#43: Fishing Wyoming's Grand Teton

From Idaho we drove through Yellowstone National park, and were blown away by how amazing the scenery and the volcanic landscape was, not to mention the abundance of Bison and other wildlife. We drove down towards Jackson, Wyoming to spend the night, and went and asked for advice at the local fly shop the next morning.

They told us to try fishing the Snake River right around where it ran out of a lake, and so the water flow was controlled. The spring runoff was in full swing there, ruling out most other options. The spot was inside Grand Teton National park, and as we drove towards it the incredible outline of the mountains made us stop several times to take it in.

There were several others fishing the same section of the river when we arrived, and although there were several missed bites and sightings of fish, we were unsuccessful for the first half of the day, and we moved around trying to find better luck. As light began to fade, we decided to go back to one deep pocket on the side of the river that we knew held some fish, and decided to try our best just sitting at that spot and try to trick one of the trout to bite.

We were not having much luck until some rain clouds blew in, and not long after I was fighting the biggest brown trout I had ever hooked into, but to my great frustration he managed to shake the hook loose before I netted the fish.

My disappointment was short lived however, as not long after I managed to get a good hookset on a bite and landed a nice sized fine Spotted Snake River Cutthroat, a subspecies I had not caught before. Wyoming's state fish is simply a cutthroat trout, so this checked the box. After waiting a few minutes for the fish to recover from the commotion, Daniel began fishing the pool again, and soon landed a good Cutthroat of his own, nearly falling in the water as he netted it. We wanted to spend a little more time exploring Yellowstone, as we were still making very good time, and so we spent the night again in Jackson instead of immediately moving on towards North Dakota, our next state.