TRAVELINGWITHTOOLS

I left California on July 20 so I’m now about five weeks into this year’s western road trip. I’ve got a campsite booked at Baker’s Hole on the Madison River for the last week of September, to hunt for the traveling browns that move upriver, so about five more weeks until you can reliably expect it to snow at any point. I’ll have to decide then whether or not to stay deeper into October.

Honestly, the fishing portion of this year’s trip has been a bit of a bummer. Apart from that one really good day on the Hams Fork, Wyoming was stingy with the fish. Each of the waters I’ve visited have offered up one fish days. La Barge Creek, the Green River (two stretches), Granite Creek, and Flat Creek.

Flat Creek in Jackson Hole on the Elk Preserve was probably the biggest letdown, because the last time I fished it, I had at least one really great day. This time, I couldn’t get a single fish of any size to take my fly. On the last day, I sat and focused on one fish for almost three hours, trying just about every fly in the box. It ate my fly one time, but I missed my shot and yanked the fly out of its mouth. It just sat there happily slurping mayflies, never once appearing to be spooked by my attention. I think it knew I was there and just didn’t care… my presentation so clumsy that it was laughing at me the whole time! Ugh.

But at least the scenery in Jackson Hole never disappoints. My favorite boondocking location had my favorite spot available when I rolled up, and though the view of the Tetons was obscured by haze on arrival, storms blew through that cleared the skies. The weather made for even more dramatic than usual scenery.

In fact, the stormy weather has been a regular feature this year. A few days ago, camped on Hebgen Lake, I woke to the most amazing sound of thunder I think I’ve ever heard. At first, I thought it was the sound of a strong gale blowing through the trees, but then realized there was no wind yet. It was the sound of distant rolling thunder, and there was no break in the low rumble for at least twenty or thirty minutes. I checked the weather app on my phone and saw the long front of yellow and red on the radar, a few miles away over the Centennial Mountains in Idaho.

I had to book a spot at an RV park so that I could get some parts shipped, as the old Funmover has had some issues this trip. The door latch that failed back on the Hams Fork finally got the replacement bolt that I had tried to have shipped to the town of La Barge, WY. The post office there was listed on the USPS website, with General Delivery as one of their services, but when I called the number listed, a message said the number was wrong. I risked it anyway, but it turns out, as I found driving through town a few days later, the Post Office in La Barge is abandoned! Ha. Another score for that jackass Louis DeJoy, who somehow remains in his job as Postmaster General.

I also got my replacement side mirror that fell apart over the washboard surface of Granite Creek Road. I’d stopped there on the way to Jackson for a brief outing, hoping to get a cutthroat or two, and did get one really nice fish, so maybe it was worth the abuse to the RV.

The last week on Hebgen Lake was hit and miss. Days one and two were good, the second day was really good. But the fish were not doing the thing that they are know for, the gulpers rhythmically slurping callibaetis mayflies off the surface, so that you can spot a fish and judge its direction of travel… leading it and placing your fly in front of it. It’s a magical feeling when you get it right and a big brown eats the feathered concoction that you tied yourself.

The bugs were there this year, but for some unknowable reason, the fish weren’t playing. I did catch some nice fish on the dry fly, but on the best day, most of the fish ate my dropper nymph. The last morning before I departed, it was looking like I was going to be solidly skunked. The fish just were not rising other than very sporadically. I refused to put on a bobber, like the guys that were dredging up a ton of fish from the one deep slot in that stretch. I put on a leech and a sparkly callibaetis nymph to cast along my path back to camp, and finally found a quite substantial whitey, just before ending my day. So not skunked!

I’ve booked a spot at Eagle Creek campground, north of Gardiner, Montana for the third week of September, but have not made plans yet for the four weeks between now and then. The last time I was up there in the Fall, I had good days on the Yellowstone and on the Gardner rivers. I guess I’ll spend some time on the Madison and maybe hit the rivers in northern Yellowstone once the water temps drop a bit more. It’s regularly gone down into the 30’s at night here, so it is getting to feel like Fall.

Here’s a few images from a week on Hebgen…