I met Gregg Williamson on Friday night, Gregg's flight had arrived at 8:30pm and I picked him up at the airport. Gregg and I got up early and fished the famous Flat Creek on the Elk Preserve- --man was it tough. Two fish follows and that was it. Of course, we only fished for probably an hour. At least the one of the cutthroats that gave a look was a really good one. (photo above: Munsey Wheby, Jr. releases a nice dry fly caught Snake R Cutthroat, Granite Creek, Hoback Canyon, Wyoming).After fishing, Gregg and I headed back to the airport and picked up the other guys. Dr. Pat Burney, Dr. Munsey Wheby, Munsey Wheby, Jr., Dr. Gary Lee, and Gregg's brother Ken Williamson from San Diego. We got everyone, went up to Schwabacher Landing to let them get a picture of the Grand Teton Range, then we headed to High Country Flies and then to ORVIS Jackson Hole to get everyone a fishing license. I had placed a call to our friends at Cache Creek Inn where we were staying and they worked it out so we could check in early (1:00 as opposed to 4:00pm)...which ultimately meant that we could get our stuff unloaded and off and fishing in probably an hour and a half afterward. And that's what we did. We unloaded our stuff and packed our fishing gear, and hopped in the vehicles and headed south out of Jackson. Since no one had had lunch we stopped at McDonalds on the way out of town, then we were off.
We drove south through Hoback Canyon and arrived to find no one fishing Granite Creek, a jewel of a native cutthroat stream. We got in and several guys caught a fish on their first cast. We used an assortment of Schroeder parachute hoppers (the best all purpose late summer fly in the West in my opinion), PMX's, Jeff's Rubberleg Caddis, and also a dry/dropper combo utilizing a small Prince nymph. In any case, the fish were on. Munsey Wheby caught the first nice fish I saw, a 13" cutthroat. The guys individually caught anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen fish apiece, about 40-50 fish between everyone. Gregg Williamson had the largest fish of the afternoon, a gorgeous 18" cutthroat that inhaled Gregg's parachute hopper.
With light fading fast we decided to hit the Hoback on the way home. The guys tallied another dozen fish or so, with Gregg's brother Ken- -on his first fly fishing trip- - -caught 7 cutthroats and had one very nice one on that came unhooked. All in all it was a good afternoon, although there were times the wind was howling at 30-40mph. But it didn't stop the fish from feeding. We packed it in and headed back to Jackson, and had a nice dinner at Merry Piglets- - -a fantastic Tex/Mex restaurant.
We are all quite excited as we will be getting up early tomorrow morning, having a hearty breakfast, then we'll be heading north up to Turpin Meadows just north of Moran Junction and just Southwest of Yellowstone National Park. From the Turpin Meadows trailhead we'll ride horseback 2 hours into the backcountry, and 7-8 miles from any development or roads. The only ways in are by horse or foot......and cell phones don't work here at all!
At first it was counting the days.....now its counting the hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment