Best of all was Phillip Chavez, the manager of Last Chance Island Bend Hyde Shop. We got to chatting about life, death and fly fishing. He said he would like me to meet the owner. I dismissed this as just talk and then went down to the river to have a fish jut out of town. A huge moose was standing in the river grazing on the water weed, with his head under the water for several minutes at a time. I talked halting English with a Japanese fly fisher while we waited for the hatch to start. As it turned out, nothing much happened so I decided I had explored the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River far enough, so I headed back to West Yellowstone.

Back in Red Lodge, Marek and I headed out to drift the Stillwater, lower down where we finished last time. Bigger fish inhabit the lower bits. No sooner, we got to Marek’s big red barn

where he operates his whitewater rafting operation, the phone began to ring and the messages were seeking me to call LaMoyne Hyde at Idaho Falls, who wanted to drift the Lower Henry’s Fork the following day.

I was to drive six or seven hours back to Last Chance, stay at the Hyde Lodge and then drive on to Idaho Falls early the next day for a drift boat trip. I didn’t need any more encouragement.
Coming off the freeway entering Idaho Falls, I missed a crucial turnoff, so the next half hour was spent driving to find Hyde

boats. In the shop I met six or seven people who were our party for the day, four or five boats were going out together.

LaMoyne and his wife Jann (pron. lar-moyne and jay-ann) were lovely people and immediately put me at ease. I presented them with some boxes of Aussie grasshoppers and NZ cicadas. We drove to the launching site. They all drive huge 4x4 dual cabs. The ramp could launch six boats at a time and the car park was full. Later I discovered 60 boats launched from this car park on this day.

“Hug the grass.” LaMoyne wanted the fly driver in hard against the bank, just like hopper fishing at home. I hit the bank hard. Jann immediately got into fish. She was using a big pale Chernobyl that represented a Golden stonefly. It worked well and soon I had no choice but to change to one, as it was getting plenty of fish. Soon I broke my duck and then I was off and running. A lovely brownie was soon in the net.

LaMoyne was sufficiently trusting to put me in charge of the oars so he could have a fish. I was delighted. It took me about 20 minutes to master the techniques but with LaMoyne calling “bow to the bank” or “bow to the middle” I soon got the hang of it.

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