WORST BACKPACKING TRIP EVER!!!!!!!!!!

**montanaskier** · 07-08-2007, 06:02 PM

Wife and I joined her parents, her brother and his wife who were in town from NC, her other brother, our two dogs and her brothers two dogs on a backpacking trip to Deep Lake in the Snowy Range in Wyoming. We have been to Deep Lake several times and it is a nice spot below Medicine Bow Peak. We took the 5.5 mile route from Brooklyn Lake. Lots of areas of snow left, several patches still skiable. VERY wet and VERY muddy. Got to Deep Lake and set up camp and got ready to do some fishing. I had stopped and got a day license to fish. My wifes brother and his wife have lifetime license for Wyo and we along with her other brother were the only ones fishing. At this point let me say that, we do a ton of backpacking and hiking. I have NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, seen that many mosquitos in my life. It was a warm day and I had to go 4 layers to stop the biting and this was despite the copious amounts of heavy duty repellent. Even started the fire at 2pm to get the smoke to help keep them away.....no such luck.

Ok, back to the fishing, as usual, good fishing with lots of brookies around 10-14 inches. I need to run from the lake about 100 yards to my tent to grab my water. Just left my line in the water as I ran to the tent and told the wife to "watch" this. She picked up the rod and then gave it back to me when I got back. About 20 minutes later we were greeted by two members of the WYO Game and Fish. Checked our fish and license. Then said anyone else been fishing? We said no and he said we have been watching you with binocs for awhile and saw her(my wife) with a rod. We said she picked it up, then gave it back to me as soon as I got back....like 3 minutes. He said, well what is your defination of fishing and proceeded to write us a 110 dollar ticket!!!!!! So, combined with the massively muddy conditions, amazing never before seen levels of mosquitos, and 110 dollar ticket......MY WEEKEND SUCKED!!!!!

**skiHOG** · 07-08-2007, 06:36 PM

dude, how did you not know about the mosquitos in wyoming? before I went to WY for the first time that's all I heard about was how bad the mosquitos are. but, even if you know how bad it can be it still sucks. the constant buzzing around your head, 16 hours a day, can almost drive you insane.

**The AD** · 07-08-2007, 06:43 PM

I think getting attacked by a grizzly would have been worse, but that's just me

**Tippster** · 07-08-2007, 06:51 PM

At least Rosie O'Donnell wasn't in the campsite next to you.

That does suck about the license. She was, however, "fishing" (why not just reel in the lure?) so well.... you live, you learn..

**cinnepa** · 07-08-2007, 07:09 PM

not big on hot summer hikes, feel like bug bait out there. closest i'll go these days is on the mountain bike where i could at least move faster than those little bastards.

**montanaskier** · 07-08-2007, 07:33 PM

I do know very well of the bugs in WY....lived in Laramie for 3 years and wife is from Laramie. Seen it bad before but NEVER this bad....I have no words that would do it justice.

**steve** · 07-08-2007, 08:04 PM

wow, that sucks. i hate cops with power trips.

**brice618** · 07-08-2007, 08:31 PM

i think its dumb when GW's get out of hand like that. Her obvious intent was not to fish, they should have seen this if they were scoping her out. With the amount of hunting/ fishing I do I have had a lot of run ins with GW's some good some bad, but its really hard to be respectful when they start to be asses like that.

**72Twenty** · 07-08-2007, 09:40 PM

Yes, the mosquitoes in the Snowy Range are especially blood thirsty and exceptionally large. Must be all the elk blood they feed off of. What surprised me the most about them up there is getting swarmed above 12,000 feet on some of the summits up there. I mean, what else to they feed off of at that altitude?!?!?! Few marmots here and there? WTF? I always carry Deep Woods Off when I am up there.

**Tye 1on** · 07-09-2007, 08:08 AM

Buddy just got back from camping along the Yellowstone River, same bug report. Said his gf had over 300 bites. They, errr, didn't take bug dope, let alone the most wonderful 99.3% DEET...

Sucks about your ticket, I got the same one once, in Idaho, on the main Salmon. Unfortunately, it was just cuz i can be a dumbass. Ended up camping upstream from two dudes, and saw them at the first rapid the next morning, which was just below camp. After quizzing them on routes [and learning that my plan was not the best], I asked them about the species of fish i caught the night before, a whitefish typa suckafish. After confirming it was a whitefish, they identified themselves as fish/game officers, and asked to see my license. The fine was about what a week long non-resident license would have been, doh!

**AsheanMT** · 07-09-2007, 08:23 AM

Thats creepy the F&W sits in the woods and watches you!!

A friend of mine and his buddies were camping/climbing in Zion NP a few years back. It was late at night and they were sitting around a campfire and smoking a bowl. 20 min later rangers walked out of the darkness and asked them what they were smoking. A few of them had cigarettes and said that they had been smoking those. The rangers pulled out their night vision goggles and said that they have been watching them and saw them smoke a bowl. They all got slapped with a possession charge!!

**renoenvy** · 07-09-2007, 09:11 AM

I was fishing last summer.

I was standing at the back of my truck
tying a fly on my line and finishing a soda.

My truck was already locked up so I put the
soda bottle on my bumper so I could
grab it when I left.

Apparently the soda bottle fell off my bumper while
I was fishing.

I got back to my truck and a fish and game officer's
truck comes tearing into the parking lot, asked me
how the fishing was, checked my license, and wrote
me a $250 ticket for littering.

**NorCascader** · 07-09-2007, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by renoenvy

asked mehow the fishing was,
checked my license, and wrote
me a $250 ticket for littering.

wow...absolutely fucking wow.

**steve** · 07-09-2007, 10:04 AM

sounds like these guys need to justify their existence.
the more tickets they write, the larger their agency's budget will be next year.
justice? who cares? money! weee!!

**hutash** · 07-09-2007, 10:25 AM

I don't know how Wyoming fishing regs. are written, but unless there is a clause in there about leave a line unattended, picking up a rod and handing it to some one does not constitute fishing. Probably not worth the time and expense to fight, but these type of things piss me off. I have a lot of respect for GW's , and law enforcement in general, but when they act like dicks, it ruins it for the rest of the good ones. If nothing else write a long nasty letter to their supervisors.

**sftc** · 07-09-2007, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Tye 1on

...Ended up camping upstream from two dudes, and saw them at the first rapid the next morning, which was just below camp.... they identified themselves as fish/game officers, and asked to see my license....

That sounds a little bit Brokeback Mt. to me, I bet you could have found a way to get out of that ticket if you really wanted to.

A couple of years ago we had an undercover guy walk right into camp outside of Moab. Just showed up like a stranger. I thought he was a neighbor camper introducing himself and the next thing I knew he was writing us a ticket for having out-of-state, not 3.2%, micro brews. He made us dump the beers, but luckly he didn't bother to dig around and find all the good booze and other good stuff we had stashed away.

We also got stalked on a booze cruise float down the Colorado from Pump house to State Bridge. 3 rangers, without visble badges, fished and floated around us all day. We figured they were some horny old guys checking out the girls in our group, but later on we watched them bust some kids with beers at the State Bridge parking lot. Again, we were lucky because we were in a 'beer only' group of people.

That's my 2 cents, but it's fairly obvious that they are looking at these types of fines as a way to increase revenue. Budgets are tight and they've already jacked up all of the fees so they have to find new ways to bring in the $$$.

**TyWebb** · 07-09-2007, 10:49 AM

I was duck hunting about 10 years ago when we used to reload our own shells. We were very dilligent about keeping lead and steel seperate with a painted mark on each shell. We were stopped by a DNR warden coming off the water. He took a magnet to every single shell in about 10 total boxes between 3 boats. Took forever. Found one lead shell (mismarked by color) and immediately wrote a $250 ticket for knowingly carring lead into waterfowl territory. I would not call 1 shell out of more than 250 "knowingly", but I suppose. I was in the wrong, just seems common sense escapes these guys sometimes.

**bio-smear** · 07-09-2007, 10:53 AM

I wonder if they still watch with binoculars while you get a little backwoods poon.

**xboat** · 07-09-2007, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by TyWebb

I was duck hunting about 10 years ago when we used to reload our own shells. We were very dilligent about keeping lead and steel seperate with a painted mark on each shell. We were stopped by a DNR warden coming off the water. He took a magnet to every single shell in about 10 total boxes between 3 boats. Took forever. Found one lead shell (mismarked by color) and immediately wrote a $250 ticket for knowingly carring lead into waterfowl territory. I would not call 1 shell out of more than 250 "knowingly", but I suppose. I was in the wrong, just seems common sense escapes these guys sometimes.

but these fuckers are never around the marsh when people are shooting before/after legal hours, above limits or dumping trash at the boat ramps.
we have a shooting range close to the marsh that people aren't supposed to start target practice before 10am during duck season. it never fails that some jackass is out there at 8am sighting in a 30-06. talk about flaring the ducks!

nope, you'll never see a game warden then...

**TyWebb** · 07-09-2007, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by xboat

but these fuckers are never around the marsh when people are shooting before/after legal hours, above limits or dumping trash at the boat ramps.
we have a shooting range close to the marsh that people aren't supposed to start target practice before 10am during duck season. it never fails that some jackass is out there at 8am sighting in a 30-06. talk about flaring the ducks!

nope, you'll never see a game warden then...

Completely true. Every morning - 7am sunrise, 6am shots fired. Just about done setting decoys and there's not a bird on the water after that.