Waiting for the river to calm down
Joe Larson and I have been busy catching a few native Yellowstone Cutthroat here in the Bighorn Mountains while we wait for the Greys to clear up and become fishable. Run off is about a month late in the western Wyoming drainages–so we have been wading up and down the Bighorns to get in to shape for the big event in August. Once we get to the Greys, we will meet up with Mike Carlson to do a pod cast interview (which I will post on this site), lure some Snake River Cutthroat to our flies, and mark the two routes for this year’s ‘Thon. Joe and I will be doing a test run of a few miles on the river, to approximate the time it will take for the entire event. I’ll let you know how it goes.
On a recent trip to the Bighorn’s west slope, Joe and I found Yellowstone Cutthroat in post spawn condition in two small streams. We caught several natives in the 5″ to 9″ range, in a variety of colors. We also landed a few Brookies–adding them to our creels and eating them for dinner. They were firm with bright orange meat, and tasty! I found the Cutts. in the tributary stream to prefer wet flies, while the Cutts. in the main channel would rise confidently to dries.
The stream dumps in to a beautiful canyon, with ledges that completely overhang the stream’s width. We found arrowhead chippings, a Water Ouzel nest, and Lupine in full bloom. I was still recoverring from a severe migraine headache the previous week, and found myself gaining strength with each step in the canyon–even though I was sucking air like a raging forest fire!