Postcard from the Past: There are Plenty of Fish in Wyoming

By: Dick Perue

Tourist promotional material of a century ago fascinates me with the colorful writing and glorious claims. 

Although the following was written in 1910 about my hometown of Saratoga, “Where the Trout Leap in Main Street,” it could have been penned for any place in the Cowboy State.  

Trout fishing in most Wyoming waters åis famous as the best in the world. It is claimed for the dolphin that he can make the reel sing, but it is like the “Dead March” as compared with the music of the sportsman’s reel when the two-and-a-half- to 10-pound Rainbow trout has the fly in his jaw.

Almost every variety of trout known may be found in the local streams. But for the table, the native variety is unequaled for fish and flavor. Neither is he a slow fighter, and the novice is startled and at a loss to know why he was unable to land the little fellow. 

The native is not found to be small fry at all times. There are places – unfrequented mountain lakes – where he has been found to turn the scales at the two- to three-pound figure. In such places he is shy, and it takes an expert to baffle his cunning.

The river’s tributaries from both mountain ranges teem with the native trout, and the season is an open one all year round.

All fishing waters in mountain and valley are easy of access, and the sportsman may take his family to the grounds in an auto car from his hotel in town and enjoy a day’s, a week’s or a month’s good sport without having to resort to the discomforts or inconveniences of camp life.

Tucked inside the brochure was the following poem:

For Men Only

I saw her swimming in the brook, 

a moment swift and fleeting, 

and from the shock of that brief look, 

my heart almost stopped beating. 

I worked my way around the trees, 

to where the view was clearer, 

and then on trembling hands and knees 

I edged a little nearer. 

I never saw such perfect lines, 

as she was there displaying 

beneath the shade of spreading pines, 

in languid splendor playing. 

Her twists and turns were full of grace, 

her body smoothly molded. 

I know the joy showed on my face, 

as each new charm unfolded. 

And when she floated with the stream, 

the sight was most entrancing.

Her wondrous body seemed to gleam, 

from sunbeams, softly glancing. 

I yearned for her with heart and soul, 

and then I fell to wishing. 

For I had neither fly nor pole, 

and trout are caught by fishing.