Grand Teton

I left you fellow adventurers on a dry note and I apologize for not giving you good news last episode.

We got up and had breakfast/coffee the next morning and my dearest bride looked at me and said, why don’t you go fishing again today?  I had planned on helping with our laundry day chores and getting Piper ready to journey further on down our odyssey.

My friends, I am not a stupid man, nor do I usually look gift horses in the mouth.  I said “only if you are sure you don’t need me to help dear” (while pulling on my fishing clothes and grabbing my wide brim hat) to which she replied that it would be a great idea for me to go.  I’m not sure she saw me from the dust the truck left as I rushed for the river!

I arrived at the closest fishing hole and proceeded to walk upriver about a mile ‘til I came to this perfect spot where two channels rushed over rapids to become a deep lazy hole.  My dream spot in the river and looking downstream a framed view of the Tetons.  What more could a man want?  A wife who encouraged him to go fishing, a beautiful location on a fabled river and a view of the mighty mountains.  I guy could definitely get religion here or feel close to our creator for sure.  The only thing that could make it better would be to catch one of the foundation native fish.

I commence to wade out into the river (no fancy waders here, just river sandals, pants and cold legs) and begin stalking this fish with my rod, reel and a box of flies from long ago.  A coupe of casts in and I get a couple of flashes from these river denizens and a couple of missed strikes!  Oh, what a spot this is…beautiful, high mountain river flowing around my legs with the morning sun streaming down through the water.  I move a few feet further into the river and now have water swirling above my knees as I load up the line in the rod to a perfect (to my mind) distance cast and the line shoots true into the little sweet spot between the confluence of the two fingers of the river.  The fly drifts out of the eddy and into the far current where it sweeps quickly downstream.  Just as the fly pauses at the end of it’s journey a flash is seen and the line goes taught in my hands!  The fight is on with this wily adversary.  He dives deep in the pool and takes a little line and then runs upstream toward me.  Mending line and keeping the tip up and he comes to the surface for a little splash just to show off his color and then goes back to his hole.  I get my slack in and turn his nose back to me and work him back up stream and in toward me.  Finally, he comes to shore, fighting all the way, never giving up like his flatland cousins would and I hold him in the cool shallow water to admire his exquisite form and color and that great orange slash across his throat.  A couple of photos of him without removing him from the water and a quick twist of the fly gives him his freedom.  He pauses a second as if to say well done for a human and then with a flip of his tail he heads back to his lair under those submerged boulders to laugh his fishy laugh at the next angler to test his mettle here.

Have Fun out there Friends!

BFD