West '05 Trip - Day 12

Posted: 2006-02-26
By: Randy Cochran

The nice, warm hotel room was a bit hard to leave, so I got a late start on day 12. A few errands later I was finally at the river's edge, but not before I stopped for some Taco John's goodness. Say what you want about Wyoming-based Gringo-ized Mexican (ha) food, but their Potato Ole's hit the spot without a doubt.

Walking up towards Clark Canyon dam, I passed several people in likely looking spots, chatting with them on the way. One Tucson woman was sitting in her chair, watching her husband out in mid-stream. She had waders on, but instead was intent on looking up from a book every so often to make sure hubby was still there. Another woman from Vail was doing the exact same, and it made me smile to see them both there in the sun, happily waiting out their husbands' mania.

On up further I found the place that Jim had told me about. A nice spring flow, it was lousy with rainbows and browns stacked up in it's length. Seeing them was easy; catching them turned out to be a much harder job.

I was finally able to seduce a nicer brown of about 22" on a black and copper woolly bugger. Another hour passed before any action, when I was then able to hook a rainbow on a scud pattern in the spring outflow. I played it for a few minutes while it dogged its way out into the main current until finally (and abruptly) the hook popped out. A bit of frustration set in after this. It had been 3 hours of continuous casting with every conceivable pattern/leader/tippet combination, and the times that I was lucky enough to generate interest I would either get a long, scrutinized refusal or pull the fly out too soon.

Darkness was approaching then, so I left and fished a couple access points closer to Dillon and another hotel room. A couple small browns on a bugger and I was off to rest and relaxation, and a TV to zone out in front of.