Day Four and Five: Cody, WY with Ted

We finished up fishing with Dennis Fischer on the Bighorn and departed from the Bighorn Access headed for Cody, WY at about 5:30PM.  The route we planned to take was on very lightly traveled back roads, mostly through the Crow Indian Reservation.  I’ll admit that I was nervous about this route because if we experienced any trouble, we would really be stuck.  The route took us through some wide open country and at time we had some breathtaking views.  After a brief mix up around Pryor, MT we eventually made it to Edgar, MT and the main route into Cody.

The plan was for us to meet Ted Seckinger in Cody and fish with him for two days and after a couple of aborted attempts Ted and I connected via cell phones and made arrangements to have dinner in Cody.  Before dinner we stopped off at the Northfork Angler and said hello to Chip Andrews who I know from my red fishing trip last  December in New Orleans.  Chip was able to join us for dinner and told us that he’d had an “EPIC” day on the North Fork of the Shoshone River that day.  He and Ted raved about the fishing and set our expectations sky high.  Maybe too high.

On Thursday morning we met at the shop, got licensed and equipped with flies, bear spray and assorted odds and ends and headed out to the North Fork…about an hours drive.  The river was in perfect condition and it ran through some stunning country in the National Forest.

Jon on the North Fork of the Shoshone River

We fished hard until about 3:30PM and although the weather and scenery were just spectacular…the fishing was slow.  We fished with gigantic hopper patterns and a North Fork Special as a “dropper”.  All in,  we probably took 10-12 fish between the three of us.  I know Ted was disappointed with how it fished…frankly I was too.  The wading was very difficult- like walking on greased bowling balls.  By the end of the day I was beat.

North Fork in the National Forest section

Arsty shot

At dinner we talked frankly about blowing off tomorrow, although I hate to leave Ted high and dry.  He went to some trouble to find us a boat for Friday…but if the river is not fishing well or is still all muddy, we may just take a rest day and slowly work our way over to Cooke City and get ready for our adventure riding up to Slough Creek.

Well, as things turned out we decided to go ahead and fish again on Day Five with Ted.  He was able to borrow his friend Guy's Outcast raft and we headed for the Shoshone tailwater just outside of Cody.  The water was off color from the recent rain, but Ted thought that the fishing would be OK.  We put in about 10AM and started in on a 6 mile float through some pretty neat canyons...but mostly privately owned land.  The stream accees laws in Wyoming are definitely stacked in favor of the land owners- they own to the center of the river which means that you cannot wade these areas..in fact you can't even anchor the boat on the landowners stream bed...it pretty much means that a float trip is just that, no stopping at all.  As it turned out the fishing was pretty slow- and it was my least favorite form of fly fishing...swinging Woolly Buggers against the bank all day.  It is tiring for me to cast a weighted nymph all day and maybe one cast out of a hundred produces anything.  

By 2:00PM we'd reached the take out point and after a bit of a scramble, we had out car loaded up, said out goodbyes and headed off to Cooke City over the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway.  The drive was about 90 miles and it was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever been on.  The mountains were gorgeous and the weather was really cool- we passed in and out of powerful thunderstroems with brilliant lightning strikes.  Just as we approached Cooke City we passed the Soda Butte Campground which was the site of the recent Grizzly Bear attack in which two campers were mauled and a third was killed.  The campground was closed which seems kind of silly...hasn't the damage been done??

We stopped into Beartooth Plateau Outfitters briefly and discussed tomorrow's horseback trip.  Lodging was at the Super 8 motel...the first hotel I've ever stayed in with no air conditioning.  Our west facing room was hot as hell, but it eventually cooled off once the sun set.  Sleep was iffy at best.