mcnerney
Administrator
Chris and I met on the forum and had tried to get together for some fishing earlier in the spring, but our schedules just didn't work out, so I was excited to finally get to meet him and his wife and to wet a line together. Friday I drove down to Fontenelle to meet up with Chris (aka cgriff) and his wife Caitlin for a float on the Green. The weather forecast was perfect, a high of 83 degrees and light winds to boot. Yahoo! The river was still running very high at 7500 cfs, which I normally avoid, but worth a shot seeing how good the weather was going to be. Saturday the forecast was again for great with sunny skies, but the wind was forecast to be 20 mph gust to 30 so I suggested that maybe we would be better off wade fishing the Hams Fork river seeing how it lays in a valley, so hopefully we could be sheltered from the wind a bit, especially seeing how Chris and Caitlin are fairly new to fly fishing, they had just started this past February.
Here are some photos:
On Friday morning while driving to Fontenelle, I stopped at the reservoir to take a bathroom break and spotted six horses all huddled around this maintenance building. I couldn't figure out why, I looked at the temp gauge on the dash and it said 54 degrees.
Chris and his wife doing a little wade fishing along the Green:
A couple moose we spotted as we floated by:
Chris with a nice brown that he landed:
And a close up:
Saturday morning I headed south towards Kemmerer, WY to meet up with Chris and his wife, here I stopped just north of town and took a photo of the Hams Fork looking toward the town of Kemmerer.
Here is a shot looking to the north, showing a public park right on the water:
When we got to the Hams Fork, another car pulled in right behind us and I asked if they had been fishing here lately. I was looking for some recent intel, seeing how I have only fished this river once a couple years ago. Turned out they were there the previous day, but when I asked the younger guy what flies were working, he hesitated and then said emerges. Of course, I knew that wasn't true. Anyway, they were faster then we were getting our gear ready as Chris and his wife had to put their rods/reels together and they headed down to the river.
As we were walking down to the river, we spotted four ultra lights coming our way, unfortunately one broke off and I only got a photo of the others as the pass over us:
I had noted the direction those two guys went and seeing how I have only been here once before, I wanted to see where they were fishing, so we followed them. I figured once we saw where they were at we could spread out down river. When we got down to where they were at, just below the spill way, we mentioned that the goal for today was to get Chris's wife into fish. The older guy, named Mark, hearing that offered up his spot and took her down to the river and basically took her under his wing once he saw how badly her casting was, as she was basically doing the beginners wind shield wipe while casting. Anyway in short order, Mark had her doing a roll cast that was pretty decent and then started showing her how to manage the line, especially in that spot as the water is coming right at you at a pretty fast clip.
Here is Mark in the blue shirt helping Caitlin figure out this whole casting deal. His son Brad in the red, he ended up landing two average sized rainbows in this location:
Here Katlyn is casting on the left, Chris in the middle watching as Mark helps his son release a rainbow trout:
Mark takes a fall into the river, he was trying to free a snagged fly of Caitlin's:
Anyway, what seemed like two hundred casts and no fish, Mark suggests we go down river to another one of his favorite spots (he lived and fished in Kemmerer for years, but now lives in UT), so we follow them down river and again it is kind of tight quarters for five to fish so I just watch, besides I have to eave shortly. Mark again is helping Caitlin get into the best position and shortly she has a fish on, but it does an LDR fairly quickly. I needed to leave early as I had signed up for a Dutch Oven cooking class and had a two hour drive back home, so I said good bye to everyone and thanked Mark for his generosity and taking the time to help Caitlin learn to roll cast. I put a card on his windshield with my contact info, in case he ever wants to do a float on the Green. My car was parked up on the hill so as I was driving off, I spotted Mark helping Caitlin net a fish. Yahoo, her first trout on this trip to Wyoming. Later I heard from Chris that she had landed four fish with Mark's help. Yahoo! Anyway, I had a great time fishing with Chris and his wife and getting to meet Mark and his son Brad.
Here are some photos:
On Friday morning while driving to Fontenelle, I stopped at the reservoir to take a bathroom break and spotted six horses all huddled around this maintenance building. I couldn't figure out why, I looked at the temp gauge on the dash and it said 54 degrees.
Chris and his wife doing a little wade fishing along the Green:
A couple moose we spotted as we floated by:
Chris with a nice brown that he landed:
And a close up:
Saturday morning I headed south towards Kemmerer, WY to meet up with Chris and his wife, here I stopped just north of town and took a photo of the Hams Fork looking toward the town of Kemmerer.
Here is a shot looking to the north, showing a public park right on the water:
When we got to the Hams Fork, another car pulled in right behind us and I asked if they had been fishing here lately. I was looking for some recent intel, seeing how I have only fished this river once a couple years ago. Turned out they were there the previous day, but when I asked the younger guy what flies were working, he hesitated and then said emerges. Of course, I knew that wasn't true. Anyway, they were faster then we were getting our gear ready as Chris and his wife had to put their rods/reels together and they headed down to the river.
As we were walking down to the river, we spotted four ultra lights coming our way, unfortunately one broke off and I only got a photo of the others as the pass over us:
I had noted the direction those two guys went and seeing how I have only been here once before, I wanted to see where they were fishing, so we followed them. I figured once we saw where they were at we could spread out down river. When we got down to where they were at, just below the spill way, we mentioned that the goal for today was to get Chris's wife into fish. The older guy, named Mark, hearing that offered up his spot and took her down to the river and basically took her under his wing once he saw how badly her casting was, as she was basically doing the beginners wind shield wipe while casting. Anyway in short order, Mark had her doing a roll cast that was pretty decent and then started showing her how to manage the line, especially in that spot as the water is coming right at you at a pretty fast clip.
Here is Mark in the blue shirt helping Caitlin figure out this whole casting deal. His son Brad in the red, he ended up landing two average sized rainbows in this location:
Here Katlyn is casting on the left, Chris in the middle watching as Mark helps his son release a rainbow trout:
Mark takes a fall into the river, he was trying to free a snagged fly of Caitlin's:
Anyway, what seemed like two hundred casts and no fish, Mark suggests we go down river to another one of his favorite spots (he lived and fished in Kemmerer for years, but now lives in UT), so we follow them down river and again it is kind of tight quarters for five to fish so I just watch, besides I have to eave shortly. Mark again is helping Caitlin get into the best position and shortly she has a fish on, but it does an LDR fairly quickly. I needed to leave early as I had signed up for a Dutch Oven cooking class and had a two hour drive back home, so I said good bye to everyone and thanked Mark for his generosity and taking the time to help Caitlin learn to roll cast. I put a card on his windshield with my contact info, in case he ever wants to do a float on the Green. My car was parked up on the hill so as I was driving off, I spotted Mark helping Caitlin net a fish. Yahoo, her first trout on this trip to Wyoming. Later I heard from Chris that she had landed four fish with Mark's help. Yahoo! Anyway, I had a great time fishing with Chris and his wife and getting to meet Mark and his son Brad.
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