I don't want a pickle ...

The motorcycle is a 1978 Yamaha SR500. I've had it for two years. In 1978, Yamaha was competing with the British bikes like the BSA, Norton and Triumph's and they came out with this 500cc road bike in the British style. I've always liked the classic Brit bikes and the Yamaha is a close cousin supposedly without the electrical problems. Ha! It's been an epic to get it running right; and the problems turned out to be mostly electrical. I gave up trying to do the work myself and hired Barry Messenger from Ft Collins as my mechanic. Barry specializes in restoring older BMW's but owned an SR500 himself back in the day. I had the stator rewound from an outfit in Quebec. First time it came back it had a pinched wire; sent it back and they redid it again. In the mean time winter came and I went off to Scotland on sabbatical for the Spring. When I came back, Barry was moving his shop and could not take the bike for six months or so. The bike still had problems and after some extensive carburetor tuning we decided it must be the CDI (electronic ignition) Parts for this bike are hard to find and I ended up ordering a new unit from New Zealand where they are very popular. Installed that and, among other problems, the bike would not turn off. Sent that unit back across the Pacific, and in the meantime the guy who owns the company went in the hospital and was out of commission for six weeks. He recovered and an new unit was sent. This one worked! There still is a minor hesitation problem on a long pull in top gear, but we think we can fix that by rejetting the carburetor.





Took it out for a real ride yesterday. From Woods Landing where I live down Fox Creek Rd. (dirt) to Hwy 11 and then 130 to Centennial WY. From Centennial I headed up and over the Snowy Range and down the west slope into the Platte River Valley. South on WY 230 to Encampment/Riverside and then dipping down into Colorado to come back north to Woods Landing from the three-way.


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Wild Browns

Good fishing access is tightly held. And really, all good fishing and hunting spots should remain secret; or so I was told by the riflemaker in town when, a few years ago, I pointed out a number of grouse coverts on the map for him and his British visitor (Paul Roberts the well known rifle and shotgun fitter). Well mostly, grouse are where you find them and I didn't give much away hoping for a free fitting. But fishing access is far more limited and unless the spot is already world famous it is best to be discreet. I won't mention location or even the name of the river.

There often is a story (which may or may not be true) that goes with a good spot and which is designed to keep people away. In my experience, the stories are often mostly true: rattlesnakes; dangerous roads; long walks and difficult access; Grizzly bears; mosquitoes; elusive fish and even stories of the crowds of fishermen are all told. For this spot it is the mosquitoes. This is a particularly bad mosquito year all over the northern Rockies because of all the rain we've had. One old timer told me that the mosquitoes haven't been this bad since the 60s. On this river the mosquitoes are always bad, and in a bad year the swarms are just plain absurd. You have to be hardcore to fish with the swarms we encountered. I wore a mosquito headnet most of the time and liberal and frequent applications of deet at least kept them from biting much.


This river has wild brown trout (Salmo Trutta) A fish is wild if they are naturally spawned in the lake or river where they live. A fish is native if they're indigenous; they've always lived in the watershed and were introduced by some natural mechanism. The brown trout was introduced into North America in 1883 from Germany; von Behr Browns. Apparently the introduction was a controversy then and the introduced fish can still controversial be controversial. They displace native fish and there is something that is, well, not quite natural about them. But regarding the introduction of German browns to North America, in 1913 Theodore Gordon wrote that "Many of us can remember how poor our sport was before the first of the brown trout came in." A wild fish may not necessarily be native, but in a river where the environment and bug life is right they provide fantastic sport.

The two most distinctive things about wild fish is their fight and their colors. Trout in heavily fished tailwaters like the the North Platte, the San Juan and the Bighorn may grow to gargantuan sizes but they have all been caught many times before and tend to "learn" to just give in. Wild fish are outraged by the hook. And the colors are spectacular. These particular fish had a distinctive blue spot on the side of the head which you can see in the photos if you click to enlarge them.


I fished with Garrett and Matt. Hoping for some top water action on dryflies I rigged my Winston 9' 4wt rod. You can wade across this stream at the head and tail of most runs and the Winston is a nice size and weight rod to fish it. The rod carries an old Orvis Battenkill Mark III reel made by Hardy in England. It has the spring and pawl drag system so it sings when a fish runs. I'd forgotten what a pleasure it is to cast this rod and to control a running fish by palming the rim of the spool.

The fish were not feeding on the top though there was variously, a caddis hatch, some blue winged olives sporadically coming off, an occasional hefty yellow bodied yellow winged mayfly (size 14) and a spinner fall. We all three ended up fishing nymphs and I had my best luck with a cased caddis pattern of my own design. The center feathers of a golden pheasant tail are spotted and when wrapped on a hook are a perfect imitation of caddis cases from this particular stream. A small green head and this fly is an expressive but virtually exact imitation of the naturals clinging to every rock.

A rather violent thunderstorm blew in and we huddled under willows beside the stream in the downpour while the lighting crashed around us. We were on the edge of the storm. the main body passed upstream from us. After the storm blew over a rainbow appeared in the east we continued to fish, each of us catching a few more. But the runoff from the violent storm quickly colored the stream a deep muddy red until you could not see the bottom in four inches of water. We decided to head home. Sadly this happened just as a rather prolific spinner fall was getting underway. All-in-all I caught a dozen wild brown trout. They were all at least 14" with the largest just under 20", a very good afternoon of fishing.

Jackson WY, Snake River

Took Peter, a colleague and visitor from Scotland, to Jackson for the weekend and Garrett and Sarah met us there too. Garrett and I got out to fish the Snake for a few hours. It was overcast and warm with the occasional view to north to the Tetons clearing enough for a nice view. The fishing was not great, we each caught a whitefish, not the big trouts were were hoping for. There was a small hatch of midges, I took my fish on a Griffith's Gnat and Garrett fished small nymphs.

We drove home Easter Sunday by heading north through the park and then down to Dubois and through Lander where we had lunch. East of Lander, at Sweetwater Station. is a rather amazing bookstore variously know as Mad Dog and The Pilgrim Books and the Sweetwater Book Barn. I've passed it before but it was never open. A faded sign out front on the highway says "Fresh Eggs Old Books". Rather amazing bookshop and worth a visit. After we left I was rather disappointed to realize I did not take any photos inside ... next time.

Green River Trip

The Green River, just across the Utah border and below the Flaming Gorge dam, is reputed to have more fish per mile than any other stream in North America. I see numbers as high as 15,000 "catchable" trout per mile for the seven or eight miles of river below the dam. The average sizes are 14 - 18 inches and there are browns, rainbows and less commonly, cutthroat trout. Browns and rainbows dominate with the brown trout perhaps holding a slight majority over rainbows. Most of the fish so clearly visible from the bank are browns; rainbows are still holding in the deeper runs in this pre-spawn period.

Garrett and I fished on Thursday and Friday. It's a bit less that four hours drive from Laramie and we were on the river at 11 having left town just before 7AM. Thursday we fished the upper section just below the dam. The trail down to the river from the upper parking lot is rather spectacular here. With a flow of around 750 cfs the river is wadeable and it is just barely possible for me to cross at certain points. The photo above shows a drift boat passing by as we walked down the trail to the river. We wade fish from the bank and I have never hired a guide. For me, figuring out the fishing is what it is about.

We hooked up with small midge patterns (size 22 gray bodied RS2's and WD40's were hot) and, although we were hoping for a hatch of blue winged olives (Baetis), we saw none. As the day warmed (to maybe around 55°F) the midge hatch came on stronger and some fish started rising so I switched to a dry fly. A size 22 thread midge with a wrap of hackle, no wings or tails, gray body. I did catch one nice brown on the dry fly and hooked up with two more that I did not land on the tiny drys. The water in the Green is just crystal clear and sight fishing is the norm. In almost any good spot you may see ten or more fish lined up along the bank. To sight fish to them you move into position to avoid unnatural drag on the fly from intervening currents and to get the best drift, and cast hoping not to put the fish down. If you have the wrong fly, it will not work. All of these fish have been caught many times each and are highly selective feeders. I caught eight to ten fish all between 13" - 16" and Garrett may have caught twice as many. Garrett fished subsurface midge patterns and caught more fish than I did but I do love to watch a trout rise and take a dry. He was fishing the edges of the deeper and faster runs and hooked up with more rainbows than browns. I concentrated on slower shallower water sight fishing to mostly brown trout. Reflecting on the days fishing I realized that the Baetis hatch was more likely further downstream where the icy water had a chance to warm a bit.

We spent the night in an overpriced room at the Flaming Gorge Resort (discounted winter rates) and ate dinner at the restaurant there sharing a table with a couple of fly fishermen from California. They'd fished the Provo before coming up to the Green and ran into heavy Baetis hatches there. Frank is the flyfishing guy at the Western Sport Shop in San Rafael. It is one of the last great mom and pop outdoor stores in the country with a nice selection of rifles, shotguns, top quality fishing equipment and a really nice selection of new, used and rare sporting books.


Friday morning we drove down to Little Hole parking lot which is seven miles downstream from the dam. Later in the season, this parking lot can get full but there were only three other cars there when we arrived around 9:30 or so. We walked past fish rising in the long flats up to where there is a bit of broken water. We started hooking up on the same gray bodied RS2's and WD40's. Garrett fished that same rig all day long and I believe he must have caught more fish than anyone else on the river that day. He must have caught 30 trout the largest being about 19" or 20" and most being 14" - 16". I caught only a third as many but concentrated on fishing the dry fly. It was a warmer day with temperatures as high as 60°F, though it chilled down when the clouds blocked the sun. Being Friday, there were a lot more fisherman out on the river.

Around 2PM I saw two Blue Winged Olives hatch and the fish got very active. I believe they were taking Baetis nymphs. Garrett was fishing a deeper run below a wide riffle and was catching fish one after another, still fishing his underwater rig with a pair of grey bodied midge imitations. Fishermen walking upstream along the trail on the east bank would stop and watch him. Throughout the day we only rarely saw other fishermen into a fish so his productivity was rather astounding. I finally gave up on the drys after pricking and missing a beautiful rainbow who came up for my crippled Blue Winged Olive pattern in a perfect porpoising rise.

There's nothing like success. I switched to Garrett's rig and started hooking up right away. Missed landing two fish and then landed a nice rainbow. We were near waist deep in the middle of the river and with both of us hooking up we started to attract other fishermen to the run with us. By now it was around 4PM and a second flotilla of drift boats was coming through so it was a socially active scene. I hooked to another rainbow and after a rather extended fight, this one swam between my legs and was holding up under a shelf on a large rock. Rod in one hand and net in the other he swam up and went back between my legs again and against the submerged rock. Trying to move away from the rock I stumbled and gently rolled backwards as I netted the trout. The water temperature was around 40°F. It flowed down over the back of my waders and the icy cold water running down my legs was rather stunning. I released the trout and waded out laughing and cursing. I haven't fallen in a river while fishing for about 14 years. Last time was mid-winter while steelhead fishing on the Salmon River in upstate NY fishing with Peter McDonald. Garrett and I walked back to the truck and dry clothes which were a bit less than a mile downstream It would have been just fine, but I did manage to briefly dunk my camera which now does not work.

Tying the Rusty Spinner

This pattern imitates the imago (adult) form of a number of mayfly species, many of these bugs end up a rusty reddish brown color in the final phase of their lifecycle. This particular one is tied on a TMC 100 dry fly hook in size 16. The thread is 6/0 unithread in Rusty Brown, the tails are light dun microfibbets, the wing is an off-white poly yarn and the dubbing is superfine dubbing in mahogany brown.

1. Wrap the hook with thread to form a base and then tie in the tails. To get them to stand up, build up a small bump of thread under then and then cinch them down. To separate them, tie them in with a figure eight, going between them and alternating wraps over them. These tails are a bit linger than the body, maybe too long, but it is a feature that it may not hurt to exaggerate a wee bit.



2. Tie in the wing material about 2/3 of the way up body, also using a figure eight wrap.


3. Using a bit of dubbing wax, spin a tiny pinch of dubbing on the tying thread.



4. Wrap a tapered body (this one is a bit uneven) and then whip finish the head. Trim the wings to length bu pulling them straight up and giving them a bit of a haircut. The wings on this one may be a bit too long but can be trimmed later or even stream side


This is a very useful pattern that should be in every flybox. One afternoon,  around mother's day 1991, I was fishing Cairn's pool on the Beaver Kill during an astoundingly prolific caddis hatch. Fish rising everywhere and I could not hook up at all, and neither could any of the other five or six fishermen standing the river to my left and right, upstream and down. There are some really large trout in that pool who, when bothered by the likes of me, feed in the main current which runs in a channel along the far bank. That's just about out of my casting range. Anyway, there were so many caddis moving upstream in the air that, at one point, I had a sensation of vertigo from the wall of right to left upstream movement in front of of me. I was balancing on a rock chest deep in the pool trying to cast to the the far bank without letting the water in over the top of my waders. I was, one at a time, trying every caddis pattern I had in my box. It was dusk and the frustration was palpable. Searching the box for an untried pattern, I looked down at the water not more than a foot below my nose and saw a Hendrickson spinner floating by. I stopped fishing and looked closer and sure enough, there was a steady stream of spent spinners floating by, nearly invisible with their transparent wings lying flat on the water. I pulled out a rusty spinner from my box and dropped on in the water next to a natural. I was stunned, I could hardly tell them apart. I tied one on and, with less than a half hour of light left, I caught three nice trout. The guy downstream from me, only about 20 yards away rather casually asked me what I was using. I was happy enough about figuring out the real hatch I happily told him and even gave him a fly when it turned out he did not have one in his box. This is a fundamental fly that should be in every flybox. It is a good imitation of the spinners of many species of mayflies.

Tying a Mercury Midge

The fly shown here is being tied on a TMC 2487 hook in size 24. The bead head is a Spirit River quicksilver glass bead in the extra small size. Thread is 8/0 Uni-Thread, the body is just a few hairs of white Angora goat and the ribbing is fine silver wire.

1. Put the bead on the hook and clamp it in the typing vise. This step is not as easy at it might seem, I need to wear a magnifying head piece like a jeweler might wear.



2. Wrap the hook back to near the bend with the white thread.



3. Tie in the silver wire and build up a bit of body with the thread.



4. I spin the tiniest bit of white dubbing on the thread and wrap forward, tying off the thread.



5. Wrap the wire ribbing forward, in the opposite direction of the thread wraps.



6. Tie off the wire and trim it off. Whip finish the head behind the bead. I use a Materelli whip finisher.

Jenny Lake Ski

We skied up to Jenny Lake along the base of the Tetons and back on the main trail. The weather started fantastic. By the time we reached the lake it had started to deteriorate. Clouds came in and the wind picked up significantly gusting to 30 MPH or so. By the route we traveled, the trip to the lake and back was about eight miles.



The parking lot was almost full when we arrived and filled up quickly while we geared up. There were a number of baby sleds (just visible in the right side of the photo above) being set up to tow babies on the groomed trail -- which pretty much looked like a highway.





With a population of just a hair over half a million people, Wyoming is geographically large but socially small. When we had just about reached the lake, we ran into Bronwyn and her husband. Bronwyn was at Art school with Penelope in San Francisco. This chance meeting four miles from the nearest road was a bit of a surprise.

Bronwyn and her husband skied back in the trees to avoid the wind. We'd skied out to the lake that way and so we returned to the parking lot on the main trail. The short video below shows Penelope skiing back to the truck in the weather. By the time we got out, the trail was quickly filling with windblown snow and the parking lot was nearly empty when we got there.