August 2015

Jeff and I both woke up feeling well rested, which was a good thing since I used my iPad as the alarm clock but forgot that I hadn’t changed its clock to Mountain time zone. So, instead of 6:30, we got up bright and early at 5:30. I guess we’ll have enough time for breakfast at Rocky Mountain Mojoe. We both take inventory of how our legs feel.  Better.  We still took our precautionary ibuprofen.

Today’s fishing is about keeping secrets. We always meet Guy in the fly shop before we head out to the river and today when the other guides ask where we’re going, Guy is cryptic. The only hint he’ll give out is that we’re eating fried chicken for lunch. This doesn’t tell us anything, but out here the guides know that it means we’re eating lunch at the truck. No one in the Cody area is carrying fried chicken in a hiking pack – too many grizzly bears.

We headed out of Cody towards the South Fork of the Shoshone drainage and the town of Meeteetse.*  Meeteetse is a cute little ranch town with a couple of bars, a few houses and a school. Meeteetse is known locally for its annual Labor Day rodeo and parade.  Rodeo is big in this area.  In the summer, Cody has a rodeo every night from June through August.

We keep going out of Meeteetse and head to the “secret” river.   Let’s be clear, the river itself isn’t really a secret. It flows through a section of public land that is popular with locals for camping, horseback riding and ATV’ing.  We park at a trailhead that in the winter has cross country skiing, there’s a cute warming hut and a campsite with a very rustic pit toilet.

The plan of the day is to fish until lunchtime on this section of the river and then head to another shorter public section that is less accessible and mostly surrounded by heavily posted private land.  The river is clear and cold and beautiful.  Yesterday the Shoshone was fishable but very highly ‘colored’, so it is a treat to see this clear water where we can sometimes spot the fish to cast to.

Today’s fishing is mostly dry flies – a hopper or a beetle – both work.  The fish are cutthroats and big and beautiful.  We don’t keep count, but we caught so many gorgeous fish! Jeff described it as his best day fishing ever.

*Coincidently, after we got back to Cody, I was reading the news on my iPad and I saw a NY Times op-ed article titled “The Frontier Chocolatier” and decided to take a look.  Well, turns out this “cowboy turned candy maker” has his shop in Meeteetse!  We’ll check it out next year.