After a horrible night’s sleep, because my van was angled to slide me off my bed (too tired to try to park again as I hit one log and backed into a tree just getting to this arrangement), I drove 6 miles to North Piney Creek. What a beautiful paradise of water and scenery! North Piney Creek is managed as a wild Colorado River Cutthroat fishery. North Piney Lake, at the headwaters of the creek, is where the Wyoming hatcheries get their stock for planting these fish throughout Wyoming. I fished a little on this stream, but I was unable, or not willing, to walk through the brush along the banks to fish for long. Why? One, because of my back and lack of physical conditioning, and two, because I knew of a pool on the La Barge Creek that had a LOT of Colorado River Cutthroat, and at least one Brown Trout LOL.
Yes, I drove back to the pool on the La Barge Creek.
A better picture above of the La Barge Creek pool that was full of fish yesterday. I put on the trusty mini-hopper that had many rises the day before, only to have it totally ignored in a dozen drifts and drops into the back eddy. Since I had luck stripping flies upstream through the pool yesterday, I put on the Great gold bead sheep creek special and let it float to the end of the pond, then stripped it back. On my second cast, I let the fly “dangle” at the end of the drift, and yes, sitting in my chair (got smarter), Bam 1. A hookup.
A large Colorado River Cutthroat made into my net, got photographed (above), and gently released back into the water. Today, in less than 15 minutes, I had caught my Colorado River Cutthroat Trout in the La Barge creek. Yay!
After a several hour drive to Cokeville, Wyoming, in the southwest corner of the state, I found a Flying J truck stop for a temporary home in the area where Bonneville Cutthroat Trout are found. I watched the end of the Raiders / Broncos game in a luxury lounge for truck drivers. After resting for an hour, I headed out to a very small stream only 15 miles away. Not much luck and my back was screaming. I headed back to the truck stop, got permission to stay the night, ate too much beef jerky for dinner, took Advil and a muscle relaxer and went to sleep. A good day. I’m happy and looking forward to Salt Lake City soon, to see my daughter, her great husband, and my precious first grandbaby Gwen. SOON. (and it should be understood that both my daughter and my son are AWESOME).
Tight Lines!