CODY, Wyo. — “You’ll need this for the river,” the man said, digging deep into his possibles bag. I prepared to receive some special trout enticement or, perhaps, a measuring device for a place where 20-inch cutthroats could be expected.
What plopped into my outstretched hand instead was a small cannister in a case to attach to my belt. This pepper spray was all the reminder I needed we were headed both for grizzly country and for one of the most remarkable rivers in the Rocky Mountain West.
The North Fork of the Shoshone River, where it flows from the border of Yellowstone National Park to a deep burial in the giant Buffalo Bill Reservoir just west of Cody, is one of those classic blends of beauty and danger that lingers on the mind much longer than the ordinary fishing trip.
The bear part is easy to understand. Draining wild, mountainous country along the eastern edge of the park, the river and its many tributaries are a natural collection point for the continent’s most dangerous carnivore. No matter that the major highway serving as an entrance to the park traces the drainage throughout its 40 or so miles up from the reservoir. Ursus arctos horribilis comes and goes where and when it pleases.
Sightings are infrequent; incidents are rare, and none of this should be construed as a reason to miss a chance at a truly lovely trout stream made more dramatic by a backdrop of towering volcanic rock eroded into hoodoos.
After a couple of minutes practicing my quick-draw, gunslinger style, I was ready for the river on a foggy day in early October with a promise of snow hanging in in the air — just the sort of setting you would expect to find a griz foraging the lower valley for final provisions before packing it in for the winter.
But enough of the bear talk. It’s time to focus on the real reason to visit the North Fork, which is an interesting conglomeration of trout on a sizable stream with many unbroken miles of public access in the Shoshone National Forest.
The opportunity to catch a large Yellowstone cutthroat is the major attraction here, although the calendar window of opportunity is relatively narrow from an effort to boost the prospects of this native trout.
Steve Yekel, regional fisheries supervisor with the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish, pegs the cutt at no more than 20 percent of the total population, composed mainly of rainbows whose incursion dates to 1915 and the inevitable hybridization.
“It used to be 5 percent, but now, as a guess, it’s up to 20 percent,” Yekel said of the cutt-bow mix. “There’s way more than we’d wish.”
The wildlife agency no longer plants fish of any kind in the river, content with what has been a sort of natural free-for-all that in part governs that aforementioned window. In the roughly 100 years since the reservoir was formed, native trout developed an odd and effective survival strategy that involves an early autumn migration — as long as 40 miles for some fish — downstream to the impoundment. Wait until October and most of the larger fish already will have vacated.
“The timing all depends on what kind of water year we have,” Yekel said. “If the flow is good, they tend to stay upstream a little longer.”
These fish grow large on the provender of the reservoir, then re-emerge in the spring on a spawning run back upriver.
The river is closed to fishing from April 1-June 30 to protect spawning in the river and tributaries up to the confluence with Newton Creek, a distance of about 30 miles. A separate closure lasts until July 15 on that arm of Buffalo Bill Reservoir.
For anglers content to catch good-sized rainbows, these gather thickly in the reach just above flat water, where a state park provides another patch of access.
The Shoshone’s South Fork, which forms the other major spigot to the reservoir, is another stream entirely. The long stretch up to the forest boundary is dominated both by brown trout and by private ranches, although the wildlife agency has acquired four public access parcels.
Extended trails up on the national forest provide access to large brook trout and, of course, more bears. In this neck of the woods, the two seldom are far apart.
