Josh Gallivan

As the season is coming to a close, I have more and more free time to go fishing. I’ve been waiting all summer for my chance to sit in the bow, so when Tom Montgomery and Neil Chamberlin asked if I wanted to join yesterday, I said hell yes. We left town way too early. It was still dark and to make matters worse I joined in on a harvest party the night before, so naturally morning came way too quick. I stumbled out of bed, grabbed rodney, and met the boys at the Albertsons parking lot. Our drive was scenic as hell though so we sipped our coffee and slowly the sun came up and we were on our way to one of the best days of fly fishing I have had in recent memory.

We arrived as the sun started warming the water. The steam was pouring off the wet grass while we parked the car and rigged up. Literally 20 feet from us there were monster trout tailing and finning almost as if they were waking up too. I couldn’t believe it when Neil stepped out into the water and on his first cast, caught one of the biggest brook trout I have ever seen. You people on the East coast would have loved this fishery. I couldn’t get rigged up fast enough. I started shaking with anticipation. Maybe it was from nearly 32 oz of coffee on an empty stomach, or the alcohol making it’s way out of my system, or just my body saying fuck you. Regardless I finally rigged up my five weight sage one, the most beautiful rod ever built. For a leader I rigged up an 11 foot 4x fluorocarbon with a size 14 soft hackle. I waded out and casted three times and on that third cast I came tight to the biggest brookie I have ever caught!

Little did I know what the day had in store for us. From that point forward my mind was pretty much blown. I couldn’t decide weather to take pics or just keep casting. We stayed about 30 feet away from each other, and for about 6 hours, caught a fish on every cast. This was absolutely absurd.

There are no words to describe this type of fishing. It was so much fun sometimes we were just laughing back and forth, periodically putting the rod down to take pics of each other. Boy I wish my guide days could be this good! Unfortunately most people are fair weather fisherman and these October days scare them off. To their credit though, October can go both ways weather wise. But if you do hit it right, it’s the best fishing of the year.

On the drive home we noticed fewer and fewer leaves on the trees as we neared Jackson. Large herds of antelope were migrating for the impending winter ahead. I zoned out and reflected on the amazing summer guiding in the Tetons. Thankfully I survived the traffic, the day the moon blotted out the sun, thousands of river miles navigated, and a few hooks buried in my skin.