Lonely Fly Fishing on the Hams Fork

Fishing Time:  6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Weather:  Rain, Cloudy, T-70s

Moon Phase:  1% Moon

Location:  Hams Fork River - Kemmerer, Wyoming

Bait:  Assorted nymphs, dry flies, and streamers

Who Went:  Me

I was able to sneak out and go fishing one evening while working in Kemmerer, Wyoming and drove up to Lake Viva Naughton where I parked and walked down to the Hams Fork River below the dam.  

It was a warm cloudy night with light rain showers and the bugs were out in full force.  Lucky for me, not many were mosquito's, but I think the fish were in seventh heaven with a constant dinner buffet floating on the water.  It made for some tough fishing as I used dry flies and nymphs to no avail.  I finally landed one small brown on a streamer, but that was it.  The weather made for some awesome views though and the scenery on this river is worth the walk.  I may be working up that way again in the near future and I can’t wait to give it another go.  Hopefully the bugs will have subsided by then and give me more of an advantage.

I fished a community pond near the Naughton Power Plant the next night for a few minutes, but the wind blew me and my fly rod off the lake.  Imagine that... wind in Wyoming.  One of my work contacts up there is a local of Kemmerer and told me there are some big browns in this pond that come shallow and get active in the fall.  Not a horrible spot to try as its 5 minutes from my job-site.

I took a couple nice photos of the storm moving in over Lake Viva Naughton right at sunset...

The Good, Bad, and The Ugly

Fishing Time:  1:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Weather: Partly cloudy, windy, T-80s

Moon Phase:  7% Moon

Location: Bear River

Bait:  Bobber- gold blue fox spinner, Rick and Me- white and green streamers on the fly rods

Who Went:  Bobber John, Rick, Me

I met up with Rick and Bobber John on the Bear River as I was heading from my family vacation in Bear Lake to Kemmerer, Wyoming to work the next week.  The weather was sporadic with light rain, wind and clouds throughout the day.  The wind made it tough with a fly rod.  It didn’t seem to matter for Bobber John though as he hooked up with the first Bear River brown of the day using a worm underneath what else… a bobber. 

After Bobbers fish we went through a long stretch of river with no fish to be found or caught.  We finally came across one deeper stretch of river that ended up being our best producer.  Bobber John had switched to a gold blue fox spinner and Rick and I were throwing streamers on our fly rods.  Bobber and I both hooked up at the same time and brought in two beautiful Bear River browns, although John’s put mine to shame.  The size and beautiful colors were awesome.  

It was Bobbers first day catching brown trout and he started with a bang.  Bobber landed one more nice brown off the spinner in this hole.

We worked the rest of the river without a bite and made our way back to Rick’s jeep where we always end the day by fishing a large slow moving area of the river where it has been partially impounded by large rocks and chunks of concrete.  We always see monster carp jumping in this area and we know there in there.  I casted Bobbers spinner for a minute while he threw out his trusted bobber with a white marabou jig, tipped with a worm.  Within a few minutes Bobber was in a long battle with the biggest, and ugliest carp I have ever seen landed on rod and reel.  It weighed 20 lbs and looked like it had eaten two basketballs.  

Rick and I both dropped our fly rods and threw out the bobber set-up hoping to duplicate his success, but there can only be one master of the bobber, and Rick and I fell short.  The Bear River was stubborn as usual, but the few fish caught made the trip.  I will always take quality over quantity.

On a side note… In the last couple months, Bobber John has landed his Personal Best fish for four different species:  35 lb lake trout from Fish Lake, 6 lb brown trout from the Bear River, 3 lb Brook Trout from the Boulder Mountain, and a 20 lb Carp from the Bear River.  Not a bad few outings for the bobber!  Congrats buddy.