July 25, 2023 - New water, almost in my backyard!

I thought that I had pretty much explored and fished all of the waters within a relatively short driving distance from my house, until I stumbled across this stream this year. Sure, it’s not exactly in my backyard, but it’s within a drive that I think is reasonable, and therefore, I should have known about it.

I’ve looked it up online and there’s really not a lot written about it. More is written about the lake at its headwaters, than the actual stream itself. But I happen to be over in that area of Wyoming, and so I decided to go check it out.

In the morning I had visited a stream on the other side of the valley that I had fished a couple years ago, as well as fished earlier this year. It was really disappointing. When I fished it earlier this season, the water was so high and off colored that it wasn’t enjoyable. I caught fish, but not like I had a few years ago. When I went back to it in the morning of July 25th, the water was much lower, but still very off colored. The action was very minimal.

So there I was in that part of Wyoming, and I thought I would just go check out the new stream.

There are spots of easy access to the stream as you drive up the canyon, but the part of the canyon that I wanted to fish had very difficult access to the stream. The stream was down in a deep canyon, and I had to scramble down the side through heavy brush. Because of this brush, I couldn’t really see where I was putting my feet and that made it very exciting. By the time I got down to the stream, I was exhausted!

The rod that I had with me was the Shimano Pack Tenkara. I’ve had this rod for a number of years but I’ve only just started using it more frequently. It has a beautiful action, but it is more of a full flex rod that I generally use.

Working my way up stream, I hooked into some really nice fish. The water was beautifully clear, the bottom was relatively easy to wade in, but because of the fast current, and the narrow stream channel, when I hooked into a larger cutthroat, it was difficult for me to control them with the Pack Tenkara.

Next time that I go back, I'll use the Mizuchi, at least in this section. Maybe upstream further I could use a 360 cm rod, like the TenkaraBum 36 or the Shimano 36 NR.