Ray Sasser

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SARATOGA, Wyo. – It's impossible to say how many hidden jewels in western America equal the Upper North Platte River Valley. Given a million-dollar travel budget and the remaining summers of my life, I'd be willing to do the research.

It might take awhile to stumble onto Saratoga. Southeastern Wyoming is more than 1,000 miles from Dallas, after all. Luckily for me, Charlie Dana made the discovery an easy one. Retired from the public relations game, Dana and his wife, Ellie Luce Dana, a retired computer software specialist, live the best of both worlds, spending winters in Dallas and summers in Wyoming.

Even the Danas needed a map to find Saratoga. Their Dallas neighbors, Bob and Betty Verplank, provided it. The Verplanks are the parents of PGA Tour golfer Scott, and they like Wyoming summers for golfing and hiking.

Ellie rides horses, watches the abundant wildlife and plays golf. Charlie golfs when not pursuing his real passion, fly-fishing for trout. In Carbon County, the trout and the antelope outnumber the people, even during the relatively busy tourist time of summer.

The scenic valley is nestled between the Medicine Bow Mountains and the Sierra Madres. Coming in from Laramie over the Snowy Range Scenic Byway is like driving through Colorado's high country without the traffic jams.

For a trout angler like Dana, who grew up on Vermont's best streams, each day is a roulette wheel of indecision with no losing bets. Let's see: Do I sample the blue-ribbon stretches of the North Platte, one of America's few rivers that flow north, or do I drive up into the mountains and fish in tiny cascading streams for exquisite brook trout that have never seen an artificial fly?

"Either way, you can't lose," Dana said. "This area may be one of America's best-kept secrets. The fishing is great, the summer weather is great and the natives are the friendliest people you'll ever meet."

Some of them, like Mike "Hack" Patterson, are as colorful as a native brook trout. Patterson owns Hack's Tackle & Outfitters, a business he started after the ups and downs of a sawmill career. One of the downs cost Patterson his right leg below the knee. Undaunted, he sports a prosthesis decorated with a trout motif – brown trout prominent on the front, rainbow less prominent on the back.

"That's because wild brown trout are the dominant fish in the North Platte," Patterson said. "The best stretches have fish populations estimated at 3,500 to 4,000 trout per mile. We've got 6,000 miles of trout streams in the county and 100 high mountain lakes in the Snowy Range. Carbon County has a population of 15,000 people. If you can't find a place to fish by yourself, you're not trying."

My wife, Emilie, and I started with the county's most crowded waters, the North Platte. Hack's guides do most of their fishing on 50 to 60 miles of the North Platte's most productive waters. At 8 a.m. on a Saturday, we climbed into a drift boat piloted by one of Hack's star guides, Jeremy Smith.

We launched the comfortable drift boat at a municipal ramp in the city limits and fished right through the picturesque town without seeing another angler. Casting a wooly bugger trailed by a tiny nymph, we landed 10 trout on the half-day float.

The average fish was 12 to 16 inches, though I lost a rainbow that might have measured 20 inches. A lifetime of heavy-handed bass fishing makes it hard to finesse a big trout.

Mule deer fed along the river banks. Osprey and bald eagles soared overhead, the only other anglers we saw until very late in the morning. My wife and I are not what you might call expert fly fishers, but Hack is right when he says you don't have to be snooty with your presentation to catch fish on the North Platte.

"Most years, the best fishing occurs from the middle of June through the middle of July," Patterson said. "If you can hit the water with a fly, you'll catch some fish that time of year."

The next morning, Dana took us into the Snowy Range in his Jeep, climbing to nearly 9,000 feet on rugged forest service roads. We stopped at South Brush Creek, an icy spring creek barely 15 feet across. Each tiny pool below a rock serving as a current break held naive native brook trout that seemed hand-painted by the finest artist.

Casting was difficult because of overhanging vegetation, but the fish were abundant and would pretty much bite any dry fly that entered their feeding zone. We also tried a high-mountain lake, which we had all to ourselves, except for a family riding ATVs along the rocky road.

That afternoon, we drove past herds of pronghorn antelope, scattered mule deer, sage grouse and brilliant mountain bluebirds that seemed to rise in coveys until we reached another spring creek, this one on a private ranch that Dana had secured permission to fish.

Here, the native browns were almost as aggressive as the high-mountain brook trout. On second thought, maybe I could spend the remaining summers of my life researching the fishing around Saratoga and thereby save a lot of drive time.

Where: Southeastern Wyoming, west of Laramie, just over 1,000 miles from Dallas, about a four-hour drive from Denver. Saratoga is in the Upper North Platte River Valley with an elevation of 6,792 feet.

Fishing: Native brook trout, brown trout and rainbow trout are abundant in 6,000 miles of Carbon County streams and 100 high mountain lakes in the Snowy Range.

Dining: Try the historic Hotel Wolf, constructed in 1893 and once operated as a stage coach stop. If you miss Texas fare, stop in at Tommy's Smokehouse for Dallas-style barbecue. Proprietor Tom Simon grew up in the Dallas area and says he doesn't miss the traffic. Save room for dessert just down the street at Lollipops, a custom ice cream shop.

Fishing information, guides: Hack's Tackle & Outfitters, 307-326-9823 or www.hackstackle.com.