Ham's Fork Day 2, feeling the place out





It was cold that night but it didn't frost. I was in my 0 degree Bass Pro Shop sleeping bag that I love for its huge size and rectangular shape. I slept great. We had our typical Shredded Wheat for breakfast and while we sat at the table in the morning, I turned to watch that ridge from the night before. Sure enough, I saw an elk and its calf coming down the hill. I guess some pretty places are irresistable to animals too and you should expect to see them in it.

 

 

We planned to fish all the public access points along the river that we drove past the day before on the way to the national forest. We had to cover about 15 miles of dirt road first though. We saw some more of th emoose I had mentioned before. I recorded them running accross the road and jumping the fence. They are truly not very graceful but they are neat none the less. 



We pulled into the first access point and saw yet another moose down in the valley that we were to fish. This was a little unnerving know the bushes are dense along the river and the very real possibility of a mother moose around the bend should be enough to make anyone anxious. It was also very exciting. After I pulled my waders on I grabbed my pole that I rigged the previous evening and that's when I saw it. We had a flat tire. Darn.

 

 

Well, Howard started looking for the Lexus manual because he thought it might include special instructions. I started on the tire and before long, we had it off and the full size spare on. We headed to town to see what we could find in the way of a service station. We eventually found a small place with a guy that had the tire repaired in 5 minutes. We decided it was Taco Time afterwards. We watched antelope accross the street as we ate outside. Antelope were everywhere in this town. While eating we discussed our options. We decided we wanted to see the Green River where we were to originally fish. It was about 40 minutes east of town. Along the way we saw another moose. This one was the biggest. It was odd to see this moose out in the sage brush desert miles from any river. It made for a pretty shot too.

 

 

The water was still high on the green  but it was nic eto see potential trips and where we would camp in the future. We drove back to the Ham's Fork public access points.

 

 

We fished one access point for about an hour and had little luck. We caught a white fish and a small brown. They were hitting small pheasant tails, about 16 and 18 size. We decided to try another. Along the way we saw a truck pulled off the road with two fisherman eating lunch on the tailgate. We asked how it was going and found out the tip of the trip. They were fishing a private stretch of river that they heard was great. It cost $10 a day per person and at our first thought was why when there are so many access spots. We kept this in the back of our minds though. We drove to another spot.

 

 

The next spot was on private property but the land owners allowed a trail to the river for fishermen. As we got out of the Lexus we thought, "My there are a lot of mosquitos." When we hit the river, we thought, "Holy crap there are a TON of mosquitos!!!" They covered us whereever skin showed and even coated the outside of my long sleved shirt sleeves. We tried fishing  but the bugs were relentless. We quickly retreated and even ended up with the suckers in the car. It was getting late by then so we decided to call it a day. We ended with more soup and sat by the river for awhile. We decided we would use bug spray in the morning for sure and Howard had some citronella bracelets that we would try too. We also decided that we hadn't seen any river areas that could possibly hold larger fish so we thought we might try this private land area we heard about the next day. This made all the difference in the trip too.



Hamm's Fork River Day 1

 

The Hamm's Fork River runs out of Bridger-Teton National Forest and south toward Kemmerer, Wyoming. After turning off of I-80 the Wyoming country gets even more baron. The town of Kemmerer is a nice little town, by Wyoming standards. It has 2 or 3 fast food places and a small grocery store. It also has the office of Land Management and the National Forest Registry. This is nice because they are able to explain what sections of river are private and which have public access to the river. I also got some neat posters of animals and plants for the kids for free. Once we turned out of Kemmerer and toward the National Forest to find a camping spot, the road turned into a dirt road. It got a lot prettier as we approached the National Forest. It made for some gorgeous camping.  

 

This road was shared by lots of free-roaming cattle. They love to play chicken with cars too we found. We also found this odd mound of stuffed teddy bears. I guess there must be a certain sentimental reason for this. It is definitely an exclussive club also because the large banana was thrown accross the road into the ditch. Bears only!

 

 

 

 

It is about 20 miles of dirt road to the National Forest and like I said earlier, it honestly gets prettier with every mile. We camped about a quarter mile off the raod RIGHT ON THE RIVER. There wasn't a car or person to be seen at all. This was perfect because at this time we thought we would be fishing up that way most of the trip. This wasn't exactly the case though.

 



 

 We set up camp frst so we wouldn't have to compete with the light. Howard had recently bought a new Cabelas Alaskan Guide tent and two Cabelas Alaskan Guide cots. All of it was perfect for our trip. The cots were very heavy but also very sturdy and comfy. They were over-sized and had the side table piece for storage. They also had the poles for hanging jackets or lights on. Great cots.

After we set everything up, we dawned our waders and hit the river. Howard headed upstream and I down. After first trying dry flies, I turned to the more reliable nymph. I then found a great run and instanly caught a nice little Bonneville Cutthroat. In fact, this was my first Bonneville. I've caught Snake River Cutts and Yellowstone Cutts before (which are my favoites) but never Bonnevilles. Unfortunately, as I rested my net with the fish in it on the bank, I focused on cleaning up my fly line before making sure the fish was secure. When I looked up from the untangled line, the fish was gone. It was only about 12 inches but I would have loved a picture of my first Bonneville.  I also caught a small whitefish before it got too dark.

When I got back to camp, Howard was already working on dinner. He packed some breakfast burritoes and plenty of soup. The burritoes hit the spot perfectly. In fact, I made note to have those ready to go on future trips.

As we ate, we saw a mother moose and its baby right accross the river from us where Howard was previously fishing. It was dusk so the light was bad and the picture turned out fuzzy but its always fun to see wilflife, especially moose. This was actually the first of a full DOZEN moose we would see this trip. 

 

Aftrer the sun went down it got cold quicly as it always does in Wyoming. We grabbed some coats and comfy cloths and sat around Howard's nice new Cabelas table. We watched the moose and the hillside in the distance. I told Howard that this hillside looked just like the one in Lamar Valley of Yellowstone that I saw wolves run down from. I found myself glancing at the hillside often in hopes of seeing something. Sure enough, I did the next morning.

 

Maumee River Walleye Run 2012

 This winter and spring has been one of the warmest on record. Last year when I hit the spring Maumee River walleye run, it was mid April and the water was still bitter cold. This year it wasn't even mid March when they started running in numbers and the weather was perfect. I was scheduled two days off in a row one week, which doesn't happen often, so I decided to take advantage of it and go fishing. I called Alex to see if he could skip school to join me. He informed me that it was the perfect couple of days to skip because his school had Junior testing going on so his days were significantly shorter. We went shopping at Dick's and Walmart and set off on a Tuesday after I walked the kids to school.

As we drove up to Toledo, Alex said out of the blue that he was in the mood to hear The Sound of Silence. I have a homemade cd with this and similar songs on it that we listen to together on road trips a lot. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring any cds in our hurry to get out. Not two minutes later however, what song started playing on a local Toledo station, The Sound of Silence! We also heard the Kid Rock song "All Summer Long" that references "catching walleye from the dock." We decided it was destiny that we were going to have a successful fishing trip. This is important because we have been on quite a few trip that he has been completely skunked and had very bad luck. This was his first experience with walleye so I hoped the best for him.

We arrived at Maumee Tackle at about 1:30 to pick up the hardware. The popular assortment consisted of pink and orange 3 inch twister tails on medium sized floating jig head (also orange, pink or yellow). I saved a bunch of money by buying them in thirty count bags. We also bought some weights that I have only been able to find at this particular shop. We then headed to the river.

We first tried the parking lot at Orleans Park without any luck so I took him to the trail further up stream that John and I found the previous year. There are never any people here but there were a lot more snags. We didn't stay long. We decided to try the lot again. Good thing too.

After finding a good spot closest to a boat that was catching fish. After awhile the action picked up. Before long I had landed, with the help of Alex's awesome new net, three big walleye. The first was about the same size I landed last year which was great. the second and third were 8+ lb bohemoths. The funny thing was I was the only one on the line catching any fish at all. It was great! I felt real sorry for Alex because he was very disappointed but I was thrilled about my own luck.

At about 7:00PM we decided it was time to give it up for the day and go set up camp. We camped at Maumee Bay State Park that was on the other side of Toledo, about 25 minutes away. We had the entire park to ourselves. In fact we actually realized, once the tent was up and it was too late we decided, that only a portion of the park campgrounds is open to camping that time of year. Woops. We stayed anyways and the ranger didn't say anything as he drove by the next morning. It was great though. Birds fille dthe air with music late into the evening and early in the morning. It was a great sunset and I had a neighboring site's table to clean the fiah on too. That was messy. They were filled with all kinds of spawning juices.....

We decided to eat the smallest of the fish which was plenty big enough to feed us both sufficiently. I only had cracker crumbs, salt, pepper and a stick of butter but that was all I needed. Alex was very precarious about trying it because he normally doesn't like fish but I told him to have no fear. He was wishing for tarter sauce but once he tried it he was amazed. It didn't have any fishy flavor and wasabsolutely perfect. The Ritz cracker crumbs surprised him too as a breading. We threw in some beans and chips and had the perfect shore lunch. Of course, we washed it down with IBC cream soda.

We fished hard the next day but to no avail. We tried the rapids and Orleans Park again but no luck . I snagged af few but Alex had no hook ups at all. He was crushed and I think he is convinced he will never catch anything as long as he is with me. Sorry Alex. It was still a great time though and we both look forward to making it a yearly event.

As for the other two fish, i had clenaed them but not filleted them so that my kids could behold their beauty. They were all excited, especially Max. We ate one that week and the other when Sara's mom was in town. She had never tried walleye before and was amazed at how mild they were too.

After all was said and done, not only did Alex and I have a great time camping by ourselves in a beautiful location, but I also caught my two biggest walleye. Both would have won the Biggest Walleye Weekly constest at the shop but it was closed by the time we got out of the river. One was over 8 pounds and the other almost ten!

Walk much?

We awoke at the same time at about 3:00AM to a small noise outside. We were expecting raccoons because of previous camps at this spot. We even stacked the coolers and the food totes in a way so that they were inpenetrable to critters. As we both looked out the tent window, we saw a skunk. We made some noise and shined  a flash light on it. As it ran off we both laughed. We never expected that. 2 years prior it was raccoons here at Lufkin Bottom. This year it was a skunk. Again, wildlife is the biggest reason I love this float.

Next morning started off a little warmer than it had been. I snapped some pictures before we started off.

This is the shoreline heading up-river from our campsite. I caught this little guy here before we got in the boat. He rose to a small white dry fly. I chose this fly because my BWOs I had been using got torn to pieces.

We floated down to this cove and grassy shore line. We decided to fish around it for awhile. We caught some small trout in the cove right wear the fast water meets the slow.

Some of the trout were browns and some were cutthroats. It was fun fishing even if they were just small trout. After catching my share of these little guys, I wanted to try the deeper fast moving water.

I grabbed my nymphing rod because it looked like a good run for it. After fishing it for awhile I saw a rise out of a BIG trout. It came up not once but twice! I quickly ran back to the boat and grabbed my dry fly rig. Another reason I had put down the dry fly rod was because the wind was picking up. After a few bad attempts at casting out to where I saw the rise, it was as far out as I could cast, I finally hit the spot. Time slowed down as I watched my white fly float down the run. Sure enough the big trout rose and took it! I was not just surprised, but completely amazed. The fish swam straight at me. I had no choice but to back up. Unfortuately I stumbled in some roots and fell backwards onto my rear end. I did this and lost tension on my line. When I stood back up, the fish was gone. Isn't it always the way. It would have been my biggest trout yet but that's fishing.

It wasn't a complete loss though. I tried that run again and hooked up with a good size cutthroat. It was among the biggest fish of the trip. It is a completely different experience when you catch a large fish on the surface with a dry fly. Its so visual and surprising when it happens.

After a quick lunch of peanut butter and honey, we pushed off. We floated by a few more eagles. These turned out to be golden eagles which aare even bigger than bald eagles.

We even caught sight of a second moose. Picture opportunities were not convenient but I managed to snap a quick shot. By now the wind was howling so we weren't really fishing but merely enjoying the float and the scenery.

We originally were going to stay another night on the river but the wind made us change our minds and row the rest of the way to the pull out. By then we were pretty much ready to go. It was the end to a great trip. When pulling out with the boat we saw this sign that asked for the heads of all the rainbow trout anglers caught. We released all ours but thought it was funny and worth mentioning.

Later that day

We found a nice gravel island to pull the boat over and hit the good looking water that flowed around all sides of the island. Howard walked down to some really nice water at the end of the island. He had his nymphing rod with him. I decided to continue using a dry fly. The water I walked to was very shallow and full of rocks. I got a lot of hits on my BWO. The only thing was that none of them stuck. After awhile one did and I found out why I was having this trouble. It was a white fish. I had caught a white fish on a dry fly! Hadn't done that before. Whitefish are bottom feeders but I guess being that the depth of the water was so shallow it went after the dry anyway. It made for a fun catch though.

Howard came back after awhile and I asked him how he did. He informed me that he caught a small brown on a dry fly after failing with the nymphing rig. Not bad but not the same action we had while floating.

I took some pictures of this area at the back of the island. The river flowed down to lower levels of the same river. It was kind of neat to see this kind of structure.

I told Howard I would row til we found our next campsite. We floated past some beautiful scenery including these rugged cliffs. This canyon float has some of the neatest views looking up from the river. When I row I find that its hard to not take a ton of pictures. It's the only time I seem to notice the landscape. When I'm not rowing I am focused on the water and finding fishy spots.

Howard started casting his BWO into his fishy spots and before too long he had hook into a small brown trout. We got to the campsite not too much later and decided to set up the tent to let it air out again. After we had camp set up, we decided to fish along the banks for awhile.

I decided to fish working up the river and along a grassy bank. I actually walked up on the bank and in the grass which was a good 4 feet above the water. Doing this I could see into the water really well and unfortuantely I saw nothing and caught nothing.

Well that's not entirely true. There was a gorgeous sunset that evening. I was unable to capture the full beauty of the colors in a picture but it was truely gorgeous. My mom told me later that she saw it also that night........in Cincinnati......hmmmmm.

Once at camp, I decided it was going to be a two-can dinner for me so I went Italian with Chef Boyardee ravioli and added a Dinty Moore Beef Stew. It hit the spot. Afterwards I threw a life jacket next to a tree and sat downa nd leaned back. It was a cold clear night again and the sky was full of stars. I enjoyed some more Butterfingers while talking to Howard about the great day we had shared. We both agreed it had been a great day and we both would be using dries again tomorrow. There aren't to many of these kind of days I've found and I didn't want to end it early like the previous couple. I stayed up all the way til like 9:30. Unfortunately it ended on a very unperfect note.....I wasn't able to share my day with my Sara or my little buddies. I had bad reception in this spot and had to talk through texts. Other than that it really was another one of those perfect days.

Day 4..... One of those perfect days

 We woke the next morning to two bald eagles across the river. I think this is my favorite part of this area, all the eagles. It's amazing to see them in their natural state. By now we had breaking camp down to a science. It didn't take us long to get back on the river. Once we did, right away I caught a nice white fish on a stone fly nymph. Good start!

We floated down river a little ways to the first island that seemed to have perfect structure and riffles. Howard decided to hit the riffles while I tried the hole and along the cliffs.

Again it looked like the perfect spot. I tried nymphing and a streamer but had no luck. I couldn't believe it. Howard finished his riffles and went on past me to try the far end of the island. While he tried it I did succeed in one goal I had, I saw a moose! He was on the other side of the river among tall grass. I saw him for only a short while before he saw me and casually walked away.

I failed to get any pictures better than  this however. Howard came back just in time to see it too. He had no better luck than I in this spot. I decided however I wanted to try a dry fly against the rocks when we floated past. This turned out to be the best decision of the trip. I had tied a couple of Blue Winged Olives over the previous winter and I had heard they were the dry fly of choice this time of year on the South Fork. I caught this nice Cutthroat on my first cast along the cliff. I decided to stick with this dry fly approach.

I caught a small brown next. This was exciting because it was trout action. What happened next made the trip. We were looking at a campsite along side the river when I cast into a back eddy. I was trying to read the name of the site on the sign when I heard the hit. I instinctively set the hook when I heard it without even seeing the take. I felt a larger fish right away. Howard pulled the boat aside while I fought this fish. I saw it was a larger brown trout and gave him the proper respect. I let him tire himself before bringing him close enough to net. I was thrilled. I hadn't expected to get a big brown on a dry. Howard made the comment that this was the type of fish we were after, in fact, this was the fish of the trip.

The dark coloration on this fish was beautiful. It had bright white tipped fins and even a kype in its jaw. I didn't measure but I bet it was 18 inches anyway and muscular. Unfortunately a water spot happened to be on the lens and every picture I have of it has this smudge. How unfortunate. It  sure was the prettiest brown I have ever caught and in the most exciting manner too.

I made sure to give him plenty of time to regain his strength while watching him in the net. It would be hard to top this fish. I definitely tried though.

I offered to row then but Howard said he was enjoying me catching these fish. I didn't argue. I quickly caught another good brown. I made sure to get a picture of the trout with my fly in its mouth. I got a good shot here but that smudge still shows.

I was casting my BWO along the shore in slack water. I was catching brown trout after brown trout. It's amazing that a technique could make such a difference.

 I bet I caught 8 or 9 browns in 30 minutes!

 None were as big as the 18 incher but any trout on a dry fly is super exciting and each one was gorgeous.

It was in water such as this calm shore line that I had so much luck. What a perfect scenario. It's a beautiful fall day, I'm wearing just my favorite t-shirt and having nonstop dry fly action with a fly that I tied myself. Although I was having one of the best fishing moments I've ever had, I decided Howard had to have a turn.