We left the Inland Empire 2:00 Friday afternoon the 30th of July. I knew this trip was going to be special and tireing!!! Got out of the traffic and finally making some time once we got past Vegas. In Utah there are a couple of areas on the 15 that are 80mph so you can burn up the miles fast, but there are some critters on the road that can make for a bad day. Tooling along at 80 or so there was a deer in the slow lane, Kris swerved to miss it, real close call. If that deer moved to the fast lane I would not be writing about this. Had another encounter with a deer on the back roads to Dutch John. Whew!!! Finally made it to Dutch John about 4 AM. Restless night ,we ended getting up at 7:30 and go get breakfast at the cafe, since we didn't meet the guide til 9:30. While having breakfast I tell Kris, "You know, road trips have a way of taking a life of there own, things just happen." Kris responds "what could happen, everything is set in stone." Little did we know at the time how prophectic my words would be. We meet our guide Gene and go off to fish the Green River behind Flaming Gorge. The dam is 500 feet high. (Hopefully I do these pictures right.)
There were a few people there. I wasn't quite prepared for this: If you look to the left I'm the guy with the long pants. (The only guy)
I found out by leaving at 10, we hit the rafting hatch BUT the fisherman had left at 7 or 8 and were two hours ahead of us. The rafters use the center of the river and we used the edges, had it to ourselves, nice. Between the two of us we caught multible, multible dozens of fish with and average size of 15-16 inches, no dinks. Here are a few pictures of representative fish. (On all the places we fished we didn't nessasarily take picts. of the biggest just one or two typical size fish)
This is Gene our guide giving a kiss to his liveyhood.
Some pictures of the raft hatch and senery shots.
Fished there only one day. Go out to eat that night at the restarant and we get a call from our guide Mike Peters in Oregon. He tells us the steelhead haven't come in yet and it wouldn't be worth our time to throw flies unless we wanted casting practice. What to do? I tell Kris, hey were in some of the best trout fishing in the lower 48, let's just fish around this area. Kris has a lot of conections with guides and such, so he starts making calls and in the next couple of days while were fishing with our friend Bob Slamal, we finalize the rest of the trip, no steelheading but we are going to fish Armstrong Spring creek and the Bitteroot in Montana. Never having fished these before I'm pretty pumped, but first we go to Wyoming Sunday morning and fish the upper Green with Bob for a couple of days. Again caught lots of fish especially the first day. Here are a few.
Here is a picture of a sandhill crane. It was really cool seeing these birds.
The second night we drive over into Idaho and stay at the Trouthunter on the banks of the Henrys Fork, lots of flyfishing history here. Next morning meet up with our guide Alex and go fish Hebden Lake for the gulpers we have heard about so much. This for us was so much fun, casting mayfly pattern dries to this oversized trout and trying to guess which way they are headed. Almost every fish put us into our backing none under 15 inches up to 22 or so. Here are a few.
The wind came up later that day and Alex brought us to fish the Box Canyon section of the Henrys Fork. I knew it was going to be good when I caught 2 in the launch ramp waiting for Alex getting the boat prepped up. Lost count on how many we hooked and lost alot of fish from the fast current. These fish fight hard!!! Here are a few pictures
One day is all that was alotted for the Idaho and it's off to Montana the next morning after we find Krises wallet(that wasn't fun) Meet up with our guide Eric and head off to Armstrongs. This creek is spring fed located a few miles from Yellowstone and we were very lucky to get a spot, since they allow only 12 rods per day. There is about a mile and a half of fishable water and on this particular day there were only about 5 rods, so we got to fish everywhere we wanted. For me this was my highlight place, cast to rising fish using trico and pmd patterns, we would stalk and target the fish, time our casts with the rythem of the rise of that particular fish and if it went well hook up with some strong fighting rainbows and browns. They were a little spooky but it made the reward even the better, this is Erics home water and he knew his stuff. Very few fish were under 16 inches. Here are some picts.
We leave that night and drive for 5 hours to Hamilton Montana to fish the Bitteroot. Go over to some friends of Kris, Pat and Donna around midnight and settle in. Get up 7 the next day Donna has breakfast ready (you couldn't ask for nicer people) and then go and meet our guide Kevin to fish the West fork of the Bitterroot I believe. This area has West slope cuts, hybrid rainbows and browns. Most fish were Hybrids my biggest pure cut went about 17 with the bigger rainbows around 19, lots of fish and fun. Those cuts are beautiful.
The next day Kris wants to fish the main stem of the Bitteroot and go headhunting in the slower water. Kevin has his misgivings saying it's been tough and it's a little too early for that, but Kris insists and we hit it. That was a tough day no hatches to speak of however we saw about 10 bald eagles.
Right before we take out Kris gets the last fish of the trip.
Saturday morning we take out Pat and Donna for breakfast and leave for home about 10:30. End up driving straight through 1200 miles and get home about 3 in the morning. All in all it was the greatest of road trips for me and God willing I'll be able to do another one next year with Kris. I'm going to list the guides and the email or web site for anyone that would be interested. Green River below Flaming Gorge Gene Gautieri skifish@sisna.com Upper Green River in Wyoming Bob Slamal Riversideskiandsport@yahoo.com Henrys Fork and Hebgen Lake Alex Kohn akohnol@hotmail.com Armstong creek and Yellowstone river Eric Adams Montanaflyfishingguides.com and Bitteroot Rivers Kevin Shulund kkshulund@msn.com Hope you enjoy the reading.
