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Wyoming 21 day trip report
We wrapped up our 21 day fly fishing trip to Wyoming yesterday. This was a lifetime fishing trip for the two of us. A few observations from the trip to start off . . . I had developed this fantasy in my head that we were going to have fantastic fishing on most every stream we visited and obviously this obviously did not happen. They have had some low water years in different regions that adversely affected the fish population in several smaller streams. In planning this, I had relied too heavily on one of these newer stream information apps that gave a rating system to streams, among other information. I found that this rating information was not near reality on several streams. In some cases the river fished much better than the app gave credit for, thankfully. The Wyoming stream access law is far different than here or Montana. The landowner owns the streambed, and it is the fishermen’s responsibility to know what is public and private land. The app was invaluable to assist with identifying public access and private land on streams. Most every landowner was very unreceptive to fishermen trodding on their property. Landowners generally are very protective of their landowner trespassing rights. Some patrolled their property on side by sides. Some even used drones to survey their property. Check this out too. . . It is illegal for a guide to drop anchor on a privately owned section on river. . . That is trespassing!!! The water is public, the streambed is private. Takes a few days to get used to.
So, we found ourselves doing a little more boots on the ground river scouting before we fished the river, than anticipated. We drifted the Green a couple of days. We caught a prolific Gray Drake hatch for about 10 days that made for some fantastic dry fly fishing. There are some great fly shops back there. The people of Wyoming are great! We met so many fun people, and had so many great discussions with locals back there.
I think I will cover the trip in a couple of chronological posts, rather than rambling on in a long, long post here. We left the Bay Area on Saturday, July 1. I decided to take my older Grand Cherokee for our wheels on the trip, no concerns about scratching it up, solid off road tires on it, etc. I had $9k of work done on it before the trip to make sure it was in tip-top shape. Talk about a trip getting off on the wrong foot, we left, made it to Auburn and a warning light goes off. I pull over at Applegate exit, pop the hood, and the alternator is smoking
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬. The rig is now completely electronically dead at this point. Luckily there is a Jeep dealer in Auburn, we get a AAA tow lined up for there. So there we are, sitting in a couple of folding chairs at the Applegate exit in 102 degree temperature waiting for a tow truck. We pull in to the dealer at 2 pm on the Saturday and they close at 4:30. They will be closed on Sunday, as well as Tuesday, July 4. Not looking good. The service advisor give me his realistic logistical warning, that it will probably be Monday or Wednesday before it is repaired. He listens to our situation, calls in the mechanic, and has the mechanic push everything aside he is working on to deal my plight. Long story short, they have my rig completely repaired, with a new alternator and battery ready for the road in under 2 hours. These guys were nothing short of amazing. They both got a very nice tip from us as a show of gratitude. If you can ever support these guys, do it.
So, from there, we make it cleanly to our first sop in Wyoming, the small town of Kemmerer, where we will fish the Hams Fork to start things off. I will cut this off here and pick it up later.
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