Jackson Hole

October 7– 13, 2026

The Seventh Annual Fly-Fishing Reunion

The anglers converged on Jackson Hole from various corners of the country to celebrate the seventh anniversary of our fly-fishing trip. Bill, our spiritual guide and fly-fishing leader, was sidelined by urgent cervical spine surgery. Fortunately, it went well, and he should be roaring to go in 2027. His grandson, Mason, joined us in his stead. Distracted by his studies, Nikhil had to skip this annual pilgrimage.

AJ and I left Bakersfield in the Balbir-Mobile on Wednesday, October 7, ahead of an early-morning flight on the 8th. The obligatory travails of a multi-pronged journey began early: water dripped onto the toilet seat in my hotel room, forcing an unnecessary back-and-forth with the front desk before they produced an alternate room.

John and Mason, Manoj and Jacob, AJ and I, and Baj arrived as planned; Dinesh, Rohan, and Mukul arrived a day later. After some persuasion, the Four Seasons credited us for the night our tardy anglers’ rooms sat empty, which was much-needed relief for AJ. The rumor that Bill Gates owns the place is, as it turns out, mostly true: his Cascade Investment has held a controlling 71 percent stake in Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts since 2022. One trusts the credit did not unduly burden him.

The valley takes its name from David Jackson, a partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, who is said to have wintered on the shores of Jackson Lake in 1829. To the mountain men, a hole was a high valley ringed by mountains, and Jackson’s partner, William Sublette, began calling this one Jackson’s Hole. The possessive has since been politely dropped.

We spent the first day hiking and sightseeing, and we outfitted ourselves with waders and other fishing gear. The Tetons have a naughty French name. French-Canadian trappers, evidently long in the field, christened the three most prominent peaks Les Trois T’tons, the three breasts. Regardless of the name, the Tetons have a formidable, majestic appearance, further accentuated by fresh snow a day or two later. The Grand Teton tops out at 13,775 feet. Geologically, the range is a teenager, among the youngest in the Rockies at less than ten million years old, and because it rises along an active fault with no foothills to soften the approach, it soars some 7,000 feet straight up from the valley floor. Grand Teton National Park was established in 1929 and expanded in 1950 to include the Jackson Hole National Monument, much of whose land John D. Rockefeller Jr. quietly bought through a front company and then donated to the nation.

A walk along Jenny Lake is heavenly. The lake fills a basin gouged by a glacier that once poured out of Cascade Canyon, and it is more than 200 feet deep. It is named for Jenny Leigh, a Shoshone woman who, with her husband, the British-born trapper Richard Beaver Dick Leigh, assisted the Hayden survey of 1872; the grateful surveyors named the couple Jenny and Leigh Lakes. Their story ends sadly: Jenny and all six of their children died of smallpox in 1876.

We gathered for breakfast and dinner daily at Westbank Grill, the Four Seasons mountain steakhouse. The kids ventured out for dinner once to break the monotony, and the whole gang dined at the Snake River Lodge on Monday night before leaving the next day.

The fishing was average but fun. We floated four segments of the Snake River in Idaho, on its South Fork, which runs 66 miles from Palisades Dam through Swan Valley to its confluence with the Henrys Fork. The first segment, with its canyon walls and waterfalls, was easily the prettiest; Fall Creek Falls spills straight into the river just above the Swan Valley Bridge. The scenery was stunning, and the weather leaned cold, which I preferred. The South Fork is regarded as one of the nation’s premier blue-ribbon trout fisheries. It hosted the 1997 World Fly-Fishing Championship, supports the largest native cutthroat fishery outside Yellowstone, and is lined by the largest riparian cottonwood forest in the West.

Fortunately, Mukul, Rohan, and Jacob landed rainbow and brown trout measuring 20-plus inches. Autumn is brown-trout season on the South Fork, when the big browns turn aggressive ahead of spawning and chase streamers with abandon.

The camaraderie, the banter, and the unexpressed love are the magnet that tugs us back to this annual reunion, and, as usual, there was no dearth of any of them.

We missed Bill and Nik, but we were delighted to FaceTime them during our last dinner at the Snake River Lodge. Next year, we will need them in person.

Great memories, decent fishing, stunning scenery, and a wonderful reunion- till next year.

Lest we forget: no bugs, no heat, and no bears, except the one we spotted from the car in Grand Teton National Park.