Westward Bound Part II; Wyoming's North Fork Powder River

Theresa and I woke early to grab a quick breakfast before meeting up with Brett for our second day of fishing in Wyoming. Today would be bitter sweet for me, and my last day of fishing in Wyoming before heading to the trout streams of Montana. Brett McCrae had chosen to fish the North Fork of the Powder River, which was one of his and Rock Creek Angler's favorite western streams.

After a pleasant drive and a little off road maneuvering we found ourselves lost in nothing but the sounds of the river and the wildlife surrounding it. I feel times like this are very hard to come by these days, and I really took the time to take it all in. I treated like it could be the last time I would ever fly fish for trout...

Setting up base camp and prepping gear for our day on the

North fork of the Powder River.

The North Fork of the Powder River is a small winding stream that runs through desert like landscapes of red rock, vast rancher grass fields, and herds of cattle. The Powder was running very cool and ultra clear this morning. The entire stream was brushy, filled with woody debris, and maintained long gravel flats and riffles. This was trout water at its best, and saying it was fishy as all hell is a slight understatement.

Today was going to be nothing but small hoppers, caddis, and small foam Sally dry flies, with a chance of a dropper nymph here and there. As we entered the stream it didn't take long for Theresa to hit her first brown trout of the day on a small hopper, little did we know this would be the start of one of the best days of dry fly fishing I had ever experienced!

Brett and Theresa pose with her first dry fly brown trout of the day.

The Colors on many of the Powder's Trout were magnificent!

When I arrived in Wyoming I had hoped we would hit the epic hopper hatches that we all have read about in our favorite fly fishing publications, but the season was running a little late and most of the area had been treated for the hopper infestation. Normally this treatment only puts a small dent in the hopper population, but for some reason this year hoppers were way down. With this being said; the trout were still looking up and waiting for this high protein food source.

SAO Guide Brett McCrae Cast a hopper to several feeding trout.

Theresa with another nice Powder River Brown Trout.

The day flew by with everyone catching several trout on the surface, and losing quite a few more. It was about as fun a day as I could remember, and I was just stoked at how well Theresa was doing on the fly rod. Casting here would be very difficult in places, and good drifts were needed after every cast. There actually came a point in the day that she seemed to have been fishing on the fly since childhood, and that I was the beginner.... We'll just chalk that up as beginners luck and leave it at that!!!

Brett with a nice Powder River Brown Trout fooled by a hopper.

Theresa runs a hopper/Dropper through a nice run

where Brett spotted several good fish.

We ended the day on several nice Brown Trout, and everyone got cracks at some really big and aggressive trout. Once again, the heat, and now some serious hay fever, were setting in and taking its tole on us. So, we decided to hike out and grab a steak at one of the local restaurants on the way back to the hotel. Below are a few more pictures I shot from our day with Brett on the North Fork of the Powder River.

Brett is all smiles while holding this beefy Brown Trout!

What a beautiful display of what Wyoming has to offer!

http://www.rockcreekanglers.com

As the day closed I realized I was so focused on getting pictures of my wife and Brett fishing, that I really didn't capture any of the really great trout I had the pleasure of catching, so I fooled a good fish to the surface on the way out and was able to get this shot...

Here is one of the many Browns I was able to fool on dries.

The powders Brown Trout blend in so well with there surroundings!

Theresa even hit a small Rainbow Trout on the walk out as well.

A face every angler loves!

Theresa and I are very grateful for the hospitality and expert services provided to us while in Wyoming. Brett McCrae and the entire Staff at Rock Creek Angler's are suberb fly fishing guides and were very generous hosts! We will be seeing you all again in the future! Our next stop takes us to Livingston, Montana, Yellowstone, and a wild hike into the Lamar Valley for Cutthroat with great friend and fellow guide Scott McClintock.

Until next time...

Greg Senyo

Owner/Operator

Steelhead Alley Outfitters

The Adventures of Flybum - Part 6

The last time I left you, we had fished the Madison and Firehole Rivers of Yellowstone National Park and were headed back south to one of the most anticipated rivers of our trip westward....the mighty Teton River.

The Teton River hit my radar after talking to friend Jim Lampros. Jim had spent some time working with World Cast Anglers during his adventures out west, and this put him in the backyard of the Teton. After hearing his stories and seeing the awesome photos of him traversing this river plastered all over Orvis catalogs, I just had to see it with my own eyes. The fact that it held stellar populations of Yellowstone Cutthroats, one of those species I had never caught, was just icing on the cake.

After meeting with Jim and making careful notes we were within a short drive of the river. Leaving Ashton, Idaho, we were soon on a dirt two track headed for the place that I had been told about. At first, I wasn't sure if I had the right road (I was a bit gun shy after some of our previous adventures), but we did and in short order we were overlooking an awesome body of water. It may take us a while to find our water, but we always find the fishing hole!

THE MIGHTY TETON RIVER WINDS

THROUGH THE IDAHO COUNTRYSIDE

The view looking up was just as stellar as the one we had looking way down into the canyon. In fact, when we first got there, I didn't know which way to look. I said wow so many times, that I think the guys thought I had found a new favorite word.....DUDE.....WOW!!!!

THE MIGHTY TETON RANGE STANDS OVERLOOKING THE

PRODUCTIVE TROUT WATERS THAT SURROUND IT.

After making our destination, we jumped out to snap some photos. I remember the moment I got to the trail heading into the canyon and looking over the edge! Insert one of those "WOW's!" Wow is all you could say! It was a huge drop into this canyon stretch of the Teton and when I say huge, I mean roughly 1000 vertical feet at about a 45 degree angle and sometimes steeper! This insertion point wasn't for sissy's! And if you weren't going to take a boat down with you and float out, then you had better make sure your heart was in good condition, because coming out is not for the faint of heart...This I guarantee!!!

SHOOTING SOME PHOTOS OF THE TETONS

SAO GUIDE BEN BARGER PREPARES GEAR

FOR THE DAY ON THE RIVER

We took our time getting down to the river for two reasons...safety and for filming. We couldn't just blaze down the trail without capturing it on video, so roll film we did! Hopefully I can put together a sequence from our day on this river. Of all our days on the water, this one definitely got the majority of my time. From big fish caught to heartbreaks to rattlesnakes, we got it all on this day! So, keep your fingers crossed and maybe I will show you some more film.

Once we got down to the river, the guys started packing gear for the trek along the river. I just couldn't wait to fish and catch that next species, so right then and there, I got the rod out and started fishing. It wasn't any time at all and the first Yellowstone Cutt was in hand. Just a moment later, a monster fish exploded on my fly and here is where the first heartbreak occurred! You see, I broke one of my own rules. The long story made short is that I forgot to loosen my drag...yeah, oops! The cast was made, the float was drag free, the rise came, the explosion ripped the water apart and it was fish on!!! The problem was that with fast water, a big fish, and a tight drag, disaster was looming. I rushed to get to the drag as the fished turned down stream. With a less than graceful staggering few steps down stream and every attempt to keep my rod up, the fish was gaining ground. I got the drag...I got it....The rod tip was dropping, dropping, in the danger zone, still dropping......OH CRAP, No, I can do this......rod pointing as fish....I could feel the tippet stretching...then all at once.....BANG!!! It was over! My second fish of the day and one pushing twenty inches was now only a story! Oh well was all I could say! After all, it was early in the morning and no worries! I mean, no phone was going to be ringing telling me I needed to be anywhere....ahhh, what a feeling!

It wasn't long after this failed attempt at a trophy, that we were up river and into fish after fish.

SAO GUIDE PATRICK ROBINSON HOLDS A

HEALTHY TETON YELLOWSTONE CUTTHROAT

DON FISHES AT A CONFLUENCE POINT IN THE TETON

During our time at the confluence that you see above, Don and I were doubled up. Although the waters were slightly stained, the fish were more than willing to look up and since we don't get to fish the dries all that often back home, we opted to throw the big dries!

SAO GUIDE PATRICK ROBINSON AND FRIEND DON

LAND A DOUBLE ON YELLOWSTONE CUTTIES

AND THE SMILES......OH SO SWEET!

We continued to fish the morning away in this general area. We fished up the Teton and up a smaller tributary and more fish came to hand than we could count. It was getting to be mid day and we wanted to fish a lot more water as long as it was accessible in the rough terrain. So, to insure we would have enough fuel in the furnace to make the continued push, we paused to grab a streamside lunch.......

SAO GUIDE BEN BARGER GETS THE FIRE GOING

FOR SOME STREAM SIDE HOT DOGS

After cramming our faces with fine pork products, we decided to head up stream a bit further. There's always a big one just around the corner right?

Well, up stream did treat us very, very well and we captured a lot of film and photos of fish on this stretch. However, I had to get the fish in front of that rock first.

SAO GUIDES PATRICK AND BEN WADE THE EDGE OF

THE FAST WATER CATCHING FISH IN ALL THE

SLACK WATER HOLDS ALONG THE WAY.

In the next adventure, we will head up stream to see what the waters offered us. This was one of my most memorable afternoons I have ever had and I look forward to sharing it with you!

Until next time,

Patrick "Flybum" Robinson

Head Guide

Steelhead Alley Outfitters

Westward Bound Part I; Wyoming's Piney Creek

Honestly, I really don't know where to start? It was the first time...I would finally be traveling west to do nothing but fish, and I couldn't wait!

Each year SAO Guide Brett McCrae travels west after the Steelhead season to guide for Rock Creek Angler's (http://www.rockcreekanglers.com/) in Saddlestring, Wyoming. Brett is good at sending us pictures of the beautiful Brown Trout he manages to hold each season, and finally I had to take him up on his generous offer to spend a couple days on his favorite Wyoming guide haunts.

I could hardly wait as we drove up to Detroit to catch our flight. After the lengthy wait to go through security we finally reached our terminal. A quick look around and out the large window we realized that our plane was not here? No big deal, Right? Well, not a big deal if you have a direct flight, and we didn't. So, after waiting three agonizingly, horrible hours in the terminal, we finally got airborne. With five minutes to spare to catch our connection flight to Bozeman, Montana we were gonna need a miracle once we landed!

When we landed, Theresa and I ran so freaking hard to our assigned terminal (which is like 20 ridiculous miles away), and barely caught the luckily delayed flight to Bozeman by about 1 minute! You can't cut it any closer than we did, I guarantee it! We would have kicked the crap out of every contestant on the Amazing Race on this day! Talk about being a tad PO'ed at our airlines.... You don't mess with a man and his trout fishing!

We landed in Bozeman with huge smiles on our face thinking the worst is done. Yeah, get ready, there's more. I walked over to baggage claim while Theresa got all our paperwork and keys for our car rental done and out of the way. At this point in our days travel, we still had about a 3 hour drive over to our hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming and the trout fishing scheduled early the next morning. Well, as the saying goes, it went! When it rains it pours! You see, this time around, some fool decided that our luggage could show up on a later flight! At this point I was told that my luggage would be in Bozeman by 5:30pm, (it was only 2:30pm) and since they could not deliver our luggage to Wyoming we would have to wait. As much as I would like to tell you exactly how I felt about the whole situation, I will instead say nothing. This will allow the story to be appropriate for all ages, because if I told you how I really felt, it would be anything but wholesome. All I can say is that we finally made it to our hotel albeit much later than we would have liked. The good news is that we were back on schedule and the mornings fishing wouldn't come soon enough.

Wyoming's Piney Creek

We met up with Brett early and with much anticipation, eagerly hit the road. The scenery in Wyoming was spectacular with Pronghorns, Mule Deer, extensive grasslands, rolling hills, and stunning plateau's everywhere. As we pulled up to Piney Creek we noticed that she was slightly off color. This may have hurt some of the dry fly opportunities, but a quick look at the grin on Brett's face and the twinkle in his eye, and I knew he was thinking streamers! This was our opportunity to fish big flies to the big fish, and it had us both chomping at the bit...

Here is just one on the fantastic Brown Trout we caught stripping 5 inch long baby Rainbow and brown trout imitative streamers!!

I still am taken back at the strength and aggressive nature displayed by Piney's Trout.

The most exciting part of this trip out west was the opportunity I had to introduce my wife Theresa to fly fishing! At this point in our lives, she had never caught a trout, or even attempted fly fishing. To make things more difficult in her learning experience, we needed to cast and strip large heavily weighted streamers, and those of you who do fish like this know it can be challenging for a beginner to cast well with these tactics.

After listening to instructions from Brett and watching a few demo casts, Theresa picked up the rod like she had done it for ages and landed an 18 inch brown trout and a 21 inch rainbow before I even got my fly wet! This was the time where I was smiling from ear to ear, and thinking to myself " please catch the fly fishing bug"....

My first of many Brown Trout from Piney Creek.

I have caught few Brown Trout that hit a streamer as hard as this fish!

Piney Creek was one of those streams that you look at and couldn't find a single place that didn't look fishy. We covered a lot of water and landed more than our fair share of trout by anyones standards. At about 5:00pm Theresa gave me that look, like when do we call it a night? It had been a long hike and exhaustion was setting in. At this point, I was literally in heaven and could have fished until night fall! But, being sensitive to my wife and her first day, we decided to end the day on a big fish and look forward to tomorrow. It was time for a good dinner together and a good nights rest.

Piney Creek stream side lunch! If you head over and fish with Brett at Rock Creek, request the Turkey Bacon Swiss sandwich with raspberry sauce, it is out of this world!

Another hard hitting Brown Trout from Piney Creek.

Theresa with her first fly caught Brown Trout!

Gorgeous looking Piney Creek Trout.

Here is a close up of Theresa's Rainbow that smacked a large streamer.

Brett and Theresa pose with her first fly caught Rainbow trout!

See you later!

This next fish is the one we decided to end the day on! I had seen, lost, or missed more fish in the 20 plus inch range through the course of the day than you could imagine. Finally this one didn't come unbuttoned and would be to fish to close an overall stellar day on the water...

I finally got to pose with one of Wyoming's 20+ inch Butter Bellies.

Awesome fish to end day one with....

My next post will be on Wyoming's North Fork of the Powder River, until then thumbs up and be happy!

Tight Lines!

Greg Senyo

Owner/Operator

Steelhead Alley Outfitters

The Adventures of Flybum - Part 5

After a quick day on the Henry's Fork, we were back on the road to see more water and scenery. This time it was up into Montana and Wyoming to see some of Yellowstone National Park.

The agenda was to spend the day fishing on the Firehole and Gibbon Rivers whose flows come together to make the world famous Madison River. And I think it goes without saying that while we were there, we had to fish the Madison. I mean, who doesn't fish the Madison when they are close? I know, people who don't fish : )

We left the area of Ashton Idaho as early as we could for getting in bed the night before at about 1 a.m. The drive would take us to the town of West Yellowstone and the fly shop of Craig Matthews (Blue Ribbon Flies) who I had met in Indianapolis earlier this year (Greg and I had the opportunity to drive him to the Indiana on the Fly show as we were staying in the same hotel). At any rate, I wanted to stop in and say hello and check out his shop....and better yet, I wanted to hear some of his stories from when he was the police chief in West. He told me one about when the Hell's Angels saved West from a bunch of ticked off cowboys who were minutes away from setting town on fire....I swear....the story was amazing and hilarious at the same time!

So, after a brief stop in West Yellowstone to get our licenses and such, we made the punch into Yellowstone National Park (YNP), but not before some traffic issues.

THE GUYS WAIT FOR A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE WAY TO

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

After a ten minute traffic jam due to construction, we were on our way and the challenge was to not stop at the first glimpse of Madison water. The road paralleled the river all the way into the park making fishing access to the very easy and I'm sure highly pressured due to the immense traffic in Yellowstone this time of year.

A BEAUTIFUL PANORAMIC OF THE MADISON RIVER IN

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

ANOTHER SHOT OF THE MADISON RIVER

We drove for about 15 minutes before we couldn't take it any longer. The water started looking better and better, and our fly rods were just screaming to be used. So, without any further delay, we exploded from the truck like legendary super heros of the fly fishing kind (capes included) and walked across the water to the perfect places for presentation....Well, maybe it wasn't exactly like that, but close...... ha, ha.

DON LOADS THE ROD FOR A NICE LAYOUT

As soon as we could get a good look at the water, we noticed fish rising throughout the flows. Smiles graced our faces for the fourth day in a row and the dry flies came out. One thing is for sure, after a long fall, winter, and spring chasing steelhead, we turn into dry fly bums in the summer!

It only took a few presentations before fish started coming to the nets, and this time they were Browns....in fact, these were the first Browns that we had seen since our arrival out west. Ben was the first to score and the rest of us followed.

SAO GUIDE BEN BARGER RELEASING A NICE

MADISON RIVER BROWN TROUT

After a short stint on the Madison, it was off to see the Gibbon and Firehole Rivers. It didn't take long to get there as we were just a couple miles below the confluence. Looking down the valley of the Gibbon was a beautiful sight, but from the fishermen we spoke with, the scenery was the best part of the fishery. I'm sure there were some nicer fish somewhere in the watershed, but most of what we heard was that small fish were the norm, so we opted to move onto the Firehole.

LOOKING WEST DOWN THE GIBBON RIVER

So, on the road again (can you hear the song)....we started our drive into the caldera that houses some pretty amazing water and volcanic features! So, with rods readied, we meandered the region of steam vents, geysers, and rather hot Firehole River.

DRIVING THROUGH YELLOWSTONE WITH THE RODS READIED!

Upon our arrival on the Firehole, I was caught off guard when I stepped in a side channel only to feel water that I guess had to be somewhere in the 110-120 degree range hit my skin! No wonder this is an early season fishery! This water is great in the winter I imagine! However, due to all of the volcanically heated water that flows into this river, it also shuts down much faster than other rivers.

The river aside from it's hot waters, was yet again, a totally different kind of river in it's features. Within a couple of minutes of my arrival, we found fish. Here is where the distinct difference was noticed! These fish were as spooky as any fish I have ever fished for....bar none!

On several instances, I walked up behind fish and at a distance of twenty yards or more (again from behind them), I watched them scatter like I had just thrown a rock at them. These fish were not going to come to a fly easily. Fly line in the air would spook them, too much ground vibration or water disturbance would spook them, shadows, talking to loud, cloud shadows....I mean, it got to the point that I think getting a fly out of my fly box spooked them.

Needless to say, the Firehole River was the only river we visited that left us with our tails between our legs. It was a challenging fishery, at least in the area we fished her, but was extremely unique in it's features! I hope to return to this water during a cooler season to see this place in greater splendor!

DON MAKES AN ATTEMPT AT SOME VERY SPOOKY TROUT

The photos were few due to me shooting video most of the time, so I apologize for the limited photos. Hopefully I will find some more time to get some video of this place put together for all to see.

Next time I will get started on another amazing fishery where we shot a lot of video and shot a lot of photos and that is the amazing Teton River.

Until then, tight lines...

Patrick "Flybum" Robinson
Head Guide
Steelhead Alley Outfitters