This story was first published in the August 2009 issue of Wyoming Wildlife magazine. It was awarded the Best Magazine Humor award in the 2010 Magazine Humor contest of the Outdoor Writers Association of America Excellence In Craft Contests. My buddy Ned was ecstatic. “Can you believe it? There’s nobody here but us!” Ned had parked my truck …
Author Archives: BruceCochran
How we found Lost Lake
This story was published in Wyoming Wildlife magazine in March 2006. It was 1970 and I was driving my new Bronco home from the dealership. My first four wheel drive! No longer would I be confined to the road, forced to fish where others fished. Now I could go ANYWHERE! Bear in mind this was …
Trout fishing on the Yellowstone River
The first thing you’ll notice about these fishing trip photos is that there are no photos of fish. There’s a reason for that. Few fish were caught. Just a few dinks and a couple of whitefish, which are, to the trout fisherman, what coots are to duck hunters. While attending the recent OWAA conference in …
The White-hot White River
Two days on the White River with outfitter/philosopher Miles Riley is what Arkansas trout fishing is all about. We put in Wednesday morning at Rim Shoal and floated down past Shoestring Shoal to Riley’s Station where the Buffalo River meets the White, catching rainbows and a few cutthroats all the way. I don’t count fish …
Colorado trout fishing in the 1950s
This story was first published in the August 2008 issue of Wyoming Wildlife under the title Trout Tourist. “I’m just not going to fish like that!” yelled Doc, my father-in-law, as he stomped back into our rented summer cabin. He hung his fiberglass fly rod on two nails driven into the …
Timber Hills Lakes
Had a great two days at Timber Hills Lakes near Mapleton, KS with the Kansas Outdoor Writers. These folks really treated us nice and I’m looking forward to going back there as soon as possible. Lots of lakes and ponds full of bass, crappie, bluegill and even trout. And they have little two-man (or …
Crane Creek
Crane Creek. I had heard about it long before I was fortunate enough to fish it. Finally in 1999 a Springfield, Missouri DARE cop named Joe Curry and I spent several hours on this beautiful little stream near Springfield. We were accompanied by a local resident of Crane, MO, a fly tier whose name escapes …
Maggie
When I take Maggie to the farm I throw training dummies in the water for her and she chases the ATV (or I chase her) over most of our 200 acres. When we get home she follows me around the house, room to room, until I take the whistle from around my neck and hang it …
Woods full of deer
My friend Scott Morgan has several trail cams out and he keeps coming up with photos of big eastern Kansas whitetails. The big guy in the background is probably going to drop his rack any day now. Makes me want to get out there and go shed hunting before the rodents get to them.
Full Circle
When I first waded into the swift, cold waters of Colorado’s Rio Grande River in 1958, wearing Ked tennis shoes over borrowed stocking foot waders, I hoped to catch a trout… and not fall down and drown. As I became a more proficient wader and angler I started hoping to catch a limit of trout. …