~wind river fly fishing~

[BottomDweller]

when i was younger, say thirteen or so, my dad would occasionally take me on hiking trips into the various mountain ranges across wyoming.  many times we would travel south to big piney, enter the wind rivers on one side, and take eight or ten days to hike, fish, and climb our way to the other.  about halfway through one of these expeditions, we camped at the base of the cirque of the towers, a craggy arrangement of several vertically-sloped pinnacles rising about 1500 feet out of a lush, green basin at the bottom.  under the shade of these monoliths is a tiny stream, at its widest maybe fifteen or twenty yards across.  it winds its way through the high-country grasses and fallen boulders littering the landscape, sometimes falling in gently rushing waterfalls over the bare bedrock and into deeper pools filled to the brim with brook trout.
   for two days we stayed there, flyfishing our hearts out, catching one 8-12 inch brookie on almost every cast.  my favorite fly to use was a small royal wulff.  seemed like every time i could get it to stand still for just a moment in a little eddy or pool with a foot or more of depth, the fish would rise at it until i hooked one of them.
   on one cast, i hooked one of the brookies just at the bottom of the falls that washed into a larger pool, and like most brook-trout, he thrashed furiously at the line ensnaring him, tailwalking right into the dark blue pool.  as he fought to throw the hook, i saw another flash, and bam, my flyrod doubled over with something that weighed many times more than the brookie that i had originally hooked.  as i brought in the line slowly after the heavy attacker took a couple of quick runs to the other side of the pool, i saw that i had a huge cutthroat holding on to the brookie for dear life for the sake of a quick meal. 
   well, the royal wulff hadn't dug through the brookie and into the far larger jaws of the cutt, so when he realized what he had gotten himself into, he spit the poor mutilated brook-trout and onto the bank it flew.  the big fish swam off into the dark blue until i lost sight of him for what i thought would be the last time.
   later that day, after ranging around to different areas on the stream, i brought my dad back to where i had the big trout on my line, and began throwing an elk-hair caddis at the riffles above and below the pool.  almost immediately, the cutthroat rose from beneath the shadows of a rock and slammed into the little fly, and i answered with a solid hookset.  my dad freaked out at the size of this fish in this tiny stream surrounded by these tiny brookies, and after i had worked the cutt up into the shallows alongside the pool, we began to try to figure out the best way to land it.  dad waded into the water and as he approached the nearly bested brute, the fish lunged away and around his ankles, wrapping the tippet two or three times, and with one last heave of his weight against my dad's fumbling, the tippet broke and the trophy cutthroat was free again to haunt the brook under the cirque of the towers.

[Sjohn01]

That's a great story, I was just hoiping it would end different 

Nice though 

[pikemaster789]

aww man that sounds like a hell of a good time though. Wish I could expreience such great trout waters and a huge cutthroat. How long do you estimate he was.

[BottomDweller]

prolly a very fat twenty inches, which isn't huge, but it really seems a lot bigger when you're only twelve years, and also when you've been catching 10 inch brookies all day.

[Zorros shack]

  That is true.

[seamaiden]

That's a great story, I was just hoiping it would end different 

Nice though 

Firstly, you are an amazing writer-second, I am familiar with your personal experience-thanks for sharing it.

Rebecca

[BottomDweller]

thanks rebecca   

[windwalker]

Thank you, for this great story!! 

[coopd3ville]

That is a great story!!!

[fireplug]

Great story. I've caught a lot of those little Brookies in the Popo Agie, way up in the Wind River Range. It's truly beautiful up there, just never hooked a monster like that.

[spudbar]

Sounds like a classic fish story to me? Dang BD.