Over 21,000 Wyomingites get WyoFile delivered straight to their inbox. Join your neighbors and stay informed with the stories shaping Wyoming.

Legendary fly tier and angler Jay Buchner remembers his first day fishing on Flat Creek at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, back in the 1960s. “Spinning rods, worms and anything else” were permitted, he said.

On opening day, “it was a stampede,” he said of the rush to catch and take home a fat cutty. “In a couple days, they were pretty much all gone.”

About a decade or so later, managers revised regulations, limiting anglers to artificial flies. “The nature of it changed literally overnight,” Buchner said of the fishery. These days, starting Aug. 1, anglers test their skills on large and wary fine-spotted Snake River cutthroat trout in an

See Full Page