Let's Talk Wyoming - The Heart of Community: High School Hoops, Local Tackle Craftsmanship, and Honoring Heroes

As a Wyoming local, I've felt the pulse of our community in every spine-tingling buzzer-beater at high school basketball games and in the quiet hum of a tackle maker's workshop. Join me, Mark Hamilton, on a journey where we'll witness the unpredictable dance of early spring weather in Hot Springs County and share in the edge-of-your-seat thrills from the West Regional 3A basketball tournament. Feel the intensity as the fate of Thermopolis and Worland teams teeter on crucial free throws, and revel in stories of sportsmanship that transcend the court.

This episode also casts a line into the rich stream of Wyoming's fishing tackle heritage, where the ingenuity of local craftsmen enhances our angling adventures. We honor the legacy of Desmond Doss, whose battlefield courage during World War II still echoes through our valleys, and we face the poignant reality of loss within our University of Wyoming family. So, whether it's embracing the heartfelt craftsmanship that's embedded in our fishing culture or confronting the trials that test our resolve, this episode is a tribute to the strength and spirit of Wyoming's people.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Good morning and welcome to let's Talk Wyoming. I'm Mark Hamilton, your host. Today we'll be taking a look at Wyoming weather. Of course We'll be looking at Wyoming high school sports and sportsmanship, we'll have a movie review and then we'll talk about a tragedy that affected our University of Wyoming community and finally we'll talk about fishing tackle and how it started here in the state of Wyoming. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy the show. Taking a look at Wyoming weather Today.

Speaker 1: 1:04

We are at the seventh day of March. February is behind us. I know a lot of the areas around us have had some snow. I saw reports this week that Jackson, wyoming, had 70 inches of snow and got a little bit of that effects from that big snow that hit California and the Sierras and such that caused really all types of problems. But right here in Hot Springs County we have not had any snow. It's been just a little bit chilly. It just really hasn't warmed up. We've just had an average March day here A little bit of wind, a little bit of cool. Never really warms up, but it's not 10 below where we don't have snow on the ground. So I noticed this week that we had robins out and when you start seeing the robins you know spring is right around the corner. Had three out in the yard and they're getting busy. I just love the robins. I see some green coming up, but here in Wyoming and in my neck of the woods it looks pretty good Right now. I know we'll have a little bit of a storm here and there, but it's looking like we're getting closer to spring. Easter's right around the corner and I did notice in a week spring ahead. I want to mess around with that time. It's early this year, easter is early.

Speaker 1: 2:12

So in Wyoming sports we had here in Hot Springs County last weekend. We had the West Regional, the 3A West Regional 24 games over three days and had an opportunity to volunteer at the event. I do public announcer for the games. I've done that for quite a few years and really enjoy it. Enjoy taking in the games and being able to get a good seat right on the court and it was rather interesting after a weekend of reflecting on it. The purpose of high school sports is to teach young people about life is my opinion and we did see a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 2:45

There were a lot of ups and downs during the weekend. Our Thermopolis boys team. They came in, they lost their first game. Then they had to play Friday. They lost to Pinedale the first game and then they had to turn around and play Mountain View. It came down to right at the end of the game and Bobcats were down by one point. They came down the floor Time was running out, kicked the ball out to the side and one of our seniors took a shot and I was in perfect line where I announced from on the floor to the basket and he shoots a rainbow shot. It stayed up in the air forever as everybody was on the edge of their seats and it went through Nothing but net. As the buzzer went off, the crowd erupted and it was just amazing the reaction.

Speaker 1: 3:33

But it's, it's that heartbreak and I guess that's life out there. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. It can change that quick and those kids, from out view, ended up having to go home and had lost the game, ended up losing there. There are two games and after two games you you're eliminated. Their season was over and their coach had to go in and talk to those kids and, being a coach in the past, I know that's the hardest time of the year when the last game is here and you have to talk to those seniors and they realize that this is their last game high school game. It's a long trip home and it's the long off season for the Bobcats. You try to not celebrate too much because you have another game the next day. But it was good in Bobcat land. The girls also won a game.

Speaker 1: 4:19

So everybody the Bobcat teams, the boys and girls were gonna play on again. They lived to play another day, the expression goes, and they both were playing on Saturday. The girls played that morning. They played a team from Lyman and they ended up losing that game. It was close. Lyman just had a little bit more that morning and ended up beating the Lady Bobcats and so the Lady Bobcats were eliminated. And then our boys team played. It was against Worland Arch rival. I would say I don't know if anybody really considers that anymore, but 30 miles apart and they're from Washkey County, we're in Hot Springs County have played during the regular season, had split both those games. The last one was a really close one here in Thermopolis. The winner of this game goes to the state tournament and so it meant a lot for both teams.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Now, now Worland, the night before they had lost to Powell who ended up winning the tournament. They lost pretty convincingly by 30 points. So you had Worland coming in. That just got drugged the night before. The Thermopolis kids came in Ecstatic. So you really don't know how everybody's gonna react. But the Bobcats played a great game. So did Worland. Every time Worland or Thermop would get a lady, other team would come back, and late the Bobcats had a lead. Worland came back and tied it right.

Speaker 1: 5:37

About six seconds left in the game Bobcats called timeout, ran a play, tried to go along with the ball. Of course they were needing to inbound and go the length of the court to get to the basket and they ran a play, Isolated a player and sent him along and the ball went up. The ball Karimmed around and everybody went flying and the whistle blew and the official called a foul on Thermopolis with just a couple seconds left. And so the Worland player. He had to go to the line. It was a tie game now and the place was just. Everybody was on the edge of their seats. We're back to where we were the day before.

Speaker 1: 6:14

He missed the first free throw. I was kind of hoping to continue this game on. It was kind of a tough way to end this game if a Free throw was going to be the decider on a play like that. He did make the second free throw and Thermopolis tried to inbound the ball, couldn't get anything done and Worland ended up winning by one point. And so they were ecstatic. They knew that they had qualified to go to the state tournament and the Thermopolis team was totally deflated and, as you see, within 24 hours Both teams had suddenly this change of heart, the emotions. Thermopolis was this close winning that thing, they didn't, and their season was over. And then day before they were the ones at the end of the game that were totally ecstatic about winning the game. Thermopolis would have pulled that out. The Whirling kids would have been the same way. Their season had been over, and it turned out Whirling ended up playing that night, saturday 8.30. Game got done way after 10 o'clock. They did beat Pinedale, so they ended up taking third. So they are headed to the tournament.

Speaker 1: 7:20

The team from Powell played level in the championship game on the boys side, and level was ahead till the end when Powell scored. Well, sure enough, in this game same thing happened. The level team was ahead and they ended up losing by two points. And again Powell was ecstatic the level kids. They had some satisfaction. They took second, but they were this close to winning that championship. They all qualified to go to state.

Speaker 1: 7:45

And it goes back to another subject that was kind of bothering me a little bit over the weekend is fans that are yelling and screaming and every call is critical of, every call of the officials. Sometimes the coaches are as bad as, maybe worse than, the fans and the officials are just out there doing this job. That's really hard, with everybody being critical of them, where people need to sit back and just watch the game, enjoy the chance to take in such an athletic event. Yes, those officials might make a mistake, but they're doing the best job they can. 9.10.

Speaker 1: 8:20

Had a chance to re-watch a movie that I'd seen years ago and I would recommend it. If you need a feel good moment, I would caution. There's a pretty gory movie but it's about war. This was Hacksaw Ridge. It was directed by Mel Gibson and the film focuses on the World War II experiences of a Desmond Doss. He's the main character in the movie.

Speaker 1: 8:41

He was an American pacifist combat medic. He was also a seven day Adventist Christian and he refused to carry any type of weapon or firearm of any kind, and he became the first conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor for service, above and beyond a call of duty, during the Battle of Okinawa. And what this gentleman went through and what he did that day it's almost impossible to think that one human could do this. But he went through a lot. He received a lot of negativity from his fellow soldiers but he continued on. He wanted to make a difference. He wanted to save people, he wanted to be there and he was a devout Christian. Of course in the movie he carried his Bible with him at all times. And they had went up on Hacksaw Ridge and the battle was very bloody. A lot of people were wounded. They really just took a pounding. They ended up. Everybody left. There was a long rope ladder. You had to go off the cliff. You've probably seen the movie, you'll see this and he stayed up there and was rescuing his fellow GIs I saw later talking to him years later. I don't have a lot of those people left and right now I think we need a lot of Desmond Dosses out there to save us. A positive, feel good movie about the power of man, especially when that man has the power of God with him, he can do many things.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Finally, for all of our Wyoming fans, they're well aware of what's happened here recently. A couple of weeks ago our University of Wyoming community was hit by the loss of three swimmers in a car accident. They were coming back from Fort Collins on 287 and everybody has traveled that area. That is a two-lane road with some passing lanes and such, but it is a treacherous road that has a lot of traffic. It's not a good road. There's been a lot of accidents and deaths. We lost a cross-country team that our van was ran into and the van was killed. There's this death on that road all the time and it hits hard for the swim team and the University of Wyoming campus and just the people of Wyoming.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Anytime we have a car accident it is just devastating, especially for young kids that go that early. People have talked about what are the answers and have been driven a lot of miles and worked for a company that really safety was number one priority. You can tell people, especially when you're driving on a road that has a history of issues, drive defensively. But it's never easy for anybody that gets that type of phone call that has that impact. Here in the state of Wyoming we go through periods when it gets worse than I know Recently. Out on the road it just seems like people are in such a hurry, not willing to slow down. It's got to be someplace, want to pass somebody, and just before that we lost a family young family and a baby who were killed in a head-on accident. And it just never stops with this traffic situation and driving safely. But again, folks, all the prayers go out to the families that were affected and all the prayers to all those people that are affected by car accidents. It's never an easy situation, so always the message is drive defensively, turn on your lights and slow down, take your time and if the conditions are such not very good, travel, don't go, stay home, wait till the roads conditions change and then take an opportunity to go and buckle up and maybe a life of your own that you're saving.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Today, since we are getting a little bit warmer, spring is right around the corner. We wanted to go to a story from Wild History dot org and this one is just pretty much fresh off. The press Story is on flies, lures and tackle a Wyoming tradition, and this is by Cheryl O'Brien. Susie Jacobson remembers that when she was growing up in Sheridan, wyoming, she couldn't always depend on bath time. Her father, arnold Jacobson, founder of Jake's Lures, often experimented in the family clawed foot bathtub with fishing lures action. She says bath plans had to work around his schedule. Jake's lures business has evolved throughout its operation. Early fishing tackle makers have been using and modifying tackle for close to 2,000 years. Updated knowledge, fishing objectives, techniques, material and craftsmanship and technology all play a role.

Speaker 1: 13:18

A small number of Wyoming archaeological sites have yielded American Indian fishing artifacts. At Mummy Cave near Cody, wyoming, evidence likely attributed to fishing includes fragments of fish, bones and scales, pieces of net and not stones, probably net weights and a bone harpoon point dating back approximately 1,300 years ago. Evidence of probable fishing, including fish bones and not-so-pebbles also likely net weights, were found at Wyoming sites in the Green River Basin and they date between 1,500 and 1,000 years ago. Native Americans use many methods to catch fish, such as basket traps, weirs, drip nets, harpoons, spears and hooks. They also built dams and streams and rocks and branches to capture fish with nets, sacks and their hands. Archaeologists estimate that fish compromised 15 to 20 percent of the Sheebeater Indians diet. Anthropologists Dimitri Simpkin worked on the Wind River Indian Reservation in the mid-20th century. In his field journals he included information about the Shoshone fishing techniques.

Speaker 1: 14:28

East traveler and settler brought their fishing tackle with them to Wyoming from the eastern United States and Europe. Reports, records and diaries from travelers, early communities and military expeditions throughout Wyoming include documentation of fishing tackle. Mormon leader Wilford Woodriff noted in his journal that he stopped near Fort Bridger on his way to Salt Lake Valley to fish in 1847. He caught about a dozen fish using artificial flies and his trout rod from Liverpool, england. Early Wyoming fishing. Artifacts recovered include a reel found at Fort Steill and a lure at South Pass City. Captain John Burke traveled with General George Crook on Crook's expedition through the big ones and described their fishing experience starting from the main camp on July 4, 1876. He relates that officers and soldiers fished with the rudest appliances and caught hundreds and thousands of fine fish. The fish they didn't immediately eat were salted, dried or smoked. Also, when they used their imported and manufactured flies they had no success. However, when they used a willow branch and a line baited with a grasshopper, they caught a three-pound trout.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Early Wyoming outfitters took their clients on fishing excursions which included guide services and tackle. From 1906 to 1916, photographer Ned Frost and Fred Richards of Cody Base Frost and Richard Camping Company led tours into Yellowstone National Park. They provided 18-day trips for up to 150 guests which included fishing, sightseeing and photography. The trips offered a tourist a popular method of fishing from horseback. While the guide assisted them with their catch, clients remained safely on their horse, keeping their feet dry.

Speaker 1: 16:18

As Wyoming became more settled, new resident Wyoming tackle makers emerged. They started to modify existing tackle and create their own equipment specific to the waters they fish. Tackle makers reels, rods, flies and lures evolved with their new ideas To accommodate the conditions of the local river stream and lakes. They used a variety of material and tackle improvements. At least five early reel makers received government patents for the Wyoming reel. They built Leland Brown and Jerry Doles From Worland we are granted a patent in 1938 for the pre-Wilden Casting Reel. Dempsey Luton 4th generation family outfitter from Jackson Wyoming had 3 patents. Two fishing reel patents were granted to Luton in 1945 and 1950. An additional patent filed with Carl Johnson was granted in 1949 for an electric fishing reel. Hugo Hasey from Sheridan Wyoming was also granted patent in 1952 for a fly rod spinning reel.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Today's makers continue to modify reels. Zach Sexton of OCR Fly Reels in Buffalo, wyoming, describes his OCR Big Horn Fly Reel as the only US semi-automatic reel. The reel is aircraft grade aluminum. When a lever is engaged, it picks up the slack in your line quickly by engaging several multiple gears. The major feature of the reel is a push button adjustment to slide your reel forward and back and lock in place to balance it properly with your rod. Sexton claims the precision programming is all important when making the perfect fly reel. Today, sexton says he enjoys working with a company that is forward thinking when designing new fishing products.

Speaker 1: 18:09

With honor and respect to the history of fly fishing, rod builders across the state continue to create custom rods using a variety of designs and material. Jc McNeil from Aftum, wyoming, makes custom rods using several types of wood. He especially likes to work with Aspen and Juniper because these woods are strong, have beautiful color, are light and have character. Mark Lambert has been making custom rods in his shop at Fort Washakie, wyoming, for almost 25 years. Lambert is a third generation rod builder who started building rods at age 8 with his family in Hatteras, north Carolina. He makes rods for all types of fishing, including fly ice, offshore and inshore. He uses a variety of materials such as graphite, e-glass a newer, lighter version of fiberglass and bamboo.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Lambert's rod building process involves several steps, including splaining, sanding and making the cork handles, wrapping, glassing and applying reel seats and guards. He can take an average of 20 hours to build a custom rod. Lambert built the equipment he needed for building rods. For example, the modified base of a screen door holds the rod in place. A sewing machine motor controls the speed of the rod's revolution while he is wrapping.

Speaker 1: 19:28

When I recently visited Lambert, he was working on a custom rod for the Native American guide who takes his clients into the backcountry to fish. The guide specified rod wrappings to match his dancing regalia colors. Lambert uses blue, red, metallic red, yellow, orange and turquoise to create a geometric pattern to complement his customers' tribal regalia. Lambert says wrapping is a dying art. He creates his own pattern, such as an American flag and highly technical fishing pattern. When someone contacts Lambert to make a custom rod, he asks them how they fish and what they want In order to assemble a personalized rod. Lambert has customers in other states and even from other countries. He enjoys the serenity in creating his own custom rod. He can sit for hours listening to music and wrapping rods.

Speaker 1: 20:22

Wombing has many skilled, well-known and respected fly tires and their signature fly patterns. They have created new designs and modified existing patterns to work best for their specific needs. New ideas, techniques and material lead to the development of a new fly pattern. Customers use their knowledge of local aquatic insects to help them imitate insects in their flies. Location, water conditions and target fish are all factors that can determine with a fly that will be created.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Marvin Nolte of Barn and Unwhelming ties unique classic Atlantic salmon flies. Although a fisherman can use Nolte's flies, he makes them to be framed for display. Nolte says the history of the antique fly heavily influenced his interest in his craftsmanship. Old books help him to study the old patterns and materials. He follows the old recipe as closely as possible.

Speaker 1: 21:16

To get necessary materials Nolte sometimes has to go to extremes. Classic flies had a blind hook, that is, the hook with no eye Makers. Attached it in a loop to the hook, three strands of silkworm guts. First he had to find a source of blind hooks, locating a maker in England Deciding to raise his own silkworm. He purchased eggs, but then he had to solve the problem of feeding the caterpillars. They ate mulberry leaves which Nolte obtained from the fields in western US. Finding the exact feathers was another problem. When specific feathers were unobtainable or protected by law, he makes close substitutions. To make a classic fly requires about four to five hours. Nolte considers himself an artesian or craftsman who accurately reproduces someone else's creation, as with his colorful Atlantic Salmon Fly. Since 1986, throughout his professional career, he has tied 2,182 Atlantic Salmon Flies. He enjoys this mental release while tying his classic flies and also enjoys the challenge of being deliberate and precise.

Speaker 1: 22:25

In Sheridan, jake's Lures is a fourth-generation family-run business that has had many changes. Arnold Jacobson founded it in early 1950, working at his kitchen table, never advertised and selling the flures on consignment. He etched them, hand-painted them with wire and baked them in his home oven. His daughter, susie, took over the business in 1986. Her son, kevin Songer, owns the business today. His daughter, sarah, works at Jake's Lures and looking forward to running the business in the future. The family business and market have evolved throughout their 70 years of operation. Modern machinery has updated the process. A pad printing machine, for example, is used to print the colors and pattern on the lure. Today's Jake's Lures sell lures wholesale from a facility in Sheridan, wyoming. In addition, they sell to retailers across the United States and other countries such as Canada and Australia.

Speaker 1: 23:22

These makers are just a few examples of the variety of such people across the state. They and their crafts have evolved over the years, with their craftsmanship and ingenuity driving them to use new methods, materials and technology, but their goals today remain the same as those of earlier tackle makers to provide the best product possible to improve the success of fishermen and the quality of their experience. That's a great story going into our spring, and we're getting close to that time where a lot of our mountain streams will start being fishable. The history of this is just amazing the amount of people and the amount of work that go through this, and the craftsmen are right here in the state of Wyoming. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy our podcast. As per the Code of the West, we ride for the brand and we ride for Wyoming. Three, two, one, three, two, one go.