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.
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.
