Meandering Angler: Fly-fisher’s Camelot?

Dottie still describes the first fishing lodge I ever took her decades ago as “worse than Hitchcock’s Bates Motel.” It was just a few hours drive from Sonoma in the Sierras east of Redding. Near or far, she never let me forget it.

So recently we went a lot farther, driving east on I-80, across Nevada’s high desert to Wells, Nevada, then north to Twin Falls, where we crossed the Snake River and kept on going north and east, more or less following the Snake toward its headwaters near Yellowstone National Park.

The Snake, once known as the Lewis River, for Meriwether Lewis, who journeyed on it in 1805, was known by Native Americans as the Shawpatin long before Lewis and Clark passed through, and is the longest tributary of the Columbia River, which ultimately led those two explorers to the Pacific.

Dottie and I were headed the opposite direction.

Our destination took us northeast to one of its tributaries, Henry’s Fork, named for Andrew Henry, a fur trader who built a fort on its banks in 1810.

The plateau and ancient caldera through which Henry’s Fork meanders looked pretty wild to me. I could imagine how teeming with wildlife and fish it must have been when those early explorers trekked through.

Modern civilization changed all that, but the Henry’s Fork River has managed to maintain a healthy population of wild trout (no hatchery fish) and has a reputation as one of the premier fly-fishing streams in the country. That’s what made it a likely place to find my imagined “Camelot of Fly-fishing.”

Without trout, no lodge, no matter how exquisite, could measure up, so location is a really big deal. Owner Nelson Ishiyama and award-winning architect Joseph Esherick, both avid fly-fishers, appear to have found that winning combination.

Nestled in a dense pine forest, it sits on a bluff overlooking the river in a way that calls to angler guests, “Fish me!” The lodge itself fits so naturally in the location that it’s best appreciated from the inside.

The wood and natural stone design reminded me of the first time I walked into the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite years ago. Much smaller than the Ahwahnee of course, it has six guest rooms on the second floor of the main lodge, including two deluxe suites with large fireplaces and spectacular view of the river. Adjacent to the main building are eight cottage suites, all with separate bedrooms, sitting rooms and cozy fireplaces. The decor includes turn-of-the-century Navajo rugs and other original works of art.

Guests can enjoy cocktails and conversations by the fireplace in the cozy lounge which opens onto a wide outdoor porch overlooking the river, a perfect place to relax after a day’s fishing.

Even with its exquisite decor, the best part of the lodge is its warm and professional staff, starting with General Manager Jamie Short, who pays careful attention to the needs of guests and goes out of his way to help and be accommodating. His natural warmth and attention to detail clearly inspires his staff and is especially noticeable in the dining room, which offers cuisine that is finer than we’ve enjoyed in any fishing lodge anywhere and including many five-star hotels in places without trout streams.

It is that kind of service and quality that has earned Henry’s Fork Lodge high praise in magazines like Bon Appétit and Sunset Magazine, and its inclusion in The New York Times bestseller “1,000 Places to see Before You Die,” one of just two fishing lodges so honored.

Our Sonoma friends Tom and Katherine Culligan, Chad Overway and Jeanne Montague joined us for our stay and agreed that the lodging, dining, decor and hospitality were the best of any fishing lodge we’d ever stayed.

But what about the fishing?

Did the Henry’s Fork River’s fishing match the near perfection of the lodge?

I’ll try to answer that question next week.