A Moment on Mystery Creek

Loren, John and I had been fishing our favorite water – a little stream in central Wyoming just outside of Ten Sleep. I call it our favorite because every trip we take somewhere else we always say “why didn’t we go to …”

I’m not going to tell you much more in the way of a name other than to call it “Mystery Creek”. Mystery creek runs through a beautiful valley, slowly meandering along for a few miles. It runs through a golf course and then through a number of ranches. At one point it goes through a canyon that is truly gorgeous. Tall walls, rough ledges, holes and caves for fanged animals to hid in and brightly dressed, red striped, rainbow trout and black backed brown trout.

Before I tell you too much more you need to understand our concept of fishing. It’s called Tag Fishing: One person goes up front fishing while two guys lag behind offering encouragement and distractions along with a lot of friendly ridicule. You get three strikes and you’re out. Three attempts to catch a fish. That’s all. If you cast into the bushes or hang up in the weeds it counts against you. If that happens you grab one of your buddy’s rod and continue fishing. Once you catch a fish you go to the back of the line.

At some point in the early afternoon, Loren and I separated from John for a while. We went right along the inside of an island and he went left. We were fishing our way through some rough over grown banks, sliding down into the water to work our way up stream to a really nice flat above a log jam dam. From past years fishing here we knew that there were some 20” brown trout that resided in the back of the flat. Loren went across first.

He doesn’t know it yet but since he is almost a foot taller than me I let him go first so I know if it is safe for me to cross or if I should look for a shallower pathway. I usually need to find another way. If I just blindly follow I almost always fill my waders with that cold water. His waist is almost at my arm pits. Even with my hands held high above my head, walking on my tippy-toes I can’t cross at the same place. Maybe I should adopt jumping on to his back and riding across. Now there’s a thought.

Loren was on the north bank intently fishing some pocket water and I was slowly approaching behind when I saw a HUGE boil WHAT A FISH!

I heard even before I watched Loren’s chest fill with air. I knew a scream was about to be pressed out of his lungs even as he lunged back with his arms flailing the air around him. The only other time I ever saw him move so quickly was when he was confronted nose to nose with a western rattlesnake while climbing out of this very same creek.

Actually it was more like his lungs were FILLING with air. Gulping nonexistent air in an attempt to scream but nothing ever came. I could however, hear his heart pounding. Funny thing was, this is the wrong reaction for a truly huge fish!

A moment later it was my turn. That same heart stopping, thunderous, gasping for air was all mine. There it was directly in front of me – coming my way at break neck speed. All I could do was stand there paralyzed, gasping for air that would not fill my lungs. It swam right between my legs, bumping against my legs, almost knocking me over.

It took a full two minutes before I could talk a coherent sentence. It was another three minutes or so before my heart stopped pounding enough for me to be able to concentrate enough to get out of the water and check my pants.

Loren said, “Did you see that!” I slowly replied, “That was the largest beaver I have ever seen!”