I'll start with pictures today. If we ever get a clear day, I might get a better shot of the Tetons.

Here’s the lower Henry’s Fork, which I floated with the guide, Tommy. It flows thru a canyon, as you can sort of see in this picture of the area downstream from where we launched.

Canyon wall. I bravely waded in with my camera to get this shot.
Roadside field of wildflowers.

I took a family picture for some folks, and they returned the favor.

More wildflowers.

Some fellow fishing the head of a riffle in the Harriman Ranch section of the Henry’s.

I don’t know what to call it, but not ALL the pine trees on the mountain are lodgepole pines.

In Missouri, a jack fence like this is usually decorative and built across the front of someone's yard. But I’ve seen miles of them here. Someone said the ground is often too rocky to accept a driven post, or two swampy and will rot a wooden post that’s planted. So they build these, out of the ubiquitous lodgepole pines, and they are functional livestock barriers.

This hits a little too close.

The wading behind this sign wasn’t that tough, but I was a little nervous anyway. I caught two nice brown trout up against that little cliff face.

What a pretty place to fish.

Sawtell Peak on the way north this morning.

Next mountain north of Sawtell. Don’t know why it didn’t rate a sign.

Cattle chute and mountains

Today I fished a small mountain stream, and loved it. I had planned to do this once or twice on the vacation, while spending most of my fishing days on famous “big water” rivers with names that can be dropped, in certain circles, like celebrities. Now I’m thinking that for the rest of the trip, I may visit a couple more famous rivers for a day each, and spend the rest of the time of various small, steep, tumbling, beautiful freestone streams that don’t see many fishermen.

Trout streams and rivers come in three basic types: spring creeks, with a spring as their source, tailraces, which are created artificially downstream from a dam, and freestone creeks. These are formed where water drains from a drainage between two or more mountain peaks. The water runs down when it rains or the snow melts, obviously, but some of the water goes IN to the porous rock (free stone) of the mountain, which soaks it up like a sponge and releases it later, gradually, into the stream that drains the drainage.

Freestone streams are all subject to spring run-off, when a large amount of snow melts in a short time. The stream is fishable in early spring, before run-off, and all summer afterward, but not during. The trout hide from the high, rushing dirty water. But the run-off changes the character of the stream. A freestone stream gets scoured clean once a year. The aquatic plants are few and small and very hardy. A spring creek can look like a garden on the bottom. The insect life (very important to trout and therefore the angler) is very different.

The world famous Henry’s Fork, which I have been enjoying, is sometimes called the world’s largest spring creek. It’s headwater is a massively huge spring. I haven’t seen it yet (because fishing is closed up close to it) but I might run by there for a quick look and picture. The Henry’s has sections that run slow, called flats, where the river is wide, the bottom is a garden of plants, and bazillions of insects live there, so a strong population of very large trout thrives in these waters. These trout are also very well educated and difficult to catch.

Well, I am enjoying this river but there are spring creeks in Missouri. I’ve fished at Montauk and Bennett Spring. I’m not saying they compare because they don’t, I’m just saying I want to experience some freestone creek fishing while I’m here. That’s what I did today. It was awesome, and I plan to do it again. There are no flats on these mountain streams. They are most often characterized by what we call pocket water: plunge pools and cascades of rapids. The fish are beautiful, wild and colorful. Yes, most of them are smaller. But they are great fun to catch. The water rushes past them, carrying their food morsels, so they have to make very quick decisions on what to eat.

I didn’t fish alone today. I met a fellow also named Dale, who is of retirement age and he’s here from California fishing with a collage age son and another young man, and his wife is along for the scenery. Dale ties flies, and he loves to fish small streams. The younger fellows prefer to float the big water, and Dale’s wife prefers that he not wander the remote places alone. It seems to be working out well. Dale is teaching me some things about fly fishing, and I’m keeping his wife from worrying or his son from needing to slow down and fish at his Dad’s pace. I'm slow because I'm fat, and Dale has lost a step so we're a pretty could match.

I drove some distance north today, and ended up driving thru some of the area that burned last year. I wasn’t ready for that. It’s not that I didn’t think of forest fires as tragic, but I guess I insolate myself emotionally from their impact. Today I was driving a backwoods country road thru tall mature lodgepole pines, I rounded a curve and suddenly they were all black and bare. The ground was bare dirt under them, like the dessert. I stopped for a picture or two but hated the effect that the place had on me and I and drove on, but it took, it seemed, forever to get out of there. I was very unhappy at the thought that the area we planned to fish might have been burned, but eventually I reached an odd borderline of mixed living and dead trees, some with brown needles, and finally then some green healthy forest again. It was a palpable relief. Deep breath, and I was okay.





My routine is changing. The morning-and-evening fishing with a break between, worked for the big water but not for the small streams. We started early and walked uphill a lot, fished our way up and back down, and met Dale’s son and his friend after their day-long float. I think we’ll do something similar again tomorrow. My back is sore from carrying lots of water and my lunch along with my gear. But it’s well worth it.


It's a beautiful night in the mountains. It's nice and cool now. If I was staying up longer I'd be thinking of a warm drink. The sky is finally clear at this moment anyway. The waxing moon is low, just over the peaks, and the rest of the sky is acres of diamonds. I don't know if the stars are so much prettier because I'm a few thousand feet closer to them, with less atmosphere between, or if it's the clear mountain air or lack of moisture in the air, or just because I'm on vacation. Anyway it's beautiful. And it's bedtime.