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.

A weekend of firsts

Thanks to record-breaking temperatures, March has produced open water on lakes and streams that usually would be frozen this time of year. I took advantage of the warmth to break out the fly rod and test some water last week.

My first two after-work outings were fruitless, and on the third trip to a local lake I had a fish on but lost it. The feel of a trout on the end of the line was nice, but still unsatisfying.

On Saturday, the tide turned, and I managed to land the first trout of the year (pictured), ending up with eight brown trout and one rainbow for the day. Sunday, I caught the first cutthroat of the year and also the first river fish, another brown.

The 2012 fishing season is off to a good start!

Not much time left for high-country brookies

On the day before the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, we headed for the high country in search of late-summer brook trout. This is the best time of the year for mountain lakes. The mosquitoes are gone, and so are the summer crowds. And the brook trout are turning their bright fall-spawning colors.

The lake was slow in the morning, but when the wind picked up a bit and put a chop on the water, the fishing turned on. At one point, I must have landed nearly a dozen fish on a dozen casts.

Sam fared well, too, and put on a clinic on how to release brook trout, as evidenced in the above video.

With fall rapidly approaching, there won't be much time left for high-country brook trout. It's only a matter of time before the mountains get their first coating of snow.

But for now, the high country is the place to be.

Make that a double, barkeep

For an upland bird hunter, making a double on grouse is the equivalent of hitting a homerun, kicking a 50-yard fieldgoal, or scoring a menage a trois.

It happens, but not very often.

Skill, of course, is involved, but so is luck. Both elements merged for me this morning on a blue-grouse outing.

Blue grouse have a knack for quickly disappearing into trees, so doubles are rare. Today, though, two blues flew out of the bottom of a side canyon with nothing between me and them but blue sky.

I kept my cheek pressed to the gunstock, swung smoothly through the shot, and two blues were on the ground. I picked up the closer one while Xena made a nice retrieve on the farther bird.

A little later she put up another bird (or maybe more) but I only heard it flush in the trees and never saw it. That's more typically the case with blues.

While a double is special, I've made enough that I don't remember many of them. However, my two triples are etched in deep memory. Both were on prairie birds with no trees to get in the way.

In 1984, my 9-month-old English setter Georgia went on point in the middle of a huge flock of sage grouse. About 20 birds rose at once, and I just kept pumping my Model 12 blam, blam, blam until three sage grouse were in the dirt. (Note: the limit was three back then.)

The next triple was two years ago when Xena went on point and three sharptailed grouse came up. The Model 12 gave a repeat performance, and I notched my second triple.

A lot of hunters use nothing but a double barrel shotgun. Unless they hit two birds with one shot (which can happen), they are limited to only the possibility of a double.

I'll take a triple whenever I can get one.

First Wyoming trout of the year

If you only catch one fish in a day, it might as well be a memorable one.

That's what happened today when I caught my first Wyoming trout of the year. I traveled to a lake where some friends had a banner outing last week. Armed with their information on what flies to use, where to fish and how to fish, I felt confident of repeating their success.

Of course, that didn't happen. Two days of snow in the intervening period had totally changed conditions. I cast futilely for about 90 minutes before moving to the boat ramp where I thought rainbows might be attempting to spawn.

The fish were there and on my second cast to a cruising 'bow, the big boy turned and went right for my egg/chironomid combo. After a short battle, a guy fishing nearby netted the fish for me and also shot some video of my poorly executed release.

The 24-incher turned out to be my only fish, indeed my only strike, of the day. But it could well turn out to be the biggest trout I catch all year.

If so, a one-fish day will be OK.

Slow fishing, so let's ski

This spring has started out slowly for fishing. I've been out twice - one day for maybe an hour and the next for an hour and a half. It's just been too cold for me and for the trout, apparently.

But all the snow in the mountains during April means skiing is still good, as the Ph.D. of Ski and I found out Saturday, April 30, when we skinned up the slopes of the Snowy Range Ski Area.

We experienced the usual smorgasbord of Wyoming spring weather - sun, wind, clouds, snow - but also had 4-6 inches of new snow to shred. The base was sketchy in places, but solid in most, so we didn't have to ski very tentatively, but could let it rip.

There was some weirdness, of course. For some reason, a rake and several shovels were stuck in the snow on one slope. (You can see a rake briefly in the video.)

I assumed it was installation art. In any case, we didn't collide with any of the yard tools, and ended the day quaffing some microbrew in the Beartree Inn.

Spring skiing is like that.

November surprise: Trout still looking up

Fishing is full of surprises, and this fall has brought probably the most unexpected surprise of all. Back in August, I accidentally discovered that large rainbow trout in a lake would hit grasshopper fly patterns even though there had been no visible surface-feeding activity. This dry-fly action continued through September and October with bows up to 24 inches inhaling the hoppers.
All along, I kept wondering how long this unusual behavior would last, figuring it would shut down any day. It's weird enough to catch fish that size on dry flies, but even stranger when they're still hitting hoppers after numerous freezes and even a snowstorm had killed all of the naturals.
So on Nov. 1, I decided to head to this lake once more to see if by chance the big bows were still looking up for hoppers. My first cast answered that question as a nice fish lazily rose to my fly, and I missed the hookset. A half hour later, I managed to hook another big bow, but after a couple powerful runs, he got into the weeds and broke me off.
I moved to the other side of the lake to take advantage of the wind and soon hooked up with the bow in the above photos, this time managing to bring him to net.
I never expected dry fly action at 7,000 feet in Wyoming in November. If the lake doesn't freeze by then, will December bring more of the same?

Flyfishing is for the birds

Two of my favorite outdoor activities are flyfishing and birdhunting. Yesterday, I found a new way to combine them.
While floating the North Platte River, I was casting a peacock woolly bugger toward the shore, hoping to move a trout.
After one cast, I saw a small bird fluttering around the water and figured it was catching insects. When I raised my rod for the next case, I noticed I had caught the bird, which I think was some kind of swallow.
He must have mistaken my fly for a tasty bug meal and grabbed it out of the air on the cast.
The leader was wrapped around his wing, and, fortunately, the No. 8 fly hook didn't get him. I untangled him and released the bird unharmed. He flew away just fine, hopefully a bit wiser.

Summer skiing becomes risky business

I decided to take a day off from fishing and do a ski mountaineer trip with Marty, the Ph.D. of Ski, earlier this week. The thought of escaping 80 degree temps in town for a refreshing mountainside of snow was appealing.

We had to take our skis off for three rock fields on our climb to the ridge (or in Marty's case, walk across with skis on). On the way down, we had to again de-ski to cross the rocks. But the snow was surprisingly firm for June 26, and we tried to make every turn count since summer skiing is a fleeting pastime.

Marty was nearly to the bottom of one run when he stopped. "How many more turns do you plan to make before those rocks?" I asked. He predicted two and skied off. Two turns later, he kept going, getting closer to the rocks. On the fourth turn, he suddenly tipped over and crashed head-first into the rocks.

"Son of a biscuit," I thought and hurried downhill to see if he was OK. The Ph.D. took a while to get up and already had a big bump sprouting on his head. On his last turn, he had hit a rock and crashed. When I took off my skis to walk down to where he fell, I sunk knee-deep into some rotten snow that probably also contributed to his fall.

To make matters worse, Marty broke a ski pole and had to descend the rest of the mountain with one pole.

We skipped the post-ski beer in case he had suffered a concussion. When we got back to town, his wife called the doctor. Luckily, the Ph.D. didn't have any of the concussion symptoms that his doctor listed. The next day, he said he felt fine.

A close call that nearly ruined an otherwise great summer ski day.

Memorial Day shred - a mountain tradition

A Memorial Day tradition around Laramie is the opening of the highway over the top of the Snowy Range. Another tradition has been to ski Medicine Bow Peak once Highway 130 is plowed and open to the public.
On Monday, Marty, aka The Ph.D. of Ski, and I did just that again in what has become an annual event. Marty is an accomplished ski mountaineer and has the Haute Route in the Alps under his belt. According to his uncalibrated altimeter, we climbed between 1,200 and 1,500 vertical feet and reached the 11,500-foot mark on the mountain.
The weather was windy once we topped the first part of the ascent and wind chills dropped steadily as we moved farther up the mountain. At the top, we huddled behind some rocks to eat candy bars and rest. (I enjoyed my first dark chocolate Snickers.)
The snow was rather hard and crunchy for this time of year, so we stayed at the summit for about a half an hour, hoping the snow would soften for our descent.
As usual on Memorial Day, I silently dedicated my run to my grandfather Earl and uncle Bob, both WWII veterans who have passed on to that big, untracked powderfield.
Our run was better than expected and improved the farther we got down the mountain as the snow warmed up and softened. It was only my second telemark day of the year, and my first few turns were tentative as I got a feel for the conditions. Marty was on AT gear and linked near-perfect PSIA carved turns all the way down the mountain.
We celebrated the climb and descent with another tradition - burgers and beer at the Beartree Cafe in Centennial.

Wind, weather make for tough fishing

Flyfishing has been a challenge so far this spring thanks to Mother Nature. She must be angry at fishermen, for some reason.
Weekends generally were crummy. Weekdays weren't much nicer.
Wind is the major culprit. We experienced many days of sustained winds in the 30mph range with gusts into the 40 mph velocity. Lately, several days produced gusts of more than 60 mph.
Along with the wind comes the wind chill, which drops tolerable spring temperatures into the chilly range. When you're around water, or wading in it, the wind chill feels even colder.
Trying to cast in those conditions is practically impossible, even if you can get the wind at your back. Fortunately, at one local lake, you don't have to cast far to get into fish.
Earlier in the spring at this lake, I was wearing chest waders to get farther out into the water with my casts. I caught a few fish, but not many. When I told Sam about it, he said that I was wading right where the fish were cruising close to the dam. He never wades at this lake and always does well fishing from shore.
So I changed tactics and became a landlubber. It worked a lot better than wading. My best outing there was nine chunky rainbows in several hours of afternoon fishing. Many fish hit just slightly more than a rod-length from shore.
Another benefit of shore fishing is that you can sit down and relax while waiting for the next strike. It's also a lot easier to drink beer when you're not wading chestdeep in cold water.

E Dub enjoys a fishin' hullabaloo of a day

The last two weeks were frustrating for E Dub. He finished grading his classes immediately after they ended on April 30. Then he hurriedly prepped his summer classes that begin May 17. He planned to spend the two weeks in between spring and summer semesters fishing every day.
It was not to be, thanks to the wildly windy Wyoming weather in the first half of May. Snow, rain, cold temperatures and, mostly, high winds in the 30-50 mph range marked nearly each day of the month so far.


So it was with great relief that E Dub woke up early Sunday to sunshine, rolled out of bed, patched a leak in his pontoon boat, tied a couple flies and headed to a nearby lake. No rain, no snow, temps in the low 60s and a manageable breeze made this the nicest day in a long time.
And the trout cooperated, as well. On his first cast, E Dub landed a rainbow in the 19-inch range, and the action continued hot and heavy for the first hour. It slowed afterwards as the wind picked up. But by the end of four hours, E Dub had landed about 17 trout, caught his first cutthroat of the year, and found he had successfully patched the hole in his pontoon.
Of course, now that he will be teaching seven hours a day for the next three weeks, the weather forecast calls for sun and warmth into the foreseeable future.

Spring: A season of many possibilities

I was driving along the Gallatin River in Montana 10 days ago, on my way to ski and snowboard at Big Sky, and saw people fishing the river. The weather was beautiful, and I wished I had my flyrod so I could stop and make a few casts.

Shredding at Big Sky and Bridger Bowl was a lot of fun (see photos below). When I returned to Laramie, my son and I headed right to Snowy Range Ski Area the next day because its Web site said 20-24 inches of new snow had fallen overnight. The report was true, and we had a banner day in deep snow, some of the best of the year.

Then last Saturday, Snowy Range reported 6 inches overnight, on top of the 28 reported Wednesday. Again, it was a legit report. In the trees, I found powder that was thigh deep and still light. Another banner day.

Yesterday, I cross-country skied with the dog in the morning in bitter wind chills. The wind was still blowing in the afternoon, but the temperature was around 50 degrees. A reliable source told me that a local lake had some open water, so I headed there about 3 p.m.

When I arrived, three guys were icefishing but there was plenty of ice-free water for flyfishing. Casting was tough with the wind, frequently knotting my leader. After an hour of fruitless effort, I switched to a flashback pheasant tail nymph and moved the strike indicator up a foot.

A couple casts later, the indicator dove, I set the hook and the first trout of the year was on. Wading in the cold water and chilled by the wind, I was more sluggish than the trout but eventually got my act together, brought the fish to net and released him. The rainbow was about 14 inches long, fat and healthy. A nice way to begin fishing season.

My thoughts are again wandering away from snow sports and toward time spent on the streams and lakes of Wyoming. It is officially spring now.

Sage grouse: To hunt or not to hunt?

In Wyoming, sage grouse are one of the few upland birds to hunt, and even so, it's hardly worth the bother. Wyoming graciously allows a nine-day season for the big birds, with a two-bird daily limit.

I could argue that the state is ridiculously conservative with sage grouse seasons, but, hey, it's Wyoming! Of course, it's ridiculously conservative!

I haven't shot a sage hen in the Cowboy State for probably 10 years, and I'm having second thoughts about ever shooting them again.

Let me say that I love hunting the large, native grouse. I like the country they live in, the goofy way they fly, and how many of them you can see in good sagebrush habitat. Plus, my dog really likes to hunt them. They must put out terrific scent for a dog.

That said, they have a gamey taste, which isn't always a good thing. At worst, they taste like sagebrush. At best, venison. Adding to the questionable flavor, the sage grouse is threatened in much of its former range. The feds are considering endangered species status for it.

You wouldn't suspect that if you hunted with me in Montana last fall. I found sage grouse everywhere, including in places you would expect to find pheasant or sharptails, but not sage hen. I shot five sage grouse last fall in Montana, but could have harvested more if I focused on their habitat.

But in the back of my mind, whenever I pull the trigger on a big bomber, I think, "Wonder how this one will taste?"

The last one I cooked was chopped up into small pieces and turned into chili. It came out fine, no different from deer meat. But I have a huge male waiting in the freezer and am apprehensive about disguising its sagey taste in any manner - chili, spaghetti, curry, whatever.

So when I read a column in Wyofile about a guy who has quit hunting sage grouse, it struck a chord with me. He decided to quit because of the table quality and their threatened future.

I had mentioned to a buddy last fall that I might quit shooting them. So it's been on my mind for a while, too. I'm not too worried about them going extinct. In Wyoming and Montana, there seems to be plenty of sage grouse.

But I kind of feel sorry for the big dummies. They're not crafty like pheasants. They don't explode into the air like Hungarian partridge. And they're so big, you would have to be blind to miss them.

It's easy to say now, in mid-February, that I won't shoot sage grouse again. But when a flock of 20 of them takes off in September, each one offering a target as big as Sputnik, will I have the willpower to take my finger off the trigger?

End of another season

Wyoming's upland bird season officially ended Dec. 31, but my season was done two weeks earlier. Several snowstorms, icy roads and bone-numbing wind chill temperatures put a stop to my season around mid-month.

It was a great fall for me. I made several trips to Montana, where I hunted with friends and their dogs. I had better-than-usual hunting in Wyoming, particularly on blue grouse in the mountains back in September. It had been years since I had even seen any of the dusky grouse in my usual stomping grounds.

I met some new people, found some new places to hunt and watched my German shorthair pointer, Xena the Warrior Princess, pull some new tricks.

It wasn't all fun and games, though. On my last trip back from Montana, my car was high-centered in a rest area parking lot in Chugwater. It was dark, below zero, snowing and the wind was screaming. After more than an hour of digging, I finally got the Toyota out and back on the road. A seven-hour trip turned into an 11-hour ordeal.

All in all, it was a season that I will remember for a long time. Now it's time to ski and snowboard.

Snipe hunt: No joking matter

I've taken kids out on snipe hunts armed with gunny sacks and flashlights. My son still thinks that a snipe escaped through a hole in his Scout leader's gunny sack.
But snipe hunting with a shotgun is no joke. In fact, it's the most humbling shooting I've ever experienced.
On a trip to northern Montana last week, snow and rain limited our hunting trips to areas off paved roads, since any other roads had turned to greasy, gumbo mud. So we hit the same area three days in a row, originally for pheasant but on the third day strictly for snipe.
Wilson's snipe are a migratory bird that pass through areas on their way south each fall. The marshy areas they favor can be empty of snipe one day, but chock full the next. For the hunter, that means you have to be in the right place at the right time.
Which we were. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, we spotted snipe on a small pothole. Snipe were continually flying in and out of wetlands. It was snipe heaven.
But lots of snipe only guarantees lots of snipe shooting. The small birds are notoriously hard to hit, with a zig-zag flight pattern that will drive you crazy. I went through probably a box and a half of shells and harvested only seven birds.
Not many people hunt snipe. My friend Pman is a big fan of them. Wyoming Wildlife magazine editor Chris Madson also chases snipe. On the table, they are a delicacy with dark, rich-flavored meat. But you need to shoot some first.

And that's no joking matter.

Flip the switch: High-country cutts on and off

It never ceases to amaze me how fishing can change drastically from one day to the next.
Take last week, for example. I hiked into a mountain lake that contains Bear River cutthroat trout. This lake gets hit hard by Nebraskans and other meat fishermen, so I wasn't expecting much. If I caught five or six fish, I would have been happy.
I packed in some neoprene waders for the cold water and waded out toward a dropoff where cutts have cruised in the past.

They were there again. My first four casts with an emerger produced four hits, of which I landed two cutts. The rest of the day was pretty steady action, especially after I switched to an ant pattern. I caught and released 24 trout and missed at least that many strikes. The cutts in this lake have an uncanny ability to sense when I'm gazing at the scenery or looking for my dog. They always choose that moment to strike.
I made plans to return two days later with a fresh supply of emergers and ants. Again, I packed in waders and waded out to the ledge. Again, my first three casts produced hits although I didn't land any of them.
Then it slowed down. I mean, really slowed down. After three hours of casting, using the same patterns as two days before, I quit with a grand total of five trout landed and released.
Both days were about the same temperature. The wind blew out of the east each day, about the same speed.
The one variable seemed to be cloud cover. My first, successful day, there was sunshine all day. But two days later, it was overcast with only a few breaks in the clouds.
Of course, there could have been some other factor that I'm not aware of that made Day 2 so much less productive than Day 1.
But any time you can spend a day in the mountains, catching even a few beautiful cutthroat trout, is a day worth living.

Damselflies: Where the action is

I was worried about the damselfly hatch this year. Usually, it's going gangbusters about when I finish teaching my summer classes in early June. But cold, wet weather this spring retarded the start of the hatch, and it's only been the last two weeks that I've been seeing adult damsels and their nymphs.

Over this Fourth of July weekend, the hatch, which more accurately should be called a crawl-out, was going strong around Laramie. I caught the biggest Bear River cutthroat of the year yesterday on a beadhead damselfly nymph in a small lake.

The reason I like the damsel crawl-out is that you get to fish relatively large flies (I usually tie them on size 10 nymph hooks), and the trout just slam them. There isn't much subtlety in their takes - it's like throwing buggers for browns in the fall. Hammer time.

As a bonus, damsel nymphs are easy and quick to tie. Basically, I wrap marabou around a hook, and it works.

When the water is clear, as it was at the lake I fished yesterday, you need to go light on the tippet. I used a 4X. So breakoffs are fairly common with the slashing strikes that damsels elicit.

A trick with fishing damsel nymphs is to find the retrieve that the fish are looking for - generally, slower, 6-inch strips work best for me. But there are times when a quicker strip or even dead drifting a damsel nymph under an indicator work better. You have to experiment to find out.

But once you do, hold on tight. You're in for some action.

Skin up and ski

The Snowy Range Highway opened over Memorial Day weekend, and a lot of backcountry enthusiasts were there to shred some spring snow. Jan, the soul skier from Montana, made the trip down from Big Sky Country. We joined up with Marty, the Ph.D. of Ski, to make some turns on the south flank of Medicine Bow Peak.

The snowpack is pretty impressive this spring. We got to the mountain fairly late in the morning, though, and snow conditions were getting a little soggy. Still, wet snow is better than no snow.

We skinned up at the Lake Marie trailhead. The biggest challenge was getting out of the parking lot because the snowbanks are 7-8 feet high and nobody had packed in any steps yet.

Jan and I were on telemark gear while Marty employed his alpine touring setup. Despite the cloudy conditions that threatened thunderstorms, we all worked up a sweat climbing the 1,100 vertical feet.

We climbed up to the ridge above School Rock and made two runs in the snowfields up there before skiing all the way down to the parking lot for a celebratory toast of Stella Artois.

Two days later, we did the same route but this time in rain at the parking lot, graupel higher up, and finally heavy, wet snowflakes that resulted in surprisingly nice conditions for our descent. I'm not sure that it was powder, but it was definitely more skiable than slush. Even though we were soaked after a couple runs, the day still called for a Stella Artois.

Jan and I even snuck in a day of flyfishing at a couple of lakes between ski days. All in all, a great holiday weekend spent with good friends and good beverages.

First flyfishing trip of the year

After a long, hard winter which finally ended Sunday, I made it through some slippery roads to an area lake Monday and broke out the fly rod. I was rewarded with a small rainbow on my first cast and a small cutthroat on the second.

The day went like that with fish striking a beadhead prince nymph regularly in shallow water where it was probably warmer. The sizes improved, too. I managed a nice Snake River cutt in the 18-inch range, and a half dozen other cutts in the 15-inch range. A few rainbows were decent - probably around 13 inches but fat.

It felt great to catch some trout on the 6-weight. The only trout I'd caught this year had been a few while ice-fishing for perch and ling. And I only went on the ice three times this winter.

Once the fish had shredded the prince and I broke off the replacement, I decided to hit a stream and try to complete the trifecta with a brown trout. I tied on a bugger and slung it into the wind for a while. As I worked upstream into a narrow channel, I cast into a shady back eddy and Mr. Brown took the invitation to play. The next cast into the same eddy, a smaller brown took the bugger.

Trifecta completed, I headed back to the car happy with my first day of flyfishing. It bodes well for the rest of the season.

Tight lines.