Since I began Wyoming outdoors column writing in 1973, the month of October continues to be a pinnacle for outdoor activity. But recent reflections over decades of travel and outings recognized many unparalleled outdoor memories consistently came during this period including the pro football playoffs, the Super Bowl and the early February Daytona 500.
Convinced that this idyllic trend would continue, and even against Dear Jean’s desire to stay home, last Friday I begged her to tag along on a backcountry fly rod trip with our longtime friend Captain Frank Catino. As readers will learn, that was an excellent choice.
Many treasured early-year adventures have been in warmer-than-Wyoming zones, but certainly not all. For instance, in the Jeep’s Bar era in Alpine this was the perfect season to intercept the later Palisades run of brown trout and explore the Salt River. A thaw-out in the coziness of Jeep’s with a little late afternoon football was OK too.
And so was performing the same intricate post-holing river access to various Henrys Fork sweet spots in the Ashton/St. Anthony area. This was when St. Anthony’s splendid Silver Horseshoe Bar and Steak House was available for a warmup and a giant Dr. Greene’s Ground Steak Special, more chow than most big hungry boys could finish. Sadly, this extra-long travel day often extended after nearly summiting Teton Pass only to discover a bus or a big truck had slid sideways and closed the road. The result was a harrowing midnight winter retreat through Pine Creek Pass, Swan Valley, Alpine and Hoback Junction. Work Mondays began slowly.
In the mid-1980s I became interested in lake fishing and dragged fly rods to locations originally suited to spinning, lead lines and down-riggers. Forty miles northeast of Reno is Nevada’s Pyramid Lake, a premier educational location. Spreading over 125,000 acres, this remnant of the ancient Lahontan Sea is on the native Paiute Tribe reservation.
Pyramid featured an established fishing method of using a 9-foot, 7-weight fly rod loaded with an 8-weight fast-sinking shooting head with a 6- to 7-foot, two fly-dropper leader. Fly casters lined the shallow banks, many of them comfortably elevated from the freezing water, on a small stepladder. Repeated casting with both a dark- and a light-shaded Woolly Worms (light in front for visibility) enthused lengthy Lahontan cutthroat.
My height advantage at Pyramid meant I could move — ladderless —from group to group of fishermen, study techniques and join their chats.
Truth be told, I probably did more observing than fishing. All the casters I encountered were generous and helpful.
Pyramid conditions went from mild to brutal with desert winds, sleet, snow squalls and big rogue waves that frequently blasted rows of ladder dwellers off their perches. My Pyramid Lake experience had the added benefit of knowing then Reno Fly Shop owner Dave Stanley. Dave’s shop was one of the best operations I’ve ever seen. When he could get away we’d ride out to Pyramid and make a few casts.
I headquartered in the Peppermill Hotel’s ancient outside cabins. Parking next to the unit meant wadering up in indoor comfort and jumping into the truck for snowy drives to the lake. After Peppermill erased those cabins I relocated to The Nugget in Sparks, a few miles closer to Pyramid. That was a venue for some fine country music shows and lively Super Bowl parties. Later I based even closer to Pyramid in Fernley.
When the Robert Manning was still prowling Jackson, right about playoff time he was always looking for company on his daylong drive to Dresden, Kansas, to wrap up the pheasant hunting season.
Bob, along with able help from his the RAM Construction crew, breathed new life into a Dust Bowl-era cabin in this tiny northwest Kansas farming community. With the help of local farmers Keith and Helen Muirhead, Bob picked up several parcels on which he could always hunt. And frequently Keith would come along with us and share astonishing World War II stories with Bob, also a decorated veteran.
The Manning Expeditions to the “Dresden Hilton” were precisely organized, with each meal preprepared and scheduled. Occasionally Helen and Keith would drive us down to Hoxie, a larger agriculture community, to the John Deere Tractor dealership’s pancake dinner. It was a treat seeing the griddle man flipping pancakes across the tractor showroom to your hand-held plate. A “buttermilk syrup” this dinner operator served was exquisite, but he refused to divulge the recipe. even for my Exit Eating column.
Late-season pheasant hunting was tough — the birds were jumpy and often flushed out of range. We’d get a few and miss a lot. The flaming delights of panoramic winter Kansas sunsets made the trip. Usually we’d see a late playoff game at Keith and Helen’s and make a Cabela’s stop going home.
I returned to Florida in 1969 to run Dad’s newspaper after his heart attack. Whatever free time I could manage was spent in the Islamorada area with a young fishing guide named Rick Ruoff. We had lots of fun exploring reefs, flats and Florida Bay. Rick was busy one weekend and suggested I ride along bonefishing with Captain Vic Gaspenny, another young Keys transplant from Virginia.
“Show him how to blind fish for bonefish,” Rick chuckled. He’ll get a blast out of it.”
Most Keys bonefishing back then was mainly sight fishing to cruising or tailing fish. But it was chilly and windy, and I bought and added five dozen live shrimp to Vic’s skiff’s bait well.
We maneuvered the edges of some keys, and flat points that dropped off into slightly deeper water. Finding a lively outgoing tide, we anchored. I crunched up some shrimp kibble and tossed it around the boat. We then put several slightly weighted live shrimp rigs out on spinning rods.
It wasn’t very long before a series of tap-a-tap-a-taps came along and we were both hooked into some beefy silver speedsters that Islamorada was famous for in those days. One of the fish was so powerful that it blew up the fiber spool my Penn spinner.
We caught bonefish “blind casting and chumming” for several hours before the tide changed. Then we retired to Papa Joe’s to watch a little football.
Last week Captain Catino reported seeing a bunch of redfish, snook, seatrout and baby tarpon in creeks and islands in the Banana River not far from his Satellite Beach home.
“It’s been cold especially at night, and these fish like the trout and tarpon are in there to warm up,” Frank explained as we hopped aboard his 18-foot Dawn Patrol Skiff built by his son, John.
This really shallow draft craft is perfect to skinny sand flats even packing Frank’s and my considerable bulk. Jean, the featherweight aboard, commanded the bow. She used a Scott Radian 9-foot, 8-weight and clear floating Cortland Liquid Crystal line to surgically pick the tangled mangrove roots apart. Baby tarpon were tucked everywhere, their strikes so laser quick that even Frank’s new No. 6 black Umpqua-hook flies couldn’t stay fastened.
It seemed that wherever Frank poled it was a festival of fish. The spread-out schools of redfish prowled along the bottom, the occasional invisible super snook hiding just ahead of the boat and out of casting range even before spooking off and a fabulous collection of small to large spotted seatrout that are too spooky for theirs and ours own good.
“Let’s try this new Umpqua X-Series Bendback with a little weight,” Frank suggested.
The tiny dumbbell eye addition to a purple/black 2/0 streamer made toast out of nearly every redfish Jean cast too. It was as much fun to watch the action as it was to hook and land the fish.
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