3 Big Mothers

Frank's one of many during his daily fishing clinic

Once again we have found ourselves on the outskirts of cell service so we have not been able make a post to the blog.  After our first day of fishing in Yellowstone, Frank recovered from his bout of sickness, but the second day turned out to be a day of rest for Joe.  So with Joe left behind to debate politics with the neighbor, Frank and Bob headed up to the first meadow on Slough Creek.  It’s about a 2-½ mile hike into the meadow with a pretty good climb, but they managed it in just about 45 minutes.  Frank brought his “A” game and caught a fish on his second cast.  Bob brought his “D” game and when they met up for lunch, it was Frank 5 and Bob 0.  The wind really kicked up in the afternoon, but the Hopper fishing really turned on for a couple of hours.  Late in the afternoon, a thunderstorm kicked up and Frank headed for the barn while Bob stayed behind to work on his fish count and ended up walking out in the rain and upon returning to the RV found Frank and Joe well into the second bottle of wine.  Bob broke out the guitar and by the end of the night they all ended up over at the neighbors camp fire having a big time with a bunch of strangers, singing songs and telling stories until way too late.

After retiring to the RV, Joe got on his political high horse and told us that our neighbor, that we had just been at the big camp ground hootenanny with, said that our economic problems in this country could be solved if we just got rid of capitalism.  For those of you who don’t know Joe, he makes Rush Limbaugh look little on the liberal side. Joe went on to preach a moving sermon on why compromise is the root of all evil and so on.  The next morning when we were packing up the RV, “our liberal friend” came over to ask for one of our now not so "secret flies."  He first went to Frank and asked for the “secret fly” and Frank told him he was all out, so he went to Joe.  Frank, knowing that Joe had a serious difference of political opinion with him would never give a “Comi” one of his secret flies.  Well, Frank was right, Joe did not give him one of his flies; he gave him three.  Needless to say, Bob and Frank have not let Joe, now going by the nickname “Nancy”, live down his random act of liberalism.

So they packed up and headed south.  They're happy to report that Frank’s map reading skills had markedly improved (although his photography skills are still lacking) and they navigated out of Yellowstone and down to Jackson Hole without a single mis-turn.  The only real incident of the day occurred when they went to dump the holding tanks on the RV.  In their defense Joe and Frank haven’t spent much time camping or RVing, so Bob tries to delegate tasks that are within their current skill level, or that it won’t cost too much to repair.  Knowing that mixing up the holding tank with the fresh water tank would be catastrophic; Bob assigned them the task of filling the extra water jugs with water.  The task was indeed completed, although they both required a change of clothes afterwards.

Frank's Big Mother

So they set up camp north of Jackson on the Gros Venture River.  Wednesday, they went to their new secret fishing lake, which like the “secret fly” will not be secret for long.  Bob had fished this lake last year and caught several fish, but they were all on the small side.  Frank proceeded to put on a fishing clinic for Bob and Joe and caught 4 huge fish to Bob and Joe’s goose eggs, with the largest being a beautiful 22” Cutthroat.  Bob drove back the one-hour drive sitting on a severally chapped ass.  As they convened around a late night pot of red beans and rice to discuss their plans for Thursday, Frank said it he was open for anything, maybe try Granite Creek, but would not complain about returning to the “Secret Spot.”  It was then Joe’s turn to weigh in on the subject.  He took off his hat, scratched his head, briefly starred into the distance and then said, “ To hell with Granite Creek, I wanna catch one of those big Mothers.”

Bob's Big Mother

So tonight they returned to the “Secret Spot” and Bob and Joe returned the favor of putting on a fishing clinic for Frank.  Unlike Bob, Frank was happy to see his friends catching fish even though he was not.  So they all ended up catching numerous huge Cutthroats out of this little alpine lake, they have the pictures to prove it and over a bottle or two of wine, Frank and Joe will be happy to draw you a map to the “Secret Spot” and give you the “Secret Flies.”

Joe's Big Mother

And this time we're not lying