Gone Fishing

Fishing the North Fork of the Shoshone River on opening day (July 1) is one of the most unbelievable outdoor experiences I would ever hope to have. I was lucky enough to spend the day in the fresh Wyoming air with my father and wife, while we rafted through the wilderness, catching hoards if trout. By the end of the day we had spent over six hours floating ten miles and it wasn't a big deal to trade the sunburn for the mountain of fish we caught.

As I prepared earlier in the week for opening day my main goal was to out-fish my dad, or at least keep up. See, the problem is that he only fishes with worms and I really haven't since I was a kid. It's not that I can't do it, I have just been fly-fishing and making my own flies for a long time, so I like it much better, but back to the problem. We took a couple preliminary runs in the upper part of the river (where fishing was open) last week and I wasn't able to catch anything. Bullshit! Not to mention that my dad may be the best worm fishing, trout catching, making fun of fly-fishing easterners man I have ever met. I had to do some research. It had been at least a couple years since I've casted my fly rod, so I felt like all I could do was get better.

I went into Cody Wyoming and found a couple fly shops, the first being "The Humble Fly." The guy was really cool and talked to me about how fast the river was flowing and how my flies weren't getting deep enough in the water. He gave me a couple patterns and we talked a little bit about how to tie them with more weight and get them closer to the bottom. Then I told him about not getting killed by my worm fisherman father. He chuckled and said "You know why they let little kids fish with worms right? Because it's so simple anyone can catch a fish with a worm. There is no challenge."

Just hearing that made my day. I couldn't wait go get home and give my dad grief about it. I also couldn't wait to get back to the house and get to work on making some of the flies and after about two hours of tying I had produced a plethora of North Fork ready nymphs. was ready to dominate some trout.

That morning we were up with the meadowlarks and on the river ready to fish by 9:00 a.m., only slowed once by the amazing tastes of Taco Johns. I mean, who can resist the Ole' Breakfast Scrambler?

Fishing started hot and stayed that way through the day. In the first hole we stopped I caught 2 rainbows and we never looked back. At one point I actually pulled out a fish four casts in a row. By the end of the day I had caught so many fish that my thumb was bleeding from all the teeth marks and to be honest the competition between my dad and I dissipated as we lost track of how many fish we had actually caught. Christy was even able to catch three or four - she has to let them all go, not wanting to do harm to any living thing. As we left the river were tired and hot, but had an amazing time and a stringer of fish for dinner.

By the way. I will be fishing with Rachael Nichols for ESPN's E60 today. Hopefully we can have a repeat performance.

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