JONES HOLE, Utah — It had all the makings of a perfect plan, some five years in the making.
That was around the first time I’d acquired a private launch permit to float the Green River through Dinosaur National Monument via Gates of Lodore, a Western river classic. On that rookie visit, however, I failed to nab a campsite at Jones Hole, where a postcard-perfect spring creek cascades into the silted Green River shortly after its confluence with the Yampa.
A follow-up trip from the Yampa side of the confluence three years later opened my eyes to the fly-fishing potential of Jones Hole Creek’s cool, clear water as it flowed from a fish hatchery past box elders and cottonwoods in an uncharacteristically lush valley.
Riffles tumbled past cut banks and into small pools holding brown trout and rainbows. Success stories of respectable fish rose from the creek’s mouth and made their way back to neighboring camps from eager anglers.
On my third trip through Whirlpool Canyon last week, I would not be denied.
I packed up my new Sage TXL-F 0-weight fly rod — the ideal 7-foot-4-inch, lightweight setup for the situation, I reckoned — a couple light leaders and a box of flies and stuffed them into a drybag for safe keeping until we reached Jones Hole on the trip’s fourth day.
Even a Utah fishing license, it turns out, can be procured online.
Camp conversation among a few dedicated fly-fishermen in our party eventually returned to angling every evening around sunset, with talk of chasing exotic fish in exotic destinations placating, for the time being, our collective frustration at the perpetual runoff that had offered a less- than-gratifying fly-fishing experience on local rivers to date. Soon that would all change, we agreed, with the consistent flows of the spring creek offering sweet reward for our dedication to the cause even as the Green River’s murky main stem stormed past our camp at flood level.
Of course, true gratification would have required that one of us bring a reel to complement our fishing rods.
Between the two rod carriers in the group, both of us had failed to pack that vital piece of fishing equipment, my freshly spooled 0-weight line, sitting right where I left it in the back of the truck as I shuffled too much gear from one bag to another before launching.
We hiked the creek anyway, scouting riffles, runs and pools while we “virtually” fished for the trout we knew would be there.
But the perfect plan, it turned out, had a flaw.
Poor planning.
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
