Exhibition | Stories | Photos | Books | Panorama | Compare | BBHC.org

Sometime in April of 1974, I received a call from Bill Morris. Bill was the Assistant Chief Game Warden, and he called to offer me a summer job as a special deputy warden to work in a place called Thorofare. I was just getting out of college and was pretty excited about being offered any job. Little did I know what type of lasting effect this particular summer job would have on my life.

The job proposal was to send two people into Thorofare country for two months, July and August. One person was to be a special deputy to check compliance with fishing regulations. The other was to collect fisheries data on the Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

The Department had been receiving a lot of complaints from outfitters and other backcountry users. There was a feeling that fishermen were abusing the creel limit of six fish per day. If, in fact, this were the case, the fisheries would deteriorate over the years. Therefore, this summer project was instituted to address these issues.

I was to focus on the enforcement side. Grant Hogan was to take on the fisheries management portion of the project. Kenny Martin and Max Rollefson supervised the project out of the Jackson office. On the 11th of July, Kenny and Pete Petera ( Jackson game warden) guided Grant and me from Turpin Meadows to the Thorofare cabin. We didn't go until the 11th due to high water. As it was, we had some small problems with the high water. Kenny's horse fell off of and rolled under the Pacific Creek bridge. Horses are wont to panic in situations like this and kind of give up. Kenny had to hold the horse's head up out of the water with the bridle. As the rest of us were scurrying around to help, the horse finally tried and struggled to its feet. Kenny had a wet ride the rest of the way and blamed Pete and me for the whole affair. We couldn't cross the Thorofare River at the trails and searched quite a bit to find a way across. The cabin was a welcome sight.

So the summer began. Grant and I felt we had to check every fisherman who entered the area, and I think we did. We kept exact records of every fisherman and fish we checked. During July and August, 329 persons wandered through the area. We checked 193 fishermen, 83 residents and 110 non-residents. These fishermen kept a total of 426 cutthroat trout. Many more fish were caught and released. Grant would measure the fish and take a scale sample for aging purposes. I would check licenses and creels. In spite of the large number of fishermen, we only detected three violations. Two citations were issued for no license and one for over limit. I remember only one group that was taking fish out of the wilderness. They had fish fillets hanging from the branches all around their camp. They were salting and drying them for the long ride out. I'm glad I didn't have to spend the night in that camp.

The fishing was fantastic, especially in July. Every river and stream, pond, andside channel was filled with Yellowstone cutthroat trout. While crossing Atlantic Creek, fish would literally swim under our horses' feet. One fisherman on Atlantic Creek had caught and released 30 fish in an hour's time on the same renegade fly.

The fish were all uniform in size, 15 inches long. In Bridger Lake there were some smaller fish. We thought these were probably resident fish and a younger age class. Most of the fish were very wormy. Gill lice, worms in the abdominal wall, and cysts in the viscera were observed. This condition had no effect on palatability. The biggest fish we saw weighed three pounds. As it would happen, I caught it. Again as it would happen, before I could eat it for breakfast, a grizzly bear raided our cabin store that night and ate the fish along with a couple pounds of bacon and a can of peaches. The fishing deteriorated throughout the summer. By the middle of August there were very few fish in the Thorofare River , and fishing the Yellowstone River was poor at best. By the end of August, it was difficult to catch any. Bridger Lake held up somewhat as the expected algae bloom didn't happen until late August. The night before we left for the year, Grant and I fished our favorite hole and each caught two or three fish.

If we have any claim to fame in Thorofare folklore, it would be that Grant and I spent more continuous time at the cabin than anyone before or after us. We went in on July 11th and come out on August 29th. We did go out for six days the end of July. How did we keep supplied? We ate a lot of fish. Kenny Martin and Lew Oviatt made one trip in with supplies and Pete Petera dropped a duffle bag load of goodies to us out of the air. Early one morning a plane glided into the clearing, cut it's engine, dropped it's cargo and hurried away unnoticed to all but a couple of hungry boys.

Gordon Rees, USFS, was spending the summer at the Hawks Rest cabin with his wife and three month old daughter. The Rees really helped us a lot. They had hot water at Hawk's Rest and allowed us to shower. They also had us to supper many times. Fish stew never tasted so good.

Our biggest problem, if not our only problem, was with the horses. There just was not enough feed around the cabin to keep three horses for two months. Grant and I would stop along the trail where there was a lot of grass just to let the horses feed. They could never catch up.

The migration of the cutthroat trout back to Yellowstone Lake signaled that we would soon be leaving Thorofare, also. On August 29th, we loaded up what gear we had and headed for Turpin Meadows. Our Thorofare summer was over.

Since the summer of '74, I've returned to the cabin many times. I never return without reflecting on that experience. I was pretty lucky to get to go. Each time I return to the cabin, a special feeling encompasses me. Jack Streeter said it didn't matter how long you were gone, when you returned to the cabin, you felt like you were coming home. I couldn't say it better.

John Hyde
Wyoming Game & fish Elk Feeder
Winter '74-'75, '75-'76
Lovell Game Warden. 1976–Present