Wind River Mountains Fishing

[branhap]

Went fishing up in the Wind Rivers with my fly rod today. Trout were rising much of the morning. Managed to bring 4 to the net, and several others battled it out. Overall, my truly first successful fly fishing adventure.

Rainbow Trout #2 (no pic of the first caught fish, cuz I thought I forgot the camera... turns out it was in the pocket of my vest with my fly floatant dust.)


Rainbow #3


Cuttbow... Unfortunately, he hooked himself in a gill or something, because he was unable to be revived even after 15 minutes of trying. *sigh* So he came home.


Overall it was a good day of fishing. Wife joined me for the afternoon, but didn't get to fish very long because a line of Thunderstorms rolled. All were caught with BWO in either olive or black bodies. They didn't seem to care.

Cya,
Paul

[JohnScott]

Way to go, Paul. I'm sure there will be many more very successful days for you in the Winds. WOW. What beautiful country to fish in !!

John

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Nice fish, Paul. I find it commendable that you spent 15 minutes trying to revive a fish, even though the fish didn't survive. Well done.

next time, include some scenery pics if you would please. I'd love to see some of the country.

REE

[branhap]

Here are a couple pictures of the area I fished yesterday. These pics are from earlier in the summer (About a month ago) when I my family was out visiting.

View looking southwest... My Dad in the foreground deciding on his next cast.


View looking Northwest, that's me in the waders with my nephew standing next to me.


Lastly, a panoramic shot of the entire lake.

[lastchance]

Great photos on the Wind River. I just wanna be fishing, right now.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Beautiful area. Thanks for those pics. Very nice. Looks like another place on the bucket list.

[branhap]

Well this past weekend I got to get out for some more fishing. It may be the last chance I get before the snow hits really hard. (Forecast calls for snow this week).

On Saturday, my wife had to head into work for an open house at the Riverton NWS Office. As a result, this gave me a solid 6 hours of fishing time. I packed up the fly gear and headed over to the Middle Popo Aggie Access point. I walked into my normal fishing hole, put together my rod and let the fly rip. On my first cast, I had a rise just in front, but he didn't go after my henry's fork hopper. On the 2nd presentation, he couldn't resist and took the fly. A smallish 6" rainbow was brought to hand. He was released, and I forgot about the tree behind me, casted over hand and promptly lost my fly.

As I was tying on another hopper, a guy with spinning gear walked in and asked if he could fish the pool. He looked like the impatient type, so rather than show being annoyed that he had to fish the same hole as me on 600 yards of public access, I said sure. Sure enough he moved on by the time I was ready to set another cast. Mind you this is a stream that is roughly 8' across in most sections and the riffle I was fishing was about 10-12" deep.

I throw out my next cast and get another hit, have him on the hook, but I'm unable to land him. I continue to fish the holes for a bit, but I'm unable to entice another hit. Soon the sun comes up over the ridge and the fish seem to disappear until the shade starts to cover the water. I spend much of this time exploring the stream looking for other "fishy" spots. I find a few and drop my fly in, but to no avail.

Around 12:30 my wife calls and I head to her work to enjoy a cookout with some of her coworkers.

Sunday rolls around... A light cold front was supposed to move through over night, but the winds are supposedly going to be calmer according to my wife's coworkers. So I plan on taking my boat out to bass lake for one last trip before I winterize it. It's a bit windy, winds around 10mph at the house, but nothing that prevents me from going out. So I get the boat packed up and hit the road... heading into a beautiful sunrise, enhanced by several wild fires and prescribed burns to our west.



As I round the bend that puts bass lake into view, an antelope decides to run along side the truck for a while and I slow down enough that he crosses the road in front of me. He's then kind enough to hang out on top of the ridge so I can snap a quick picture.



I finally reach the lake. It's choppy!! Winds are in the 30-40mph range, way to windy to put the boat in and launch. In hopes that the winds calm down, I gear up my poles in hopes that I can hit the lake.



While I sit out the wind for a bit, a guy who is camping near the boat dock walks up to me and explains that his kids left the interior light on in his truck and asks if I have jumper cables. I happen to use my jumper cables to run the battery power to my trolling motor (I put the battery in the front of my little v-boat for balancing purposes). I unhook em from my trolling motor, unhook the boat trailer from my truck and driver over and give him a jump to get him started on his day. Good thing I came by... 9 miles to civilization with very spotty cell coverage out here. No one else was camping at the lake this weekend.

I continue to wait out the wind, and I chat my wife who is working a shift on Sunday. She gives me a report that the wind probably won't die down until noon or so. I decide that I don't want to lose the entire day to fishing, so I return the boat to the house and head back to the stream I fished on Saturday.

No luck on this day fishing wise, but I did manage a hit near the end of my day as the shadows cast back over my favorite little fishing hole.

I'm still hoping to get the boat out one more time, and if I do it will be for some early or Mid-October bass fishing. We'll see!!

Until next time... tight lines!

Paul

[branhap]

Well I'm thinking fishing season is over here. 5" of snow here in town. 15+ already in the mountains, with more expected over night. Woohoo


Paul

[branhap]

Our snow storm.

[branhap]

For anyone who has expressed interest in this region, Fly Fisherman magazine published an article about fishing the Wind River Mountains in their January issue. It doesn't divulge much, outside of what is already well known, but goes into good detail on all the types of fish one can catch up here if you're willing to hike it. Goldens in the high country, brookies, browns, rainbows, etc.

It covers both the west and east sides of the mountains, from Dubois to South pass on the east, and Pinedale to lower sections on the west.

Paul