Fishing Report – Last Fishing Trip of the Season? Heck No!

The good and bad thing about knowing bad weather is coming is that you know you have some choices to make: fish or go to work on a Friday?  Well, I chose to fish, especially because the end of fishing season is near.  I also happened to get in a round of golf this past week, which feels opportune as we now have a half a foot of snow on the ground.   Of course you can still fish well into November, if not all year long, depending upon the weather. There is ice fishing for the adventurous and amnesic!

I have only gone ice fishing twice in my life and both ended in disaster and without fish! Now if we had at least caught one fish on one of those trips that would have given me ice fishing amnesia and I would have gone again. On my first ice fishing adventure, my Dad and I cross county skied into Little Brooklyn Lake in the Snowies and drilled 2 holes in the ice with the big ice auger and we froze our butts off! Then we skied back down the mountain with little to no feeling in our feet. I remember falling and the ice auger hitting the back of my head. It took a couple of years and friend of mine at the time, to convince me to go again.  We went to Curt Goudy Reservoir and brought a tent with a hole in the bottom so we could fish and stay warmer. Well, the wind was blowing around 60 mph and we almost got the tent set up before it blew across the entire lake and was ripped to pieces by the time we got to it! Then we got in my truck it would not start.  I had one chance to jump it before the tires hit the ice; luckily it worked and we made it out.

So after those two failed fishing trips it’s sad to say, but if we would have caught at least one trout I would go again in a second.  So during the long cold snowy winter I don’t go fishing; I go skiing or just dream about fishing next spring.  You can tie flies and watch other people catch fish on the Outdoor Network; but that usually just makes me angry and long to go fishing again!

That is why I went fishing on Friday this past week. We were planning to go to the Miracle Mile but with the oncoming snow storm we changed our plans and went to the last public access on the Big Laramie. You pass Jelm and go to road 3431; usually it has cows hanging around the gate. You take the first left about a mile in and head down the mountain. I used to take my old Range Rover down the extreme road but have sold my Rover and bought a more reliable fishing vehicle (an X-Terra). It still gets me most places but not down this “road”. I suggest hiking in the last mile down to the Laramie River. The brown trout are spawning and it was shaping up to be a good day of fishing. It was a little windy and had snowed the day before just a bit. It is a hit or miss fishing hole and somebody must have recently fished there as they had left 3 chairs from someone’s front porch on the edge of the bank. It still was worth the hike and my friend Bryce had brought some great food that I’m pretty sure no other fisherman has ever had for lunch on this part of the river, or Wyoming for that matter. We had octopus with tomato sauce, onions, red peppers and chorizo sausage in a jar; it was pretty darn good!

We hiked out and stopped at the public access right in Jelm and had better luck catching trout.  I caught 12 before the sun finally set on this day of fishing.  This being my last fishing report, I want to say it has been my pleasure sharing my fishing adventures with you and hope you get to go fishing as much as possible.  I believe there is no greater activity than fishing with your kids and nowhere else better to do it than in Wyoming!

Cheers! Mike Gray – fly-fisherman

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Fishing Quote:

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. "

~ Henry David Thoreau