I barely slept a wink last night and was up at 4:50 AM before the alarm went off. It wasn’t day 2 of the Jackson Hole One Fly that kept me awake, it’s the fact that tomorrow morning I leave for Brazil. Am I ready? My brain spun all night. But I am ready for Brazil. And I also knew I was fishing a streamer again today in the One Fly.
There were reasons for my streamer decision. First of all, the weather disintegrated overnight. This could be the equinox storm – the one that moves us from summer to fall in a few hours. When I hopped in the Explorer to drive to the Snake River side of the competition it was dark and cool with light rain. Secondly, the stretch I drew was Deadman’s to Moose on the Snake through Grand Teton National Park. Big cutthroat numbers are good here and on this type of day no doubt they’d be hunting other fish to eat. And my team needs a big score. The South Fork Slayers (us) are in the top ten after yesterday but in order to move into First Place we all need to fish great.
My guide was young Rip Lambert who guides for Snake River Anglers. I met Rip a few years ago at a dinner party when he was fresh to Jackson Hole from the south. I liked him that night and was very pleased when was assigned him as my guide.
My opponent/fishing partner was another nice draw, Latham Jenkins. I’ve seen Lat’s face around Jackson for years but never really met him. Today we got to fish together and we had an absolute blast.
While I went streamer, Lat went size 14 mayfly pattern. It was a good choice as well. However, with the weather it meant patience. Lots of patience because it was too cold for hatches at 8:30 AM when the tourney started. Furthermore it wasn’t just raining, wouldn’t you know it started pouring at 8:29 and his dry fly wasn’t only hard to see but it was impossible to keep afloat.
It was raining so hard that I had to cast with caution. I was fishing the EXACT same streamer as yesterday (now that’s confidence in fly durability!) but with the driving rain, lack of light and also the fact that the river was off-color, I couldn’t see dangers. Dangers being sunken logs, rocks and all other fly stealing snags that could ruin my day. So I started out casting carefully.
Lucky for everyone, the rain stopped shortly after 9. Rip rowed us into a side channel where he said he had a pet fish around 17”. He let Lat make a few casts with his dry fly to see if the fish was looking up. The cutty wasn’t and I played clean up to the dry with my streamer. I didn’t only catch the 17 incher; I landed a 16” fish right after we measured the first!
No doubt I had it going and unfortunately for Lat, the fish weren’t looking up. Before 10 AM I had three 16”’s and the 17” fish on the board. We’re only allowed to measure eight so I was more than half way there. Honestly, the fishing simply continued to get better and better.
The day gave us a few more rain drops but all in all it was overcast. Lat had tough luck with fish not looking up for dries till about 1 PM. He was worried but Rip and I were not. Sure enough by 2 PM every big trout in the river was looking up for dries because the Snake Drake hatch was on. Lat went on to measure six nice cutthroats before days end.
I’m gonna tell ya, I should fish the Snake River in September more often. This hidden gem of the west is ridiculously good these days. At the end of the day, I’d released a few 16” cutties without even measuring them. I simply took them as 2-points because I already had the eight I’m allowed. I caught 25 fish total on my streamer, one being 19” and I scored a whopping 540 points!
4 PM came quick and after the great day on the river it was time turn in our scores and hit the end of the One Fly bash and winner’s ceremony. This is always one of the best parties of the year. It turns out, Zach Peyton had an even better day over on the South Fork than I had on the Snake with over 600 points! But the bad news, Dave and Clayton had bad luck.
Zach and I carried our team to 4th place at the end. We missed a third place plaque by a mere 2 points. That’s literally one fish any size caught amongst the four of us. One fish! It makes me think of at least a dozen dink size fish that I lost at the boat. Too bad suckers don’t count because this hawg was one of my favorite catches of the day – Dang it!
Nonetheless, 4th place out of 40 teams is nothing to slouch at. Zach ended up being the 2nd place individual and I got 5th individual. That’s out of a 160 players so not too bad. All these scores were close as well. One more fish from Zach or I and who knows. . . .
I want to thank the Myers and Zach for adding me on their Jackson Hole One Fly Team. I do indeed enjoy this event and was missing it the last few years. And good news, I believe we’ll be back next year and possibly for a few years to come. Also great job by all those who work for the One Fly foundation. They do an incredible job and as a whole we all raise a ton of money for good fishy causes.
Its now nearly 1 AM Monday morning. In three hours I begin my long journey for the Amazon in Brazil. Expect more exciting blogs to come. It may take some time for me to get them up due to exhaustion, fishing 14 hours a day and perhaps lack of internet while in the rainforest, but they will come. Sleep when you’re dead!
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