Previous post, Sights and Sounds, Pt. 1
When I got back to camp after that enjoyable day on the Ham’s Fork, the door to my RV would not open. What the hell? The key worked the lock, but it would not unlatch. I had to go in through the garage, and the damn latch would not release from inside either. A quick search online revealed that this is a very common problem with these latches. The cheap, pot-metal bolt breaks inside the mechanism, which after disassembling it from the inside, proved to be the case. Fortunately, the deadbolt is a separate mechanism, so after removing the broken latch bolt, you can still secure the door.
I ordered a replacement part from Amazon and set up delivery to the post office in La Barge, to general delivery. I was going to fish the Green River below Fontenelle Reservoir, and then head up to La Barge creek, so I figured I’d wait on the Green for the delivery to arrive, then move camp and get the part on the way.
Well. Amazon sometimes uses UPS to deliver packages, and the brown trucks won’t deliver to a “General Delivery” address, even though there is a federal employee standing there to receive the package! So I didn’t get my part, and I wasted a couple hours trying to re-address the order, before finally just cancelling it. I’ll have to book a spot at an RV park that will take deliveries, and try again.
The Green River has been a little disappointing so far. The stretch I’m parked next to is wide and featureless, with similar sized cobble from bank to bank. There are fish in there, and they occasionally rise to give away their position. But so far, I’ve only hooked small trout and only got one to the net. There is a run below the bridge here, downstream from camp, that has a very deep slot and a back eddy that holds fish, though I was unable to get one bigger than 12 inches to eat my fly.
From the bridge, I spotted a pod of quite large whitefish, and set out to at least get one of them on the end of my line. I spent an hour trying to get the depth and weight right, casting just about as far as I could, because they were smack in the middle of the river. I did get it right, and hooked a pretty good one, a fish that was also a jumpy acrobat, coming fully out of the water like a tarpon twice before the hook came free.
Yesterday, after my Amazon parts fiasco, I decided to stay a few more days and get some sun. I fished right next to camp, shirtless, thinking an hour of sun would be good for me. Regrets, I have a few. Ow.
But during that hour of getting sunburned, I witnessed two totally new sights. The fish were rising to eat yellow sallies that were flitting across the water, and I got two or three to eat my fly, but didn’t manage to land them. Then my eye was caught by motion across the water, downstream and just beyond the center of the river. I thought, “A beaver?” There was a huge displacement of water, as if a boulder had shifted and rolled, a large round dark shape breaking the surface. No rodent surfaced after the wake had dissipated. No muskrat swimming to the bank. That… that was a fish. They say there are 30″ browns in this water, and I’m pretty sure there is one right over there!
I waded out as deep as I dared, partially submerging my hip pack (with my wallet and GPS inside), and I was able to shoot a cast about to where I thought the fish was. But it was such a long cast, across so much current, that I don’t think I could get a decent drift with my yellow sally and caddis combo. I made about a dozen passes before a cast tangled up my flies. I cut them off and switched to a black beetle, which some say can be a magic bullet for big wary trout. But no such luck.
I gave up and waded back shallower, when the wind suddenly came up. It had been very blustery the last couple of days, blowing at least 20 mph steady the day before. But this day was calm. Then a gust blew through, and I heard what sounded like ripping water behind me. What the hell? I turned around and saw a water spout ten feet away from me! I could see the two planes of air shearing against each other, tearing a line through the surface and creating a small funnel, which quickly shot out to the center of the river before dissipating and silence returned almost immediately. The air was calm again. The whole time, the air immediately surrounding me was barely moving.
It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen, and I’ve seen some shit, man!
I’m debating whether or not I want to self-shuttle my pontoon boat up to the dam and float the 5 miles of river between here and there. There is no fast or tricky water, but there are side channels that could confuse the route. I read a great article from 1998, still available from insideangler.com, that made the Green sound like really something special. Big cutthroat and browns every day, using nothing more complicated than Stimulators, San Juan worms, and Scuds. Maybe I just need to float some to find the special holes and holding water that these fish are hiding in…
At a run opposite a wing dam leading into a sweeping pool, a trout made a huge boil after taking Chris’s San Juan Worm dropper. It swam downstream with the kind of power that could only come from beats of a broad tail. Then the trout reversed its course and turned back upstream into the strong current.
The Inside Angler by Mike and Christine Fong
Unknown to us, it headed for some submerged limbs at the head of the run. There was nothing Chris could do but to follow and watch. When the trout no longer moved, Bennie waded across the heavy flow with the line running through a ring made by a thumb and forefinger. He couldn’t free the line and returned to get Chris’s rod.
Upon reaching the opposite bank, he was able to work the line free. Winding the line back onto the reel as he headed upstream, he soon saw the brown. It was finning quietly in three feet of water with the leader wrapped around a stout limb. As Bennie dipped the tip end of the rod into the water to try to free the line, the brown made a surge and the tippet parted. Bennie said the brown was in the thirty-inch class. This got him very excited.
Screw it, I’m putting the boat together.
TRAVELINGWITHTOOLS 
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