Ep 167: A Trip to Fish the Thorofare, with Palmer Henson
Palmer Henson has been on the show many times (episodes 3, 62, 111). Normally, we chat about native brook trout where Palmer lives in Georgia, but today, we discuss a recent horse-packing trip he took into the Thorofare area of Wyoming, often cited as the most remote area in the lower 48. He walks me through the inspiration, the planning, the fishing itself for massive cutthroats, packing with horses, camp life, and much more.
Documentary: Cutthroat: The Race to Save Yellowstone
Palmer’s Instagram: @lost_angel_fly_fishing (see June 30 and July 2, 2025 for pics from the trip)
-
Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 167 with Palmer Henson on a trip to fish the Thorofare. well you've been on many times so I don't I don't need a background on your fishing history and that'll save us more time to chat about kind of the meat of our conversation today which is your recent trip to Yellowstone kind of in the footsteps, I'm not sure if that's the right way to phrase it, of this documentary that you had me watch recently about the cutthroat. So I will let you kind of take it away and start here. And then I will pepper you with questions as we go. How were you inspired to take this trip? And where did this all come from?
Palmer
It came from my buddy, Gene Wilson. Somehow, I don't know, five or six years ago, he became enamored with the area where we went to, which is called the thoroughfare area, which is, if you look at the southeast corner of Yellowstone, it's just outside the boundaries. So it's not actually in the park, it's just outside the park. And we've been going to Yellowstone. My brother, my dad, and I, I think this will be our 25th year going to, you know, sort of near the north entrance, the upper part, like Lamar Valley area. My dad got too old maybe 15 years ago and stopped going. And my fishing buddies, Gene and Jeff started going on that trip. So a long history with Yellowstone and also a long history with sort of the Wyoming mountains, you know, the Wind Rivers and other areas in Wyoming, numerous trips out there since maybe like the early nineties. And this, the, we'd always kind of heard about the thoroughfare and it's billed as the, and I'm, everyone says it enough. It probably is true. The most remote location in the lower 48 because it's the furthest from like a road or a trailhead. And our friend Gene just really latched onto it. And it's reasonably well known. There's a fishing manager of Parks Fly Shop, which is a gardener in the north entrance of Yellowstone. And we had spent a little time with him. We see him every year when we're out there. And he had hiked into this area and was talking about how cool it was and beautiful. That was maybe, I was like 21 or so, 22. And that was, that kind of spurred us on though. He didn't catch any fish. He hiked a long way, you know, like 30 miles in over several days and they didn't catch any fish at all. And then Gene read an article written by a guy named Paul Weimer, who was on that trip in the documentary. The documentary for the listeners is called Cutthroat, The Race to Save Yellowstone. He was on the trip and he runs a volunteer program out of Montana State to do work around Yellowstone and tagging fish and clipping fins for DNA and stuff like that. And Gene just called him up one day just out of the blue and said, hey, if we wanted to do a similar trip, how do we do it? what do we need to do? And he gave, uh, Gene the name of the outfitter, which is triangle X that they had used, uh, which is out of Jackson, uh, and gave him some pointers and he, he set it up. He took the lead. Uh, you know, every year we do these trips and one of us always takes the lead and Gene, Gene gets the credit for that one. So it was, it was like this confluence of all the time we spend in Yellowstone, all the time we spend in the Wyoming mountains, and just something cool to do, something remote and unusual.
Katie
I have what might be kind of a dumb question. I'm not even really sure how to ask it, but I've heard of the thoroughfare area and I've never been up there. What exactly, like what are the bounds of this area? You know, what constitutes the thoroughfare area? It's, you know, is it bounded geographically or geologically in some way or, you know, what makes the edges of that?
Palmer
You know, I never figured that out. Okay. If you look on maps, you'll see like Thoroughfare Plateau and there's Thoroughfare Creek, which we fished. But there's not like a tight little boundary around something that they call the Thoroughfare. And I have no idea if we hit the actual most remote spot. We probably didn't. It's probably on top of a mountain somewhere. But it's basically that region. There's just inside of the park, there's a ranger station. And then just outside of the park, there's also a ranger station, which is kind of where Thoroughfare Creek comes into the Yellowstone. And those are called like the thoroughfare ranger stations or whatever.
Katie
Okay. So it sounds like it's not necessarily a bounded area. It's kind of just this area where things kind of are named thoroughfare and people know what vicinity you're talking about. but maybe it's not as organized or designated as I thought.
Palmer
Yeah, yeah. It'd be like the Appalachian Mountains. There's not like a line at the end of, you know, you're no longer in the mountains officially.
Katie
So just for a quick recap, maybe tell people kind of what the documentary was about. Because you kind of reached out to me out of the blue and were like, hey, you should watch this documentary because we're going on this trip. And I watched it a couple of weeks ago. It was really interesting. But just so people kind of get a feel for why this was made, you know, why this area is so important and what some of the threats it's facing are. Maybe just give kind of a rundown of what they were talking about in the documentary and the kind of the problems they're looking to solve.
Palmer
Yeah. So in the 90s, call it mid-90s, someone caught a lake trout in Yellowstone Lake, which is an invasive species, shouldn't have been there, and brought it to a ranger and they identified it as a lake trout. And that was the first time there was like an official record of a lake trout being in Yellowstone Lake. And they were kind of watching it and not paying maybe quite as much attention as they should have, but the population exploded. Yellowstone Lake is like an awesome environment for a lake trout. It's deep, you know, it can be as much as 200 feet deep and full of things to eat. which includes a ton of Yellowstone cutthroat trout. So the population exploded and they started trying to get their arms around it in the 2007, 2008 period. They started gill netting for the lake trout and brought scientists in to study the population growth. And, you know, after four or five years of doing that, they realized that they had to like triple the amount of gild netting they were doing. They really had to go after it in a big way or there because they were pretty quickly wiping out the native Yellowstone cutthroats. And one of the big differences between the two is lake trout live deep in the water, you know, 100 feet down or whatever, whereas the cutthroats live up near the surface. So the cutthroats are an available food source for eagles and all kinds of other, you know, peregrine falcons and ospreys, but also bears and, you know, all kinds of things eat the cutthroats. So as that population plummeted, it had this ripple effect across, you know, that whole area of Yellowstone. You know, the bears were eating, you know, young elk instead of eating cutthroats. And then the wolves had less to eat. You know, I mean, it's just across the board. So they, you know, they triple the amount of gill netting. They've been working on it really hard. They spend $3 million a year trying to wipe out the lake trout. And they know they'll never wipe them out, but they're hoping to drive it down to maybe like 100,000 population where in a good year they've gill netted as much as 300,000. And I'll bet they're gill netting now. I don't know right now, but it's got to be, you know, under 100,000. And they're getting, they're sort of getting on top of it. And so it's kind of a success story. You know, it's taken them, you know, all these years, but they're finally, finally winning the battle. And they've been doing some other things. They drop organic material on lake trout spawning beds, which pulls all the oxygen out of the water, you know, on the, on the bottom. And so it kills the eggs during spawning season. They're doing creative stuff like that too. And the reason that the thoroughfare area is important is that's where the cutthroats go up to spawn. So one way to get a really clear idea of the health of the population is to go up there and see how many fish are up there spawning. And that's kind of what they were doing in that documentary for the part where they did go up in the thoroughfare area. And that also raises the question how the lake trout got in there to begin with. And it had always been assumed that fishermen had come and just dumped some in because they thought it'd be fun to catch lake trout in Yellowstone Lake. Or people had, you know, were fishing with bait and the bait was, you know, young of the year lake trout. I mean, that was kind of like what everyone just assumed for years. And then they figured out in the 1890s, the Park Service. So, you know, Park Yellowstone was founded in 1872 or something like that. So within 20 years of it being founded, the Park Service actually stocked lake trout in a lake called Lewis Lake, which is the entire other side of the continental divide from Yellowstone Lake. So the theory was there was no way that would impact, you know, anywhere where there are Yellowstone cutthroats. And those move downstream. You know, the Yellowstone Lake flows out. Eventually, the outflow goes down to a lake called Jackson Lake, which flows into the Snake River. And there's a creek called Pacific Creek that flows out of the thoroughfare area that goes down into Jackson Lake. So a newer theory is that the lake trout from Lewis Lake swam down to Jackson Lake. And there's been a big, strong population in Jackson Lake for a long time. then work their way up Pacific Creek up into the thoroughfare area where there's a stream that comes off a, there's a big plateau called Two Ocean Plateau. And there's a stream that comes down off of it, which is fed by a bunch of springs that are along the way that hits a, like a little island and it splits. And it's called the parting of the waters. And it's called Two Ocean Plateau because part of it goes into Pacific Creek down into Jackson Lake. And part of it goes into Atlantic Creek, which flows into the Yellowstone. So a new theory is that the lake trout swam up. They hit this part in the waters area, Two Ocean Pass or Meadow, which during a high water period, the whole thing kind of floods out a little bit and just like swam across. So basically they crossed over the continental divide and then went down Atlanta Creek and then down into Yellowstone Lake. And no one knows for sure. And we weren't like trying to solve the mystery. I mean, we we certainly didn't weren't that presumptuous that we're going to get four idiots from Georgia. We're going to go solve this mystery that a bunch of scientists haven't figured out. We did ask a ton of really knowledgeable people. Gene asked Richard Parks, he's 80 years old, he runs Park Fly Shop. He's maybe the most knowledgeable person about fishing in Yellowstone. And Richard fully believes that fishermen dumped in bait canisters. We asked the manager, kind of the owner of Triangle X Ranch, what he thought. And he thought the same thing. One of our packers definitely thought the same thing. But a lot of the scientists believe that they did go over to Ocean Plateau. And that's, I mean, that was certainly what I wanted to believe, that they swam there. And I think people underestimate how good fish are at swimming. In fact, there was an article in, maybe it was like Fly Fisherman or something, Fly Fishing Journal recently about lamprey eels that swam up. Like one eel was found in a high alpine lake at like, you know, 10,000 feet. And there were definitely lamprey eels, you know, 11 miles downstream. And somehow it had gotten up there. And maybe an osprey picked it up and flew up there and dropped it. But it could have swam there too. I mean, there are always stories like that. So anyway, the scientists were in there taking DNA and just checking on the health of the population. And we wanted to go see, we wanted to fish both Atlanta Creek and Pacific Creek and Thoroughfare Creek, the other big tributary to Yellowstone, and just check the whole thing out and see what we found.
Katie
Do you happen to remember, I don't remember if they addressed this in the documentary. You know, I don't picture lake trout as being these tiny creek fish, like swimming up these creeks. Like you mentioned, they like a big, deep lake. I mean, it's in the name. Are there other records of lake trout kind of migrating up these little flooded tributaries in any other place?
Palmer
They've gotten EDNA samples within like two miles of this parting of the waters where they found lake trout.
Katie
Okay, okay.
Palmer
So they've gotten close. I mean, you naturally have to have a question though, why would they have gone up there in the first place? And when would they, you know, would they have gone up there? I mean, they're spawning in the fall when the water levels should be lower. You know, would they have ever been up there when the water, you kind of need a little higher water for that area to flood out. But it's a really wet area. You can clearly imagine it, you know, that plateau area becoming like, or that gap area becoming like a lake.
Katie
Yeah, I was looking at it on satellite view and it kind of looks like a flooded beaver pond-y meadow. Like I'm sure many people have seen, you know, a meadow that has kind of been flooded by beavers. The ground is just kind of saturated everywhere. There's not really a clear channel. It's just water everywhere in little pockets and pools and riffles and runs. And there's no clear delineation there.
Palmer
And there were lots of beaver dams, tons of them. But it's easy. I mean, they could jump those easily. My little Georgia brook trout could jump those.
Katie
You know what this kind of brings to mind, which is just kind of a weird thought experiment, is that, first of all, if we're assuming the lake trout did come up and go across continental divide, you know, it hadn't happened in the thousands of years that, or actually, I don't know, did you say the lake trout have been, were stocked in the lake that they would have come up out of? Like, is that why it didn't happen? Let's assume that that's how they got up there. Is that why it didn't happen until, you know, the 1900s? Because I'm just picturing if lake trout had the ability to do this, why didn't they do it at any other time in history?
Palmer
Yeah. So Lewis Lake was stocked in 1890.
Katie
Okay. Okay.
Palmer
It took a little while for them to get down into Jackson Lake and get a big, big population. And then, so the official record was like where they found, you know, the one lake trout that they reported to a ranger was like 1996 or something. But everyone believes that there were, you know, all these stories of people catching lake trout 20 years before that. And, And, you know, when you talk to someone like, you know, someone who believes that they came from just a fisherman dumping in, the first thing they say is, well, you know, the lake trout have been there a lot longer than everyone thinks. As if that, like, negates the possibility they came over to Ocean Plateau, which in my mind, you know, it's maybe more likely because they could have been coming up in like 1910 or 1920.
Katie
Right, like trickling in every time there's a high water event or something like that.
Palmer
Yeah.
Katie
That makes a lot more sense then because I had kind of forgotten the part about that being stocked elsewhere. And I was just thinking if this, you know, if this was a possibility, why did it take so long for them to get over? But that makes a lot more sense. I kind of forgot about that part.
Palmer
Yeah. And they were, I mean, they're invasive. And I don't know if there were even fish in Lewis Lake before they stocked it. But, you know, wherever they are, they're invasive unless you're like in Canada somewhere or whatever.
Katie
Yeah. And you mentioned this briefly, but it is crazy how different, you know, one fish can be from another. and they talked about that a lot in the documentary. Like a lot of people were kind of like, what's the big deal? You know, you replace one trout with another trout, like everything should be fine. But just the minor difference in the fact that one hangs out a lot lower than the other completely changed the dynamics of how everything was interacting. You know, the ospreys basically disappeared. The elk population was suffering because of the bears. Like one little change that seems so insignificant. And it just kind of highlights the importance of when, you know, we're trying to raise money for like cutthroat trout reintroduction in Colorado. It's like, what's the big deal? Like, we've got trout. Why do we want to replace them with different trout? And it's like, I know this is an extreme example. Most ecosystems are not going to be as damaged as Yellowstone was by replacing a cutthroat with a brook trout, for example. But this kind of highlights what happens in the worst case scenario of, you know, what's the big deal of one trout versus another?
Palmer
Like, well, it can have huge implications for the environment. You just got to love native trout too.
Katie
Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Palmer
I just love native trout.
Katie
I just feel like it's kind of a good case study and example for like, why does it matter that we get native species back in their right locations?
Palmer
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. But a lot of it, you know, it's just the adventure of, you know, packing on horses. We had, none of us had really done a pack trip like that. The closest, one year I did my daughter and her boyfriend at the time, and I did a trip with a llama packer up in another part of Wyoming where we each had a llama carrying our suit. It was like backpacking, but you had a llama carrying most of your stuff. And that was really cool. But this was, when we rode in, it was probably almost 25 miles into where we camped. So it was seven hours on a horse. And we had, there were four of us. It was Gene, Jeff, myself, and then Gene's nephew, who's in his 20s, a recent college grad. And then we were supposed to have three packers, kind of like a guide, kind of like a horse packer, and then a cook. And we ended up with a fourth because there was a trip they had planned. Another separate group was coming in to go somewhere else, and that got canceled at the last minute. And they had a guideless experience, too. they put on our trip to get some hours in. But then we had 27 horses and mules.
Katie
Whoa. Okay. I didn't realize how many you had. Why?
Palmer
Yeah. It was their first trip of the year. So they wanted to get, it was almost like a training trip to all these horses and mules have been sitting around all winter. They weren't sure if they were going to, a few of them were going to be sore because they had just been sitting around. And a few did. So they swapped them in and out a little bit. But we had, I mean, none of us had any idea that it was going to be, you know, we're going to have that many horses and mules. I mean, it's just in my wildest dreams, it never occurred to me we're going to have this whole herd. And the packers were awesome. The whole thing was awesome. And we, except for maybe like saddle sores. Yeah. We were riding in seven hours and then every day we'd ride two or two and a half hours to where we were going to fish and then have two, two and a half hour ride back to our main camp. So we were we were we probably did between 100 and 120 miles on horseback over the course of eight days, which is a lot. It was fun, though. You have to like horses. You have to like, you know, if you don't like animals, you know, if you don't like love your dog and, you know, connect with animals, you would probably have a terrible time. Because in camp, you've got, you know, 20 feet from your tent, there could be a mule like rolling in the dirt. I mean, they're just you're just with them the whole time. And then our packers were all young guys. They were, you know, the old man on the trip was probably 27. He was like our head guide. And then we had three guys who were kind of like just graduating from college age, all very experienced. And they were, I mean, they were everything you think of when you think of like a cowboy. They were just working hard and having fun for eight straight days. I mean, maybe like at the end of the season, they get a little worn down, but it was incredible. You know, we'd finish these long rides and after fishing hard and, you know, get back to camp and just be ready to sit down. And they'd be like chopping wood and making fires and, you know, getting the Dutch oven going to make dinner. I mean, it was it was incredible. And having like total fun the whole time. There's always something to do with the horses. They, you know, they kind of let them out at night to just roam around in these meadows. They would sort of, you know, hobbling horses. It's kind of like putting handcuffs on them a little bit so they can walk, but they can't run. So they'd hobble some of the horses and the mules would never leave the horses. So they just let those loose. But in the morning, someone had to go like get them, you know, and they could be, you know, a little ways away. It was the whole the whole horse thing was it was such a cool element to it. And it'd be hard to do that trip without without horses. The other people we saw in there, when we were planning it, we thought, wow, maybe we'd go several days without seeing anyone. And there wasn't anyone camped near us. But when we were out fishing, we definitely saw people the whole time. We'd pass by other horse camps. And pretty much everyone was on horses. There were a couple of hikers, but the trails were super muddy and beat up. I mean, I don't know how you would hike them without big rubber knee boots. We did pass a couple of people with llamas. Same thing, though. They're hiking through all this mud. But it's just the distance in there. You know, you would spend three days getting in and fish for an afternoon and three days going back home.
Katie
I'm surprised that you saw a lot of people with how remote it is. Is it because there's kind of some notoriety around how remote it is? So it like draws people into it? Like why are there a lot of people there?
Palmer
There's that and there's, so the fish, the fish are big. They're 20 to 22 or three or four. I think we got one that was 25. We hardly got any that were below, you know, maybe there was like an 18 or 19 inch fish. They're big and they're spectacular because they're kind of in spawning colors.
Katie
Okay. So just like a known thing.
Palmer
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I had actually texted, we got a couple of fish that were tagged And we reported the tag numbers and they said, yeah, those were caught, you know, in Yellowstone Lake at this spot, you know, a year ago. And then our respondents said, how come all the fish were so uniform? There were, you know, don't like 15 inch fish spawn?
Katie
Yeah, right.
Palmer
And I didn't really get a clear answer. It was kind of like, it's the big fish that go spawn, you know, what we know. And then I emailed Paul Weimer, the guy Gene had initially connected with. And Gene had actually done a couple of volunteer days with him too in Yellowstone. So he got to know him. Emailed him and he said they didn't really know they were still studying that. But anyway, the fish are big and they're really cool looking, but they're only there for a couple of weeks. You know, they come up, they spawn and they go back. That's why they're so big. one of the reasons there are a lot of big, big fish is that they're, it's like a lake run or, you know, like a lake run, uh, um, brown trout or, you know, any, anything, any, or sea run, I guess would be more like, yeah, like a steelhead and they're living in the lake. Most of the time they just go up there to spawn. We get big fast. Um, but then they go away. So I think one of the reasons there were, and it wasn't like there were that many people, but there were plenty of other people. But they were there for that two-week window. You know, if you went two weeks later, there might not be anyone up there or people who went up there just because it'd be fun to go to the most remote location. And the Continental Divide Trail goes through part of it also. So there, we did pass one or two people who are doing the Continental. It takes a slightly different path than the horses usually take, which is good.
Katie
is the timing reliable enough that you can you know plan a trip to guarantee that you're going to catch the fish or is it is there a little bit of wiggle room to the point that you could you know ostensibly book a horse trip and you know drop all the money on this just to go up there and they're not there yet or…
Palmer
You could absolutely do that. you’re placing your bet a year ahead of time or more. And there's like a primo week that you want to be there, which is the week we went. I mean, another, I keep talking about Gene pulling this off, but he was able to secure, you know, what we assumed was the best packer for the best week to go in there. But if it's a real warm early spring or a really cold late spring, we could have totally missed it. And that's what happened to this guy, Cody, who was the fishing manager at Parks. They hiked in there and just missed it.
Katie
Is there anything else to fish for? If you were to not hit it, is there like, well, there's a consolation prize. You can go over to this creek and fish for smaller cutthroats or a different species or something. Or would you go in there and actually not be able to fish because there's just nothing there?
Palmer
So we fished two days in Pacific Creek. And we caught snake river, small snake river cutthroats. And they were, I mean, five to 10 inch size. And we didn't catch a lot, but they were like, you know how they cut throats when they're small, they kind of look like rainbows almost. So they were like that size.
Katie
Okay. So at least you could get the experience of like, we went into this really remote area. We had the fun of the horse packing and just like being out there and we got to catch some fish. You wouldn't go out there and have like absolutely nothing to do if you caught a run.
Palmer
Okay. Right. And if you wanted to, I mean, they do all kinds of fishing trips all summer that are, they're not going that far in, they're not going to, they're going to other rivers and the same deal, but just not as far. And the fishing is, it's really funky fishing. So we, when we first got there, we, you know, a couple of the guys had figured out that we, you know, and maybe Paul had, Paul, this guy, Paul Weimer had clued in Gene. We, you know, we should be fishing egg patterns. And so we had, you know how you can, I mean, I think it was like an Alaska technique where you have a bead and you put your tippet through the bead and then tie a hook on below it and then stick a toothpick to kind of hold the bead and place like three or four inches above the hook. I mean, that's primarily how we ended up fishing. It took a couple of days to really get dialed in. And you could see that almost every fish you fished to, you could see. And some of them were actively spawning and you kind of avoided those. And some of them were tired from swimming, you know, 35 miles upstream and they ignored everything. Most of the fish ignored everything that we threw at them. If you could drift in almost like a Euronymphing sort of, you know, thing where you'd put a little bit of tungsten putty up above the egg and then watch the fish. And you could see the bright orange egg and you were drifting it to the fish. And if the fish moved at all or you could see its mouth open, you'd set the hook. And maybe you'd get it, maybe not. Most of the time it just went right on by and they ignored it. So a good day you'd catch three fish. And you'd be totally happy if you caught one or two because they were just so extreme. Jeff caught a fish and I was trying to net up for him. And my net, which I never use because it's like way too big for my normal fishing, like was way too small for these fish. It was so cool. It was fun. Yeah, some of them were holed up in deep holes, but a lot of them were in eight inches of water, nine inches of water. So it wasn't really a numbers game. It was just everyone wanted to catch fish. And our packers all, you know, our four packers, someone had to stay back at camp with the horses that didn't go with us during the day. But the other three would come and they'd fish some too. Some of them fly fish, some of them were spinning fishing. We all, I think everyone caught at least one fish taking a woolly bugger and taking one of those beads and putting it, putting on the tippet and then tying on the woolly bugger and letting the bead just slide down on the woolly bugger and stripping it through. I mean, it was crazy, something you would like never do. And then over in Pacific Creek with the smaller snake river cutthroats, you know, it was like parachute atoms and small 18 or size 18 pheasant tails or something like that.
Katie
So when you were fishing the eggs, you didn't use like an indicator or anything. You were just tight lining them?
Palmer
In the deep holes, we used indicators. But in one of the guys, Gene's nephew had a lot of success. He really focused on the deeper holes and he caught a lot doing that. I mean, he had a day when he caught like six or seven maybe. But most of us were just focused on the ones we could see. And it was really fun. I mean, it was a super cool way to fish. Despite it was, it sounds kind of lame. You know, you're throwing these egg patterns at fish that were pretty tired. They didn't fight very hard. You know, you didn't have to play them to death. You just basically just almost like reel them in, you know, as long as you get them out of the current pretty quickly, you know, and they all released, you know, perfectly well and swam off with strength and everything.
Katie
Are they all in moving water? Because I, again, we talked about it before and looking at the satellite image, there's a lot of like standing water up in that area. Do they get into those like ponded areas or are they sticking to the streams?
Palmer
So where you saw where it looked pretty still, that big meadow section, that's where we camped.
Katie
Oh, okay.
Palmer
We saw some bigger fish there, but we never really caught any. And there weren't great numbers up there. But they were getting, I mean, that was, we were then, we were camped on the Atlantic Creek side of this parting of the waters, maybe a mile from, you know, where Atlantic and Pacific Creek split. So they were getting up there, but not in great numbers. And they were really hard to catch up there. It was much further down, four or five miles downstream of that in Atlanta Creek, almost where it flows into Yellowstone, where there were much bigger numbers. And the thoroughfare creek, just above where it flows into Yellowstone. I hate hotspotting, but I don't feel like there are many people who are going to do this. There's only a limited number of packers.
Katie
Yeah, it sounds like the packers book out and it's limited by the number of packers available.
Palmer
Yeah, and a couple weeks.
Katie
Sure. I did want to know why did you camp so far from where you're fishing? Is it just because that meadow is really conducive to having a bunch of horses out grazing, whereas where you're fishing, there's just not the space for all the horses? Why not camp right where you're going to fish?
Palmer
Yeah, it was mostly that. It was, where we fished was even sort of marshier and not. We were able to kind of get up on a, you know, pretty high up on a hill, you know, out of the mosquitoes. And there's a big, big meadow area where the horses could graze all night. And we also wanted to be closer to the parting of the waters. You know, we thought we were going to spend more time fishing in that area, you know, both sides of it. That was probably the main reason. Also, after you've been riding for seven hours, the idea of riding two more hours, it's like, man, I don't know if I want to do that.
Katie
Yeah. If you're not used to being on a horse, being on a horse starts to get real painful real fast.
Palmer
Yeah. We all did a practice ride up in North Georgia. And we had various degrees. Jean grew up riding. My wife was a horse trainer before we got married. So she had me ride. So as a non-rider, I've probably ridden more than most people. people who don't ride. And then Walker is Gene's nephew and Jeff both had ridden a little bit, but we all got out and rode up in North Georgia some before we went out there.
Katie
Yeah. I don't remember the last time. Actually, I do remember the last time I was on a horse and I just did maybe like a two hour ride. And at the end of that, I was sore and like having trouble walking. So yeah, I can imagine going from like basically zero to seven hours and then arriving in camp and being like, I can't get back on that thing.
Palmer
You know, we, we had assumed once we got up there, we'd be hiking a lot. And I, you know, I got a new pair of hiking boots and I broke them in and had a pair of riding boots. You know, you want like smooth soles. So they'll slide in and out of the stirrups and a, you know, a heel kind of like a cowboy boot sort of thing. And, uh, I never one time put on my hiking boots. Uh, and the, our packers were like, if we want to go somewhere. We're like, I'm going to like walk down. And they were like, yeah, that's like a hundred yards. Why would you ever walk that far? Why don't you just take a horse?
Katie
Yeah, I guess you got them.
Palmer
You got them there. Might as well use them.
Katie
What else did you see? I know you mentioned seeing some wildlife on the trip. What all did you see?
Palmer
We saw maybe one elk. We saw a few deer. It was a little disappointing. We saw, I mean, lots of eagles. There was a bald eagle that was kind of nesting within half a mile of where we camped. So it was always present. And then we saw some big bear prints, grizzly bear prints. We saw wolf prints, but it was, we didn't see as much wildlife as we assumed we would. And part of it is we just have all, all this livestock with us.
Katie
Yeah. I mean, 20 some horses is it's, I'm sure it's not a quiet endeavor moving through the woods.
Palmer
Yeah. And we had bear spray, but it wasn't really even front of mind. It was kind of like, has anyone seen the bear spray? And I assume this is true, but we're told that the mules will line up if they see a grizzly bear, they'll line up and as a team, they'll attack it. They'll kick it to death. And so we felt pretty well protected.
Katie
Do they address at all? Like, you know, if you had done a smaller pack trip, if the horses would be a little like skittish around bears and stuff? Like if you weren't in a group of 20 plus horses and, you know, eight people, you know, would it be any different?
Palmer
It's they worry about it a lot more in the fall. So they do, you know, at some point in the fall, they transition to basically elk doing elk hunting trips. And on elk camps and things like that, where the bears are kind of like trying to fatten up and they're moving around a lot more. Plus, they've got, you know, they're hanging elk and stuff like just outside of their camps. It's a much bigger issue, I think, in the fall. That was part of the reason they were less concerned about it was the time of year.
Katie
Did they say what they do differently? Did they do anything differently at that time of year to kind of deter bears? Or is it just like being more aware of your surroundings and trying to make noise and things like that?
Palmer
I’m trying to think if they did, um, they had some kind of like fencing system that they do. Uh, but I'm not, I'm not too sure. Um, and the horses, um, this was, this was funny, but it stressed us out a little bit too. You know, we had these not that big, uh, quarter horses, um, that were, you know, really experienced here. They'd been doing this for seven or eight years. And there was one huge. So so the quarter horses, maybe they were like 15 hands or something like that. That's how you measure horses. There was a like a draft horse, like I mean, envision like a Clydesdale that was all black. His name was Kong. And he was like 20 hands. He you know, his back was like above my head. And one of the guys, there's a bigger guy who's our cook named Hayden. And Hayden was riding Kong and he was going to go fish with us that day. So we're all in a line going across this like it wasn't a huge bank, but it was, you know, it's kind of steep. And we've been been through much taller ones. And, you know, the four of us had all convinced ourselves these horses are like bulletproof. There's no way they're going to stumble and go down the bank. And then Kong, he like misplaced his foot and it went over the edge. And then he turned and tried to run to get it downhill and fell. And it just launched Hayden. I mean, he got launched. And the horse, I mean, I thought the horse was dead. Hayden was certainly dead. There was no way he was going to survive. Hereafter, we can, and they were both totally fine. But it, and then there was another time when another one of the Packards, Donnie, decided he was going to ride a mule for the day that didn't get ridden hardly at all. And so he had been kind of like battling with it a little bit all day. And we went, we fished, and we're getting our horses to go back. And the mules, as I mentioned, the mules don't like to be away from the horses. And the four of us got on our horses, and Donnie was like fighting with his mule. And our horses just kind of wanted to like drift away. There was an area where there's a little more grass. So they kind of like started walking, you know, 20 feet away. And we all were just kind of letting them. And this mule was, Donnie was holding its lead line, trying to like stop it so he could get on. And the thing like took off and Donnie just like dug his heels in and he just got launched. I mean, he was horizontal to the ground and then dragged. I mean, we pretty much caused that one. We didn't know we were doing it, but there's no doubt we caused that one.
Katie
Why the mix of mules and horses on the trip?
Palmer
They use the mules. I think the mules are stronger. They can carry a little more weight. And they're easier around camp because they won't leave. You know, as long as the horses don't leave, they won't leave. So they and mostly they use them for they were like the pack animals for the most part. Some of the horses carried stuff, too. But it's and I think the mules, I mean, other people have told me that they're almost more comfortable to ride in a way. They have a smoother sort of gait. A lot of the pack trips, people end up just riding the mules.
Katie
Gotcha. I know you said, too, that you wanted to talk about kind of your relationship with the packers versus your fishing guide and how, you know, that they were different. I want to hear about that.
Palmer
Yeah, you're just with them for so much longer and you're with them like all the time. And maybe ours were just particularly hardworking or maybe it was just early in the season. But you know how sometimes you're with a fishing guy and if the fishing is not good, you can just tell when they've given up and they're just trying to get through the eight hours. And we never, with the four of them, not one time did one of them ever act like that. And they were always, they always had to be doing something. You know, they would like, almost like have competitions who could cut the most wood and who, you know, who could do this, who could do that. You know, if there was a free moment, they were trying to ride some horse bareback that hadn't been ridden bareback or stand up on the back. I mean, they were it was just amazing how hard they were working. And we just felt like we really bonded with them. And maybe it was because we've all done like a ton of trips like this. Even even Walker, who's younger, has done a ton of hunting trips mostly, but a lot of fishing trips, too. So we're all pretty experienced. And, you know, in all of our 60 years, we have good stories. They had great stories. You know, they did mention that they would occasionally, they would have people who like didn't really want to do much. They would just, you know, they'd ride in, set up camp and hang around camp for like five days. And it would sort of drive them crazy. They just didn't know what to do. But we, you know, we're kind of like following each other on Instagram. And we just, I felt like we bonded more than you normally would. And part of it is the time. And, you know, we saw that with the, I mentioned that llama trip I took. You know, I still, when I'm in Pinedale, which I'm in, you know, every year or two, still get together with our llama packer, you know, and have dinner or whatever. I mean, she doesn't do that anymore. She went back to school and is a physical therapist. But, you know, same thing. I mean, my daughter and, you know, we were with her for a week and she worked incredibly hard too. You know, and there was always something to do with the llamas too, just like the horses. So I think there's a, you just see it more. I mean, you get hardworking fishing guides too, but I feel like you just, there's a whole different level of hardworking.
Katie
Yeah, it's more of like a 24-7 job. So I bet people who don't have that work ethic just kind of get weeded out very early. And the people who are left are the people who are just passionate about it and enthusiastic and, you know, find a way to turn it into a fun, fun job instead of just work.
Palmer
Yeah. I mean, they were it started getting light around five in the morning and they all four of them were up trying to find the horses and mules and, you know, trying to get them back into camp at like five in the morning. And by the time we got up, you know, we'd maybe have breakfast at seven. You know, they'd have been doing stuff for two hours or maybe they'd just be back asleep. A lot of times when we'd be fishing, we'd like come back to where the horses were and they'd be asleep. Just lying on the ground.
Katie
Just finding little pockets of time here and there to get some rest. Remind me what the name of the outfitter was again. Just if people are interested in booking them or anything.
Palmer
Yeah, it's Triangle X.
Katie
Triangle X. Okay.
Palmer
Yeah, big shout out to Dennis, Donnie, Hayden, and Hogan, who are our Packers. Hogan was the guy who had like a little bit less experience, but he lives in the winter, grew up in the town in North Georgia where my wife and I have a cottage kind of in the ground zero for brook trout fishing in North Georgia. So that was pretty interesting. Small, small world.
Katie
Well, is there anything that we didn't cover that you think is worth mentioning about this trip? Just anything at all?
Palmer
No, it was just a great adventure. It, you know, there was a little bit of science and some conservation, you know, aspect to it, which was made it more interesting. But mostly it was just a really cool adventure to a neat place. Really fun.
Katie
And shout out the name of the documentary again, in case people want to check that out and kind of get a feel for where you went. Because the documentary kind of like it starts at Yellowstone and then it kind of transitions into their kind of investigation of what's going on up there. So the second half of the documentary kind of takes place in the vicinity of where you were.
Palmer
Yeah, exactly. We were more or less trying to replicate what they did on the horseback part. It's called Yellowstone, the race to save, or not Yellowstone, Cutthroat, the race to save Yellowstone. And it's on like Amazon Prime and UB and a bunch of, you'll find it. Everyone will find this documentary. So it's very cool.
Katie
Well, this was a lot of fun. I'm sure this isn't the last time we'll talk, but it's fun to kind of hear a different conversation of yours. Like normally we're talking about brook trout in Georgia. So, you know, if you ever do any more of these kind of wild remote trips out west just to, I don't know, check out a new spot. Maybe we'll have some more of these going forward. And, you know, I'm always happy to check back in on brook trout, too, because I'm curious where you're at these days on those.
Palmer
Yeah, back to the brook trout now that I'm back in Georgia. And congrats on your Troutwoman. I don't think we've talked since you did that.
Katie
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It was challenging. I mean, I'm not a big runner, so that's probably why it was challenging, but I came in about a half hour before the cutoff, so I made it.
Palmer
You said you maybe didn't train quite as hard as you could have.
Katie
Oh, I didn't train at all, which is how I've handled every Flyathlon and every run I've ever done is show up and assume I have enough baseline fitness to make it through and I'll be sore the next day, which is exactly what happened.
Palmer
Well, congrats. Andrew sent some money for me to buy 20 temperature loggers for brook trout streams.
Katie
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned that.
Palmer
They did the event in North Carolina. They couldn't do it this year because it got flooded out from Hurricane Helene. But yeah, big warm spot in my heart for Andrew and Running Rivers and Flyathlon.
Katie
Yeah, he's full-time with them now. I think he finally got fed up with federal BS going on. So I'm happy for him to transition full-time to working with fish conservation and looking forward to seeing what he does with it.
Palmer
Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I love it.
Katie
All right, Palmer. Well, I will let you get going. I'll have you hang out just for just a couple minutes while your track uploads. But great to connect again. I'm sure this isn't the last time we'll be chatting. All right, that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
Note:
These transcripts were created using AI to help make the podcast more accessible to all listeners, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or anyone who prefers to read rather than listen.
While I’ve reviewed each transcript to correct obvious errors, they may not be 100% accurate. In particular, moments with overlapping speech or unclear audio may not be transcribed word-for-word. However, every effort has been made to ensure that the core content and meaning are accurately represented.
Thank you for your understanding, and I hope these transcripts help you enjoy the podcast in the way that works best for you.