Stretching the season

The middle of November at 7,200 feet of elevation in Wyoming often bodes poorly for fishing, unless it's through the ice. In fact, most of our local lakes and the Laramie River were frozen solid a couple weeks ago when temperatures dropped to 10 below three nights in a row, and did not get out of single digits in the day.
Warmer weather and wind has opened up many of the waters since then, however, giving me the chance to cast some line in between pheasant hunts.

Last weekend, I hit the river and found some ice along the banks that was solid enough to support my weight. Mostly, I lost flies on sloppy casting thanks to gloves, cold hands and carelessness. As I reached the end of the public water, no fish had cooperated yet. But in the last decent hole, with a No Trespassing sign staring at me, a brown trout finally came out to play. I netted him, took a quick photo, and released him into the icy water. I wondered if he was the last fish of the year for me.

As it turned out, fishing season wasn't ready to end yet. On a local lake that had humbled me on my last two outings, another brown trout, this time a female still full of eggs, took a purple leech just as  my cold feet and I were about to call it quits today.
Flyfishing at this time of year is like living on borrowed time. You are thankful for each day of open water. But you know winter is coming.

Last powder day of the season one for the books

The fat rockers are hungry for some sick pow.

As my ski buddies know, E Dub likes him some powder. This morning, I woke up around 5:30 and checked my phone for the early ski report. Five inches of new snow sounded good enough. I texted a retired friend, who I knew wouldn't get up early enough, and went back to bed. But I was at Snowy Range Ski Area before the lifts opened, riding up the chair behind one ski patrolman.
I followed his tracks to the backside, where I got first tracks on my favorite slopes - Crazy Horse and Shoshone. I skied a couple other runs then returned to Crazy Horse to lay down second and third tracks on it. After more runs on other slopes, I checked The Horse and there were still just three tracks on it. So I added a fourth. A few more runs elsewhere, and Crazy Horse still hadn't seen another skier, so I added a fifth track.

Four sets of tracks on Crazy Horse - all mine.

About a half hour later, I again skied over to The Horse to find that a snowboarder had defiled my tracks. But it was tough to get upset about the intrusion on the run that has been renamed Crazy E Dub.
As a bonus, headed back to the frontside around noon, I noticed nobody had hit the 5-meter ski jump, a relic of the days when the university had a ski team. The 5-meter is probably the narrowest, steepest powder shot at Snowy Range, and usually one skier is all it takes to track it out. Today, that one skier was me.

The fat rockers size up the 5-meter ski jump.

Judging by the weather forecast, this will be the last powder day of the season. It was one for the books. #powderquest2019

April 1 not for fools

April 1 used to be opening day of trout season, and I still like to fish that day even though only a fool would be wading in frigid, icy water surrounded by snowbanks.
When I was a little kid, April 1 would often find me and my grandfather on Spring Brook or the Trout Pond, which was stocked with brookies. Equipped with a can of worms, bologna sandwich and orange pop, I'd fish for hours in hopes of a 6-inch trout impaling itself on my hook, which rarely happened.
When I was around 12, my dad would wake me up in the dark on opening day and we'd drive a few hours to fish for rainbow trout running out of the Finger Lakes to spawn. Fishermen would be lined up along Catherine Creek or Naples Brook, and we'd have to search for a place with some elbow room. I never caught anything on those trips, but I remember dad catching the biggest trout I'd ever seen. I also remember drinking bitter, hot coffee out of his Thermos, and stopping at a diner on the way home for a hamburger and milkshake.
Once I started driving, my opportunities on April 1 expanded to a 10-20 mile radius around my hometown. Usually, a friend and I would drive to bridges on local creeks and see if other cars were there - a sure sign that the hatchery truck had just been there. A fish fry of stocker rainbows and browns often followed those outings.
I fished a couple local lakes today that were partly melted off.  As on most April 1 opening days in my life, my hands and feet got cold and I didn't catch anything - except memories of opening days past.

Night fishing: coyotes, moonlight and browns

When it comes to night fishing, I don't mind being kept in the dark.
Some of my favorite fishing has been after the sun went down. When I was a kid, my dad would take me out on a boat to fish for crappie, bass, bullheads and whatever else would bite in the dark. This summer, I spent several pleasant evenings fishing off my friends' dock, talking, drinking and reeling in the occasional fish.
Last week, I pursued reports that big brown trout were coming in close to shore at a nearby lake once the sun went down. We were lucky with the weather - no wind, temps in the 40s, and a Hunter's Moon to illuminate the scene.
A pack of coyotes howled to our left, answered by other songdogs serenading to our right. And the browns were hitting wooly buggers, tearing line off the reel on long runs into the darkness.
We wondered where these fish go in the daylight, when they seem to disappear from the lake. In this case, the answer reminded me of a line from a book: "Life begins at dark."

Beautiful day in the grouse woods

I woke up to snow this morning, but was still thinking about the day before, wandering through green, yellow, orange and red aspens in search of blue grouse.
I hunted a spot that I found last year. It held a couple flocks of grouse then, and the gunning was good enough. But this year it was empty, and I really wanted to get Xena her first bird of the year.
We tried a spot lower on the mountain that looked like grouse habitat, but produced no birds the year before. As soon as I crossed the fence on the closed, old logging road, a grouse flushed behind me. Luckily for me, not him, the bird flew across an opening, and I was able to recover from the surprise and knock him down. Even though Xena had run right past the bird in her excitement to get out of the truck, she did retrieve him.
That was the only bird we found all day, but it was just the icing on the cake. Temperatures were in the 40s, the aspen trees were surreal in their colors, and fall was officially here. My favorite time of the year.

Return to Alaska: Fishing is still great

I returned to Juneau this July, taking my son Dave and friend Jan to sample Alaska's outdoors. We were not disappointed.
This year, I focused more on stream fishing, particularly for Dolly Varden char. Drifting bead eggs through schools of spawning chum salmon in Sheep Creek, Jan and I caught dozens of Dollies when we could avoid the surly chums. The Dollies weren't trophies, but were big enough to give a good fight in moving water.
On Cowee Creek, we fished with Humpy Hooker streamers for pink salmon and had a ball catching 5-8 pounders. Bear sign was everywhere - tracks in the sand along the creek and scat all over the trails - but we didn't run into any bruins. Jan lost his salmon virginity on our first afternoon at Cowee.
Here's a video of pink salmon in Echo Cove:



Here's another video of Dave landing a pink:

Annual ski outing turns into road trip

The plan was to drive south to Cameron Pass on Memorial Day and ski the backcountry down there. We arrived at the trailhead after nearly two hours of driving, and started to get our gear ready. I had my telemark boots already on when Marty announces, "Guess what. I forgot my boots."
We debated leaving him at the trailhead while Jan and I made a few runs, but decided to play nice and go back to Laramie to retrieve his boots.
Hours later, we skinned up Medicine Bow Peak and made a couple runs, even getting snowed on during the second one.
Of course, Marty was reminded several times about his earlier transgression. But a couple nice ski runs and a few restorative beverages afterwards heal old wounds.