For those of you fortunate enough to live in Jackson Hole, you know what I’m talking about:  lately we’ve been blessed with warm temperatures (61 degrees feels absolutely glorious this time of year!), perfectly clear bluebird skies, and the kind of cool nights that make sleeping in all too easy to let happen.  Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end; we have sleet and freezing rain forecast for the weekend.  If today’s weather could be duplicated every day until Thanksgiving, I’d be a happy camper.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and I was thinking about dressing up as a fisherman on the last day of fishing season.  Reason being that fishing on Flat Creek on the National Elk Refuge closes until next August at sundown tomorrow.  The stretch flowing through the Refuge is the only fly-fishing-only water in the state of Wyoming, and I have to tell you, I’m never more satisfied after a day of going fishless than I am being handed the skunk by this little jewel of a spring creek.  Purists will tell you that this piece of water is only to be fished with dry flies, and while I enjoy stripping streamers for big trout, I’ve been brainwashed by those same purists into keeping only a selection of dries in my Flat Creek kit that I keep at the ready this time of year.  What do I have to show for my allegiance to this brand of fanaticism?  In four trips to Flat Creek the past few weeks, I’ve made precisely ZERO casts, because of an absence of bugs and rising trout. This is OK with me, because there’s so much more to the experience than just the trout.

During the month of October, elk begin to get pushed out of the high country, with some finding their way onto the Refuge, by a combination of snow, cold temperatures, and a disappearing food supply.  The number of elk on the refuge varies from year to year, but usually ranges between 8000 and 11000 animals.  It’s quite a kick to be standing in the creek looking for trout and hearing big bull elk bugling in an effort to try to make little elk.  Last year, I watched three adult wolves scoping out the elk herd looking for a meal! If you’re in Jackson Hole after fishing closes, a local concessionaire runs sleigh rides onto the Refuge, allowing the chance to see these amazing animals up close and personal.

Until the weather gets too cold to grip the fly rod, I’ll be taking every chance I get to spend time outdoors fishing for big brown trout on rivers around Jackson Hole.  With ski season and truly freezing temperatures still almost six weeks away, I think my chances of catching a few before hanging up the 5-weight for the year are good.

Hi Neil.

For the two or three of you who read my post from yesterday (thanks, mom and dad), this is a follow-up to that.  I have a client who made an offer on a home in the Aspens, a great neighborhood here in Jackson Hole.  The home had been on the market for a little more than two months, and had seen several price reductions in order to affect a quick sale.

After seeing no action for the first 60+ days, the offer we tendered was suddenly competing with two others.  For those of you keeping score at home, I’m sorry to report that ours was not the winning offer, but the fact that in a down market, we had competition brings up an interesting point:  THERE ARE SOME GREAT DEALS TO BE FOUND OUT THERE!

With a little extra work ahead of time and if eyes and ears are kept open, this will prove not to be an isolated case.  Once (if) the sales price is made public, I believe people will realize what a great deal this was, which may help loosen up a few checkbooks.

Dulcius ex asperis.  I promise.

While hiking with a friend this weekend, the topic of real estate came up in discussion, as it frequently does with this particular person.  He and I both started in this business at the same time, going through real estate school together, and sharing a desk at the office for a while, before he left to focus on new project development and I stayed with the same company to focus on brokering ranch and recreational real estate.

Anyhow, we had both separately heard that a local economic guru had likened what is happening in the local/national/global economy to someone having hit the RESET button, sending the market instantly back to 2003.  Tough as this may be to accept (aren’t home prices ALWAYS supposed to increase?) it would certainly seem that this is truly the case.  I’m trying to sell a home right this second that was put on the market four months ago in the low one-million range and it looks as though the home might sell in the low-$800K range.  While there are some extenuating circumstances surrounding this particular sale, it was a good buy at its original price and is a smokin’ deal IF it ends up going in the low 8s like I think it will.  The last single-family home to sell at this price in this neighborhood?  You guessed it:  2003.
What does any of this mean?  I think it means that this is a great time to buy real estate, especially in Jackson Hole.  It’s just not the easiest time to do so.