Build Your Own is Cheaper, Right?

It is winter and we don’t fish in the winter. Unlike my brother and other people affected by “41^st parallel disease” (See Psychologists have a name for it Jan 17, 2016) we prefer our water in liquid form.

Outside water in Illinois during January and February tends to be a little hard. This is prime time to work on fishing equipment and other hobbies. We tell ourselves, and our spouses, this will be an investment, and may produce some income or as a minimum save money. Unfortunately by the time one buys all the parts and equipment to manufacture things, tools,  and adds in the ruined pieces incorrectly assembled, and damage done to one’s home, saving money has to be amortized over 100 years. Like fishing to provide food, the price per ounce is measured in hundreds or thousands of dollars. The only real purpose is to have a purpose.

One of us is true craftsman. One of us consistently produces projects that are beautiful and amazingly detailed. One of us is an artist. That person is Robert. Robert has carefully crafted his work areas as well.

This is Robert's carving bench

Robert has hand carved decoys, and ships. He created acrylic and water color paintings and they are sitting about. His shelves are filled with extremely detailed model sailing ships he assembled from scratch. The hulls, rigging, planks, cannon, and cannon balls are meticulously carved and assembled. He carves the hulls and masts, weaves the rigging, and makes parts that are so small, I need a powerful magnifier to see them. He does all of this from detailed drawings, not building plans. Robert’s crafts need to be seen in person to be truly appreciated. A trip through his basement is like visiting an art museum. 

This is his painting area.

Don and Paul have been bitten by the build your own bug. For years they have carefully wrapped thread around hooks making things called "flies". The hooks are so small one needs a large magnifier to see them.  You also need a special vice to hold the hooks while you wrap (not the music kind). The result is many strange looking creatures with names like "Parachute Adams", "San Juan Worms", and "Wooly Buggers".

Not content with ruining their eyesight, they bought fly rod kits and each spent a winter building a rod. This was a long tedious process, as the rods are built in layers and must be rotated as the laminate dries. This takes months of slow tedious assembly and inhaling fumes. All of this for something more likely to catch a tree than a fish.

Lately they both have attempted lure building. The outdoor supply vendors willingly sold them multiple parts, hooks, lure bodies, paint, etc. They have rattles and decals and vibrant paint colors.

Paul decided he needed a more refined painting technique so he purchased an entire airbrush system. Paul’s first use of his airbrush was with a highly reflective chartreuse paint. Unfortunately this did not go well, and Paul now had a chartreuse colored spot on his ceiling. Let's call it art.

Don has had better luck. He has great carving skills and carefully made some muskie lures. He continues to carve, and build some fantastic looking lures. He also purchased materials to build spinner baits and in line spinners. Don’s basement workbench looks like an assembly line in Bangladesh.

Apparently there are many more lures in his future.

Don assembled lures over the past few winters. Each has a unique color and paint scheme. Some of the colors are pretty wild, but the lures have good action in the water. He has given me several spinners, and my favorite has a pink feather boa. One day I may catch a fish with it.

Then there is me. A few years ago I bought some soft baits called “curly bugs” at Walmart. I bought them on sale and without forethought.  They were just some junky little jig that they had on red tag sale.  I found they worked extremely well for crappies and walleyes. Crappies especially would hit them in any condition. I bought all I could find in many colors. Then they disappeared.

Walmart rarely sells the same stuff every year. They make vendors compete for store space and cheap jigs change frequently. I would stop in every Walmart I passed to check for them. No one had them.

I checked online. There were similar lures, but the tails were wrong. Then I found a website advertising “make your own soft baits”. They had molds, liquid soft rubber in a variety of colors, and scents that could be used. One only needed a heat source, a well ventilated area, and sauce pan. Connie wasn’t going to offer me the needed pan, so I started buying everything and working in my son’s garage. (I was in Texas for the winter.)  I thought I bought everything I needed. The problem was the molds were the wrong shape for my beloved “curly bugs”

Never one to shrink from a home project, I decided to make my own molds. This meant buying more equipment and more supplies. I was ready to sacrifice my last working curly bug. I asked Don, Paul, and Robert to check to see if they had any, but no one did. The last one went into the mold material.

It didn’t work. The mold couldn’t correctly form the curly tail. The body was irregular and wouldn’t pull correctly through the water. I tried more molds, with the same results. I had more than 10 molds of crap and a pile of worthless jigs.

After a frustrating winter, we returned to Illinois. My garage now had a two burner hot plate, a small sauce pan, five bottles of soft bait plastic in multiple colors, 10 molds for curly baits that didn’t work, etc.etc. I still did not have a working jig. I tried to carve a mold from the ones purchased from the soft bait company. Another disaster, and now I had more worthless molds.

Back online, I decided to buy the jigs that had the correct body and wrong tails. I bought a bag of 100. Upon their arrival, I performed a tail-ectomy on the jigs. Using an Exacto knife, each jig was castrated. Then a bag of readily available curly tail jigs was purchased and their tails were removed. Using a special soft bait glue ($10.00 for ½ oz. bottle) I made my Rickenstein monster curly bugs. I saved all the castrated parts, hoping to re-melt some of the plastic for future uses. To date, this has never happened.

After gluing my fingers several times, and gluing the jigs to a board, I developed a technique which resulted in a poor representation of the desired lure. Some of the tails were hanging to the side, some barely attached, but I assembled enough to prepare for the upcoming season.

Rickensteins

Although a fish will occasionally pull off a tail, the jigs work fairly well. They swim well and stay down, and they catch fish. I have enough supplies to build about 15 a year for the next 6 years. Eventually this will save money won't it?

So the depressing days of winter are upon my friends in Illinois. With Christmas over, there isn’t anything but unwanted snow and ice and cloudy days in the immediate future. Working on winter craft fishing projects, keeps the fishing juices flowing. Every lure, like every baseball team, looks like a winner in January. We will build, plan, and make mistakes. We will continue to unintentionally paint things and glue our fingers. We will buy more parts, supplies, and paint, but we will stay warm. All we need is for the water to return to liquid and we are back fishing. We will have increased our investment in our hobby and be ready to catch fish for another year. 

Post script

Last summer I found that readily available curly tail jigs worked about as well as my Rickenstein jigs for walleyes. Would anyone like to save money on fishing lures by making their own?  I am having a sale on soft bait rubber, molds, and a saucepan

Lost

Technically, I have never been lost. I consider being lost to be without hope of finding your way, like the Donner party.  Close to being lost is when you have to ask someone for directions. I have been close to being lost several times. I am still alive, living in the same country, and have not eaten anyone. Therefore I have not been lost!

 I have, on occasion, been directionally challenged. There were circumstances where I needed to change the direction of travel in order to shorten the distance to my destination rather than taking the circumnavigation of the globe route; like the Garmin lady, I often am “recalculating”

My theory is that we are descended from pioneers heading for California or Oregon. They were so directionally impaired that they thought they had arrived at the Promised Land when they stopped in Illinois for a “bathroom” break. Asking the local natives for their location, they were told the native word for “I don’t know”. 

It went something like this:

Ancestors “Where the f**k are we?”

Native Illinois Americans  (thinking the pioneers were asking about the Fukarwee tribe) responded “California” which means “I don’t know”.

Why else would anyone choose to live in Illinois, land of wind, ice, high humidity, and mosquitoes? Lost ancestors has to be the excuse. The “Not lost, just changing direction” gene was passed down to each of us native Illinoisans through our mixture of mostly recessive genes.

The “Principals of Fishing and Boating” have varying degrees of directional impairment. None of us takes the direct route to a place. Robert is famous for his “no interstates” travels. He once traveled to Bermuda (you know the island) by driving. Given the need to arrive with Robert driving, you will take multiple country roads, several side streets, and an occasional corn field. You will arrive safely, but will have no clue how you got there.

One of  Robert’s routes.😈

Don couldn’t find his way across the street. The first time Don and I traveled together, we failed to find Chicago O’Hare field and drove on towards Wisconsin. You may have heard of O’Hare, the largest airport in the nation. It was only through a casual observation I made about the diminishing number of planes in the sky that Don actually looked at the highway signs and determined we were heading to Wisconsin and well past the airport.

Don and I have missed more turns than a drunken Monopoly player. We are particularly bad at driving on cross country fishing trips. We drove around the town of Lake City (population 100) for about 15 minutes looking for the lake. (There is no lake in Lake City). We did ask directions on this trip, just not in Lake City.

I blame all of this on Don, Paul and Robert. They tell so many stories while traveling that we all become totally distracted. How can you follow road signs, when Don is telling stories about starting a fight and getting thrown out of game because the first baseman tagged him “too hard”?  Following directions while Robert tells stories of taking a bucket to a bar to get draft beer for his Dad when he was eight is virtually impossible. How can one focus when Paul is telling about his minister father taking a dump from a boat in a heavy fog only to have the fog lift while still exposed and discovering they were surrounded by boats?

Over time technology developed to help people like us. Before technology intervened we had to follow oral directions. These required one to turn on a particular road, and require you see the road signs. Directions discerned from looking at a map require that the map be oriented to the direction you are going. We never mastered either of these, so some geeks invented the Garmin GPS just for us.

We only need to plug it in and put in the address where we are traveling. Of course these are two skills we have not fully mastered. The Garmin directs you, in a pleasant female voice, to make the next turn in “300 feet” etc. It even nags you to “turn left”, “turn left” before deciding you missed your turn and need to go through “recalculating.” She never gets upset like your spouse does because you “never listen to her”.

Don and I took our first technology aided trip to a somewhat local lake. Armed with maps, Don’s Garmin, easy to see landmarks, and confident of avoiding wrong turns, we headed to SanChris Lake south of Springfield, IL. (His wife, Pat, put in the address for him.) Sanchris is a power plant lake and has a huge chimney marking the power plant location. The chimney can be seen from miles away, because the land around Springfield is some of the flattest in the world. The people near Springfield consider an ant hill to be an actual hill.

Needless to say, we couldn’t find the lake. Garmin said it was on the left, but there was nothing there but a farmhouse. Figuring we missed it we backtracked, all the way to Springfield. We tried again; again Garmin said it was on the left, so this time we turned right, traveled until we found the interstate highway and then turned back.

Finally after multiple back and forth trips into and out of Springfield we turned left at the intersection by the farmhouse, and decided to go past it. It was the ranger station and the entrance to the lake. The huge smokestack could be seen just past the tree line behind the “farmhouse”. (In our defense, there was only a small sign on the opposite side from which we came.)

Paul has given me some interesting trips. The first time I discovered he possessed the “gene” was while leaving Sullivan to return home from fishing Lake Shelbyville. ( See “Almost Holiday” from January 11, 2016). Arriving in Mattoon, IL some 18 miles south and east of Sullivan, we discovered we were not in Decatur, north and west of Sullivan.

Paul has made more wrong turns than “Wrong Way Corrigan”. While traveling with me, he has driven through the wrong toll lane; had to back his boat and trailer a 1/4 mile because he missed a local bar meeting place;  headed to Chicago on Interstate 90 while trying to locate Bloomington, and sent me on a trip through Canton while trying to locate a road that doesn’t go to Canton. The Chicago reroute was assisted by the On Star  rep. who couldn’t locate Interstate 39 on a map. It wasn’t really Paul’s fault you see. By the way, there was no exit before Chicago on Interstate 90 making a 4 hour trip into 8 hrs.

I confess, I have made a few miscalculations myself. Mainly my problems have arisen from attempts to save time with “shortcuts”. Don and I had a shortcut to eastern Illinois. When I offered to take a shortcut to Eastern Illinois University, Tim M., who was traveling with me said “We black folks don’t like shortcuts through the country”.

I should have listened to Tim. While attempting to visit Jim C. in Marshall IL, I took my boss, Bob, on the shortcut. We traveled 50 miles out of our way, and then 50 miles back leaving us an hour and half late to meet Jim. Needless to say, no one in the district accepts directions from me.

Faced with our inability to locate where we are traveling, every fishing trip begins with an adventure.  No one completely trusts Garmin or On Star, but they at least pay attention when stories are being told. Fortunately we have always made it and have never been "lost".  However, to make sure we get there safe, Don, Paul and Robert always call their spouse upon arrival.

 Connie has given up on me.

Fishing at Ron's

There are almost no times when all of my brothers and sisters get together anymore. Adult children with kids of their own have kept us separated and busy with grand kids. This was not the case thirty years ago when we found times for all of us to be together. For many years, this was the annual get together at Ron and Bonnie's.

Ron and Bonnie moved to Collinsville in the early 1980's. Ron loved being near water, so they selected a home that was on a lake. The lake was famous in the area as it was originally a moat around the home of a southern Illinois mobster, Frank "Buster" Wortman.

Wortman was an infamous bootlegger and gambling kingpin. He built his fortress and moat in the 1950's. This was after one of his "business'" was bombed by a rival gang. Some time after Buster died, his son sub divided the land around the moat. Ron and Bonnie's home was part of that subdivision. Ron and Bonnie moved  across the lake from Buster Wortman's original house.

The gatherings were always in the warm weather. Ron and Bonnie started the event around July 4, and later moved it to Labor Day weekend. Our families camped out or stayed in the house, and like hippies in a commune, there were people sleeping everywhere.We fished, floated in tubes, and drank way too much beer. It was a great time for everyone, and yes, that is Buster's fortress in the background.

Ron went through a great deal of work to prepare for the event. Al had found Ron a boat which he painted and prepared for the get-together. Ron bought floating toys for the kids and the adults. He bought an electric trolling motor and provided fishing poles, grills, and life jackets, as well as lots of drinks. We all brought plenty of food, sun screen, sleeping bags, and more drinks.

With none of us driving home, there was plenty of time to get goofy, as you can tell by the photos taken over several years.

Since this blog is about  fishing, there was plenty of that as well. The lake was stocked by the home owner's association and Ron served on the board. The lake (moat) contained many blue gills, catfish, and  largemouth bass. I even managed to hook one, but for the most part the kids and other adults caught the fish.

Ron continued this tradition as long as he was able. After nearly twenty years, his family decided it was getting to be too much. I was there the day they decided to end the tradition.  It was a sad day.

The year before, Tim's son, Shawn, wrote a paper on Buster Wortman. He bought a powerful magnet and spent most of the week-end dragging the moat for any gangster type hardware that might have been tossed in the lake, Unfortunately, he never found as much as a nail.

Our kids grew-up looking forward to Ron's family gatherings. We all miss the good times. I am for ever grateful that he made this happen. Thanks for being the grand planner.

Warrior's Revenge

We awoke to a different scene. There was a light dusting of snow around the camp site, but the sky was clearing. The tops of the mountains had a fresh layer of snow and it was still snowing. We were cold, but dry. Fortunately we all had brought plenty of clothes for the cold and precipitation.

Shane and Joe (thanks for correction DM) told us earlier that summer they had brought a family out for horse-riding and photography. In spite of clear instructions about clothing and the weather, a teenage girl had come with only shorts and flip flops. The unpredictable mountain weather turned cold as it was that day. The outfitters had to loan clothes to the girl and wrap her in blankets to get her back home.

Joe and Shane readied the horses for the ride out. Warrior was waiting, but not patiently. As Joe’s dog walked past him, Warrior kicked him. I thought I heard a crack. The dog was in terrific pain. Joe said he might have broken ribs, but he was not planning to take him to a vet.

We left camp in the same order we arrived. Shane in front, Don behind him, then Paul, and Warrior and me.

The ride along the river valley was like picture. The air was hazy and cold, and we could see the snow falling up on the continental divide. It seemed ironic to me that we had just been up there the day before.

The golden sage was everywhere. It does not grow tall in the mountains, but it grows quite thick. Fortunately the Loop Trail afforded room for the horses in single file.

After about two hours we stopped along the river for the horses to get a drink and take a short rest. We ate our lunch of a snack bar and drank some water before proceeding.  Paul was a little slow getting his Palomino moving and ended up behind Warrior and me.

Warrior always tried to be last. On the narrow trail there was no way for Paul to go around, so we stayed in the order we left the river as we climbed out of the river valley. Warrior kept slowing and looking back. I had to kick him to get him moving, but he kept looking back on his left side.

Without warning, he kicked back at Paul’s horse’s head. Paul’s Palomino reacted quickly and turned his head to the side. Warrior’s kick caught Paul squarely on the knee cap. He pulled up and was stunned.

Paul said he could see stars as he dismounted. I was sure his knee was broken as the kick was so hard. I stayed mounted to try and keep Warrior from more mayhem. I was so sorry I didn’t understand the warning signs. I blamed myself for not being able to control my horse. I was afraid my friend would be unable to continue.

After about five minutes, Paul tried to remount his horse. He was able to get up and we continued on. Paul moved his horse around ahead of me. The rest of the ride was uneventful.

We returned to the corral and dismounted. It seemed just a short while before we had the CRV loaded and ready for the return trip to Dubois. We thanked Shane repeatedly for such an enjoyable trip and his care for us.

Three guys who haven’t showered in five days made for a rather unpleasant ride. Connie’s car was covered in dust from the corrals and full of many unpleasant odors ranging from horse shit to body odor. I knew it would need to be professionally cleaned and deodorized.

In one week there was noticeable change in the trees. The aspen had already turned golden. The sunlight reflected off the brilliant gold color. It was a welcome sight after five days of pine trees and sage.

Dubois was such a wonderful place to see. We quickly checked in the motel. We couldn’t shower and change fast enough. We walked to the restaurant where we had eaten our first night. The bar had cold beer and plenty of lovely women in cowgirl clothes. The smoke jumpers were gone, so we drank several beers with our meal and enjoyed the scenery.

The drive home was even more boring. We weren’t headed for the mountains, we were headed for the scenic state of, big yawn, Nebraska followed by, another yawn, Iowa. We did bring home some pretty incredible memories.

Afterword

While first planning this trip, I was reluctant to commit to go. It was a great deal of money and I was unsure about my ability to ride as required. Don said, “If we don’t go now, we may never be able to go” I agreed to go, overcoming my concerns. Don was right. 

Over twelve years have passed since our trip to Wyoming. ( It's been long enough that perhaps Warrior has met his maker.) We are plagued with the physical issues which come with entering our seventh decade. Had we not gone then, we couldn’t go now. I am forever grateful.

Wyoming Warrior Back to Divide

Our next day was the last for fishing. Shane asked us which lake we wanted to fish. Paul mentioned a lake with Golden Trout that he had read about. Shane said it was at least a five hour ride and that didn’t allow time for much fishing. We had so much success at Divide Lake we elected to return for a second day.

While we were preparing to the leave, a mule train passed by up on the Loop Trail. The trail was upslope from our campsite, but we could see the mule train clearly. Each mule had bright red and green saddle blankets in addition to the paneers. Shane said the mule train was part of the US Forestry Division. They were traveling to Yellowstone to do repairs to the trails and bridges. He said the government provided at the supplies and materials and the work was done by volunteers.

The trip back up to the continental divide went smoothly. This was in large part due to me riding my other horse and leaving Warrior to graze. As we rode up, Shane had us stop the horses in a small spring that emerged from the mountain.

The water was clear, and Shane said we could drink from the spring. Don and I declined, but Paul jumped down and took a drink. Shane then advised him that most people preferred to drink upstream from the horses.

While he was dismounted, Paul noticed a bird carcass lying next to the spring. The carcass was some type of hawk and had obviously been a recent kill. We speculated that it might had been killed when it landed for a drink. Paul pulled several feathers from the carcass. Don and I each put a feather in our hatbands. I still have mine though it has been over ten years.

It was somewhat cooler when we arrived at Divide Lake, but the fishing was just as productive. The cutthroat is strikingly beautiful. The rainbow colored scales shine in the clear air. They fight fiercely when hooked. They were once again huge.

Temperatures were dropping as we rode back to camp. Joe (thanks for correction DM) was back in camp when we arrived. We had many questions about doing this type of work. Joe was originally from Minnesota and had been attracted by the mountains. He planned to set up a taxidermy business in Dubois in the near future. Joe said his dog was a Red Healer also known as Australian Cattle Dog and he was good with herding the horses.

Shane was a college student. He had worked in the oil fields, but enjoyed working with the horses in the mountains. Our husband and wife team had worked in different camps and different countries. All of these stories were a perfect way to spend our last night around the campfire.

Wyoming Warrior On the Continental Divide

We returned to camp from Joy Lake. That night we had a visitor to camp. His name was Joe (thanks for correction DM), and he rode in after dark. Joe was part of John Henry’s crew and he was leading one of John Henry’s horses. He also had a dog with him. The horse had thrown a shoe and was unable to carry anyone. John Henry was hunting elk up in the mountains.

Joe jumped off his horse and tied him to the line. He met the cook in the mess tent and bagged up some sandwiches and coffee. He took another horse from the group in camp, and headed back up the mountain IN THE DARK!!! Did I mention how dark it gets in the wilderness? Amazed I asked Shane about this. He said the horse knew the way.

Day three and guess who was waiting for me on the line? Warrior was rested, but not much interested in being ridden. He let me know his opinion as soon as I mounted. We had several trips around the tie up area before he agreed to follow directions.

Our ride to Divide Lake was to begin along the river. We crossed over the river and followed a path along it. Shane was again in the lead. As we followed along he suddenly stopped. He had us come up and showed us a fresh grizzly bear track. He said the bear had just been there, and asked if we could smell it.

 We could smell a musky odor. Shane showed us the .45 pistol he was carrying. He said it was likely the bear would stay away and the gun was the scare him. He said we should yell if we saw him as that could keep him away. We all started scanning every bush and rock.

The trail moved into a wooded area. This area was quite different from the woods we had left. The trees were mostly burned out trunks of pine trees. There were many standing pines that were dead, but not burned. Shane explained there had been a wildfire that swept through this side of the valley a few years before (1988). The firefighters had contained it to this side of the river and had stopped the fire before it burned deeply into Yellowstone, which began just up the river from our camp site.

The standing dead trees were killed by the invasive pine bore.  The insect was destroying the pines in the west, and providing much more fuel for future wildfires.

As we reached the mountain where the lake was located we started up the switch back horse trails. The trail again was only as wide as the horses’ hooves. Adding to the adventure were the loose rocks which formed the face of the mountain. Shane said the horses would handle the climb. As we continued to climb, I saw the horses slip on a rocks, but they never faltered.

I decided giving Warrior his head would be better than trying to direct him on the slippery trail. This worked well until Warrior decided he didn’t want to follow the group. About half way up the first slope, I was higher than the rest of the group. Shane’s comment was “Rick, where are you going?” My response was, “I thought Warrior knew the way”

Getting Warrior to head back down with the group was another challenge. Turning him while fearing he would slip and fall was quite frightening. A short while after we caught up the group, we came to the first break in the slope.

This break was a wide meadow, probably ten acres. A meadow on the side of a mountain fascinated me.  My mental images of mountains as stark barren places was in total conflict with what existed in front of me. I had no idea that mountains could contain such beautiful grassy areas way above the valley. There was plenty of plant life on which to graze. At that moment, I understood how so much wildlife could exist in the mountains.

We crossed the meadow and continued to another slope.  This was the final ascent. I like that phrase. It sounds like we were reaching the peak of Everest. What we actually reached was the top of the western continental divide. For those who don’t remember, or were never taught, geography, all precipitation on the western side of this mountain flowed toward the Pacific Ocean. All precipitation on the side from which we came flowed eventually to the Gulf of Mexico via the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.

The view from the top was amazingly cool. To our left, south, were the twin peaks of the Grand Tetons. Two our right, north, were the mountains and valleys that form the southern entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

About one hundred feet below sat Divide Lake. Approximately five acres in size, it was surrounded by rock and the entire shore was unobstructed. Like Joy Peak Lake, it was totally clear. There was no visible creek inflow or drainage. It sat at ten thousand feet with no way for water to enter except by melting snow.

As we got to the lake shore, we dismounted and tied our horses to some nearby trees. We could see the trout swimming and quickly got out our rods.

As soon as my trusty rooster tail spinner hit the water I had a monster trout. He fought long and hard, but I landed him. I put the tape measure on him. He was over twenty three inches. A beautiful cutthroat.  The next cast I caught a brown trout. The colors were even more brilliant.

For the next hour we fished and continued to land huge fish. We were again releasing them as we had not planned for returning with them. Each of us worked about half of the lake before we broke for lunch.

We tried different lures and flies. Every fly or lure caught fish. I began to wonder if this lake had ever been fished before. Certainly it wasn’t over fished.

After our requisite three hours of fishing, Shane had us mount up for the return to camp. After we passed over the top of the divide, he took us down a different path. We stayed high on the slope, but the area was wide. We could see across to other slopes and meadows.

As were moving we heard the call of a bull elk. The sound is like a echoing siren and carries through the slopes. Shane took out binoculars and spotted the bull. He was quite a long distance from our location, but clearly visible on the slope. Shane said he was calling to his heard of cows below him. He said they were easily spooked and one had to stay very secluded to approach them while hunting.

Shane took us to a flat overlook of the river valley below and Joy Peak in the distance. From this vantage he offered to take out picture. This is a photo that is special to me. Paul, Don, and I mounted on our horses with a wide river valley and mountains behind and below. Warrior even behaved for the photo shoot.

Wyoming Warrior Joy Peak Lake

The next day was planned for an early morning departure. We were to ride for three hours up to the top of the mountain by the camp. The plan was to ride for three hours, fish for three hours split by lunch, then ride three hours back before dark. Any delays put us on mountain trails in the dark. Think about that for a second.

That morning, we awoke to an extremely cold tent. Paul started our stove the night before. It was difficult to start and by morning it was out.  Don had struggled getting his started as well. We dressed quickly and gathered at the mess tent.

Our breakfast was cold cereal. We each were given a paper lunch bag and told to fill them for lunch. Our lunch was a peanut butter sandwich, a snack bar, and an apple. So much for a cowboy breakfast and chuck wagon food. We were told we could bring back fish if we wanted, but we declined.

We all were given new horses to ride. The horses were saddled and tied on a rope line in the camp. My light brown steed was an absolute pleasure to ride. He responded to my movement of the reins and never looked back. We crossed behind the camp, and started out.  Our campsite was at the base of the mountain we were to climb. The trail was wooded and vertical.

It seemed we were traveling up at all time. This was so different that the trip out. Shane had loaded all of our fishing gear on our horses, and they were struggling with our weight and the boot waders. They kept going, following Shane’s lead.

When your horse is struggling, you are too. Trying to ride leaning forward and holding tight makes for an exhausting ride.

After a short rest we continued to the top and broke out of the trees. The site at the top rewarded all of the effort.

The Joy Lake was about two acres and azure blue. It was so clear, you see the fish swimming. At the back of the lake sat an outcropping of rock that formed the top of the mountain. Joy Peak is over 10,000 ft high. It was the type of view you see at photo exhibits.

 We took another brief break. Don and Paul unloaded their fly rods and put on boot waders. I elected to not wade.

I had my trusty spinning rod. While they took time to tie on flies, I started casting my rooster tail spinner from shore. I had a fish at once. A huge trout, the biggest I had ever seen.

The mountain trout are cutthroats. They are similar to rainbow trout, except they have a red band on their lower neck, as if bleeding. This fish was at least fourteen inches.

The lake had few places to bank fish as it was surrounded by downed wood. Fly fishing requires much room to cast. Paul waded out when he started to fish. He found the bottom was not solid. He sank in the muck and lost his balance. As he fell forward, he caught himself on a branch, but not before the top of his waders went below the surface. Coors ads talk about pure cold mountain water; Paul was introduced to it in his crotch.

We helped Paul up and out of his waders. He dumped out the water and stripped off most of his wet clothes. The day was cool but clear and the sun was warm. Paul laid out most of his clothes to dry on tree branches.

I worked around finding a few places to reach the water. It seemed every cast caught another cutthroat. Don and Paul also caught fish with their fly outfits. 

Shane stood by and watched all of this circus. He helped with Paul’s wet clothes, but basically he had to sit with nothing to do. When we finally stopped for lunch, he asked if he could use my rod. I said fine. He caught a trout on the first cast. 

After lunch Don and Paul both switched to spinning rods. Never one to brag, I did manage to get a few digs at the “elegance” of fly fishing. It certainly looked elegant when Paul fell in.

After another hour of fishing, we rode down the mountain through the woods. The shade was quite cool and we were cold by the time we reached camp. Tomorrow was to be to a different lake, on the continental divide.