Time: 8:30PM – 9:00PM

Location: Upstream from the Rex Hale Campground

North Fork of the Shoshone River 08/14/2018 Photo Album

After dinner and clean up on Tuesday evening I walked down to the river and spotted several rises. I rushed back to the campsite and asked if Jane would mind, if I fished for another thirty minutes before dark. She reluctantly acquiesced. I quickly strung my Orvis Access four weight and pulled on my front pack and net.

When I returned to the river, many fish were rising. I tied a size 16 light gray comparadun to my line first, and this offering only generated refusals from the pod of active fish in front of me. As darkness quickly descended, I clicked on my headlamp and replaced the comparadun with a size 18 light gray deer hair caddis. This proved to be a fortuitous event.

Almost immediately I connected with a fish on a downstream drift, but my euphoria was quickly dampened, when I discovered a twelve inch whitefish in my net. I have nothing against whitefish, and it was rewarding to have a bit of dry fly success, but I anticipated a cutthroat or cutbow from the North Fork.

I returned my attention to the river in the waning daylight, and I noticed some spaced rises in a deeper spot higher up in the pool, so I angled a cast that way. It was impossible to track the dull earth toned fly in the dim light, but I saw a rise in the vicinity of where I estimated my fly to be. I lifted and connected with a heavy thrashing fish, but after a two second run, the spirited fighter escaped.

My pulse raced after this turn of events, so I persisted, and in the last ten minutes before nine o’clock I hooked and landed two cutbows in the sixteen to seventeen inch range. What a thrill! They fought valiantly and repeatedly streaked up and down the river in powerful bursts in near darkness. I allowed the fighters to take line from the reel often, but eventually I guided them into my net. Whew! What a satisfying ending to my brief time fishing on the North Fork of the Shoshone River on Tuesday. There is something extraordinarily exhilarating about battling larger than average fish in darkness.

Fish Landed: 2