We arrived at the Jackson airport at about 1:00pm. I was surprised when we deplaned onto the runway before making our way into the airport. The first impression when you step out of the plane is a bright blue sky with big puffy white clouds and a stunning view of the Teton mountains. At first I thought it was strange there was no jetway, but that view makes for a tremendous welcome to Wyoming.
After picking up the car and checking into the hotel we headed into town to explore a little before dinner.
We headed to Snake River Brewing for micro brews and some dinner, then ended the night with a good cigar. At the end of the night, it was back to the hotel to get the gear ready for an early start on Flat Creek in the National Elk Refuge.
I didn't know where to park, I saw another car that was clearly an angler. I rolled down my window to ask where to park. It turned out he didn't know where to park either. We decided to head North towards the fish hatchery together and shortly found the parking area. We geared up and walked into the Elk Refuge together. As we approached the creek we wished each other good luck and parted ways just as dawn was breaking.
I began by walking the bank looking for rising fish, I kept my distance from the bank in order to avoid spooking the fish. I had heard that the way to fish this creek was to "head hunt", basically look for rising fish and cast to one feeding fish at a time. The locals say you won't catch fish prospecting to fishy areas. I realized I was fishing behind about a dozen guys and there were no rising fish. I was compelled to blindly prospect. I began fishing a PMD and then a beetle without any luck. I decided to switch to a hopper since this was the opener and these fish hadn't seen a fly in a while. On the second or third cast with the hopper I saw a fish scoot out from under a bank, it took a long look at the fly, and then finally decided to eat the fly. The ride was on! After a short fight I had my first cutthroat trout in the bag!! I caught a nice cutty on a hopper where you're not supposed to be able to catch these fish on anything but tiny flies. It was not one of the fabled twenty plus inch cuttys that Flat Creek is known for, but it was a respectable fish.
I continued to fish for the rest of the morning, but it was tough going. Between the sky getting bright and fishing behind so many other guys, I didn't get another rise while I was on Flatt Creek that day. It began to rain at about 9:00am. There was a flash of lightning so I packed it in and headed for the car. The storm had passed and the sun was out again when I got to the lot. I decided to head back to the creek near the lot and throw some streamers for the last ten minutes I had before I needed to leave to meet my wife for breakfast. I put on a white rabbit strip streamer and pounded an under cut bank, but only got in a few casts before I had to head out.
One good Flat Creek cutty on a hopper was a good morning from my perspective. I was happy with the experience. Fishing the Elk Refuge is a cool experience, its really unique water.
After cleaning up my wife and I drove to Teton Village where we grabbed some breakfast before taking the tram to the top of Rendezvous Mountain, elevation 10,450. The tram climbs 4,100 feet in 12 minutes. On the way up, we met a man who was going back up to look for his wife's sunglasses, she had lost them the day before. We later saw him walking back to the tram, he had found her glasses. We also passed paragliders on their way down while we were headed up. Once at the top we walked up to the summit. We took a few pictures and watched a couple of paragliders take off the back side of the mountain. We also hiked across the back side of the mountain. The views in every direction were breathtaking. The first part of the hike was down hill, coming back it was all uphill. The air is very thin at 10,000 feet. Walking back were were constantly out of breath because of the altitude even though the hike was not that strenuous. We've never been such a high elevation that the altitude had that kind of effect. Before we went down, we stopped for a waffle and rested while enjoying the view from the porch of the waffle place.
After taking the tram down, we had a few hours left in the afternoon before we had to get ready for dinner and the Rodeo. We headed over to the Gros Ventre River to do a little fishing. The Gros Ventre is a tributary to the Snake River, but it is still a fairly large river in its own right. We fished two sections of the Gros Ventre that were easily accessible from the road. I had four fish take a look at my fly or swipe at it, but I couldn't connect. Just as my wife was yelling to me that it was time to go from about seventy-five yards away, I had fish eat the fly! I landed the fish, I attempted to get a picture and dropped the fish in the process. I took a picture of the fish swimming away, you have to look closely because of the glare on the water, but you can see the fish swimming off. As I was climbing over the bank to get out of the river channel, the undercut bank I was climbing collapsed and I scraped up my leg and got my self full of dirt. I washed off and we headed back to the car to go get ready for dinner.
We had dinner at Bubba's BBQ. Bubba's was recommended to us by a couple of Woman who live South of Jackson and often drive up for Bubba's. We met these ladys at lunch the day before at a place called the Bunnery. The BBQ was good, the servings were enormous and we made the mistake of getting the salad bar too. It was way too much food for two, what we ordered could have fed five. From Bubba's it was off to our first Rodeo. There was bull riding, calf roping, and bronco riding (bare back and with saddle).
