Staying Connected at Wyoming’s Brush Creek Ranch

Written by: Alberto Rey

There were only a couple of hours of daylight left on the last day of a weeklong angling trip to Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming. The nearby storm was threatening, with its darkening skies, a series of loud, thunderous bellows, and light rain. To add to the drama, an angler rushing back to his car warned us of a large black bear a hundred yards upstream. It was evident that this was going to be our last stretch of water before we made the forty-five-minute hike out of the ravine.

Our spirits remained upbeat, however, as we saw a nice, deep channel up ahead. We had been catching ten-to-eighteen-inch browns throughout the day, and this section looked promising. Because of the size of the river, we had divided it in half, and the three of us took turns fishing with terrestrials near each bank. Diego, whose turn it was to fish, nimbly hopped up on a flat boulder and began casting. His size 10 cicada pattern landed on the foam line running down the middle of the long trench. A large, dark shadow came up from the depths and followed the high-floating fly to the end of the run before slowing down and giving up his pursuit. A shot of adrenaline shot through the body of the twenty-three-year-old angler as soon as the brown trout appeared. Right after the refusal, Diego relaxed, took a deep breath, and refocused on the challenge ahead.

The next cast was like the first, and the sizable trout followed it again. It put its nose on the fly and followed it a few inches, but just when one would expect the trout to take the fly, the fish stopped and turned back upstream. A second later, it changed its mind, turned quickly, chased down the fly, and inhaled it. The line came tight, and the 20-inch fish came to the surface, violently flipped on its side, and popped the fly. Diego immediately screamed as he released his tension, threw his hands up, and began laughing deeply without any reservation. I had not seen that uncontrolled sense of joy since he was a young boy helping me net the steelhead in the stream behind our home. It was wonderful to witness it.  

As has happened over the years, when your children go to high school and then college, they often grow away from you. You realize that the independence you instilled in them from an early age created a fruitful life for them, but the threads that connect the present to the past and us are fewer. My wife and I are always looking for those remaining threads that bring us together. We latch onto those threads and build on them to strengthen the ties. Fly fishing has been the thread that connects my son and me. I have been fortunate that he is still willing to go on adventures that have taken us from our backyard to around the world.  

Our most recent adventure brought me to Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming, where he is a fly-fishing guide. He and the other guides took me to their favorite, most secluded, and, often, the most difficult beats of rivers to reach. These streams represented a diverse range of fishing opportunities. Some of these stretches had me gasping for air on the climbs out of the valleys (at 7,600 feet of altitude!), but the scenery and fishing made the effort well worth it. There were also easily accessible stretches that provided a constant stream of various sized rainbow and trout rising to Tricos throughout the chilly mornings.  On most streams, the preferred entree switched to terrestrials as the day warmed up. The beats we fished were all gorgeous and had no pressure. We saw only two other anglers briefly during five days of fishing. This is, in part, due to the hundred miles of fishable water within a half hour drive of the ranch, with twenty of those miles accessible only to the ranch’s clients. 

Before arriving at the Ranch, I had heard positive reviews from my son about the elevated expectations for the staff and how well the ranch functioned. But I was not prepared for the impressive environmentally sensitive landscape and architectural design found throughout the property. Soon after arriving, I continued to be surprised by the world class cuisine, wine selection and service. I had some of the best dinners of my life during my stay. Spending time with my son was the initial reason for going to Brush Creek Ranch, and fly fishing has always been a wonderful avenue for doing that. I was continually surprised by the beauty of the streams, the diversity of the fishable water, and size of fish that were willing to take a dry fly. It made our time together more memorable.

I returned to western New York a few days ago, and I smile when I remember landing a wild 22-inch brown on a hopper during the last few casts of the day on the Upper Platte River; or hunting for small brookies, as they cruised the banks of the high alpine lakes in the Medicine Bow National Forest; or the watching three bull moose eating side-by-side near a high mountain stream; or the enjoying the contrast of the large solitary rock formations against the barren treeless landscape; or witnessing the frenzied scene of countless trout heads popping up next to each other to take the floating Trico spinners as they floated overhead; or the seeing my son’s face on that last afternoon in Wyoming acknowledging that there still remains a pure vein of youthful joy in all of us.

Alberto Rey is a longtime Upstate New York steelhead guide, 2021 Orvis-Endorsed Fly-Fishing Guide of the Year, and a retired Distinguished Professor for Research and Creative Activity at the State University of New York at Fredonia. To learn more about Brush Creek Ranch, visit their page at Orvis Adventures.