Road Trip (Wide Open Too)

My ledger defines the 2019 road trip as, Road Trip to The Dalles (Wide Open). The header for this years 2020 road trip, in my ledger, is Road Trip (Wide Open Too)! This adventure consisted of departing my home in Florence on July 19 and returning on August 24. In total traveling 37 days and adding 8047 mile to the odometer in my truck.

Once again I had another “Huge” time out west traveling, camping, fellowship, and fly fishing catching - rainbows, browns, cutbows, cutthroat, sea run cutthroat, whitefish, and river graylings. After traveling three days west the adventure started with camping and fly fishing, with Cottonwood Outfitters, on the banks of The Little Big Horn near Fort Smith Montana. From there driving to Adler Montana, camping near the Ruby River and fishing with 4Rivers guides on the Big Hole, Boulder, Madison, and the Jefferson rivers. Self exploring and wade fishing the Ruby River with significant satisfaction from its headwaters, in the wilderness area, to the tail waters below the Ruby Rive Reservoir (don’t tell anyone about this tail waters, as this is the locals secret). Departing Adler / Twin Bridges and stopping in Bozeman picking up Judy, my wife, we dove over to Hood Rive Oregon to visit with my son and his family. From there Willie and I found a campsite on the headwaters of the Trask River and managed to find some sea run cutthroat. Taking Judy to the airport I made my way to Idaho and camped and fished on the Henry’s Fork. My last stop took me through Yellowstone National Park, the Wind River Gorge and Cody Wyoming. After spending a day in Cody and visiting Buffalo Bill’s Western Museum I found myself near Alcova Wyoming camping on the banks of the North Platte River. The next two days finding myself fishing the North Platte in the Pathfinder valley and the notorious Pathfinder / Fremont Gorge. Upon completing an awesome experience in the gorge and hooking up with Steve Storick, the next day at the Cowboy Driffter’s, we fished the Miracle Mile and the second and third legs of North Platte’s Grays Reef. Eastward bound and turning left into my SC driveway, home!

Ruby River Valley

Pathfinder / Fremont Gorge

Bow on the North Platte (Miracle Mile)

Brown on a streamer (Jefferson River)

Joe <“££><