horse trail back to the river (dodging the fresh road apples). Our guess is that even though the horses are large, I’m sure Rob does not want his clients all wet so the fording areas should be somewhat shallow and hard bottomed (turns out we’re right). The skies are getting darker, but the Ranch property has some great fishing structure so we give it a try and come up with only another set of little ones. By now it really starts to rain and thunder so we all head back to the Ranch. JR and AM find the correct way to cross the river by the ranch and walk back to the cabin. With the lightning and thunder, it is certainly time to pull up and park the graphite rods from waving around in the sky!
We spotted two large Browns under the bridge over the Salt River. The fish were on the tail-out of a huge deep pool. We contemplated taking a shot at them, but with steep, brushy banks all around and fast deep water, they’d chosen a good, inaccessible spot to hang out. We passed and went on.
We elect to do a cook up this evening since we have the barbeque and a full kitchen. The weather continues to deteriorate this afternoon. We head into Alpine to get some grub for dinner. On the way, we swing by the McCoy Fishing Access entrance and head out onto the dry reservoir land where the Salt River flows just before entering Palisades Reservoir. (Turn onto a dirt road toward the reservoir by Andy’s Senior Salon and by the Buffalo Creek Western Bistro.) Driving out onto the recently dried area, we chat with a fellow fishing the Salt River – he parks his car about 20 feet from the river here! He lives locally and says the river often fishes well about now and gets even better toward the end of September when the browns really start coming up the River from Palisades. The area we are driving in was under water about three weeks ago so the river (which still has good velocity) hasn’t been fished much down here. In fact, I don’t think the Salt River gets much pressure at all!! This spot must be good as several of the areas best fishers, the osprey, are hanging out in this area. This is a good place to remember to return to later.
Picking up food at the store, we head back and JR & GK prepare barbeque steaks with Banana Cream Pie for desert.
Our chief Chef
TV's can mesmerize even in the wilds of Wyoming - must be the all-gun channel?
Great food and company!
As long as there is food around, our guard dogs will stay close!
A great repast is had by all! We crash early – it is cold out tonight!