The 2002 Trip

 

 

 

2002 Adventures of the “Yellowstone Gang”

who’s motto is: 

“Fish all the famous rivers of the West before you get too old to get out of a Pickup Truck!”

by Andy Batcho

Al, Andy, JR, Mike & Greg –The Yellowstone Gang & Jeff Morgan

 

Chapter 1  “The Plan”

 

The 2002 adventures of the Yellowstone Gang began shortly after the end of the 2001 trip.  Much research took place on the internet, emailing Fly Shops, talking to friends, going to sportsman’s shows, reading & watching fishing programs on TV.

 

The 2002 trip was planned for Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but after much conversation with local fly shops and guides, we discovered that Wyoming law allows the landowner to own land to the middle of the river, versus Montana law where the landowner owns to the high water mark of the river.   So, why does that make a difference, you might ask?   The Yellowstone Gang does much of it’s fishing by walking into new rivers, therefore, bank fishing.   The Wyoming law doesn’t allow us or guides to access rivers from the shore.

Our sources in Wyoming couldn’t identify enough fishing opportunities for us, given the laws, around Jackson Hole so we moved our trip to Craig, Montana and the famous tailwater fishery of the Holter Dam on the Missouri River.

Too bad Wyoming, there’s a hunk of dollars that won’t go into your revenue stream.

Yellowstone Gang members that participated this year were, Al, JR, Mike, Greg & Andy.   We left Seattle at about 1pm on Thursday, July 11, headed east on I-90 and picked Mike up in Spokane where he had a great BBQ chicken dinner on the barbe waiting for us.   After dinner we jumped in the trucks and put on a few more miles ending up in Missoula, Montana at 10 pm.

We’d called ahead to reserve two rooms for 5, but upon arrival the innkeeper, sizing up our crowd, (Andy’s the smallest of the group & Mike’s an ex Dallas Cowboy lineman), must have felt sorry for us and said he wasn’t busy tonight and gave each of us our own room for the same fee.

The next morning we headed out early looking for a great cup of coffee to get us going (a must for a group from “Coffee Town”, USA), only to find that Missoula doesn’t get up very early.   We sat in front of an espresso shop until they opened at 7.  The fly shop next door didn’t open until 8, by then we were on the road.

 

Next stop was Elkstrom’s Stage House on Rock Creek for breakfast.  An old stagecoach stop made up of log buildings of the era.   They had “fresh side pork” (uncured, un-smoked bacon) on the breakfast menu, called “fatback” in the south, All but Andy hadn’t had it before.  With a little convincing to try it, it’s now become a favorite on the Yellowstone gang breakfast menu.

 

Chapter 2  “The Missouri”

 

Off thru Helena, Montana to Craig and the Missouri River.   The Missouri River tailwater below Holter Dam is a world famous “blue ribbon” trout fishery, and we were soon to discover why it has that reputation.

The Missouri flows thru rugged mountains and sagebrush covered hills in this area.  Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery took a year & a half of struggle to reach this point and described the “Gate to the Mountains” just upstream from Holter dam.  After months of dragging their boats upstream thru the Great Plains, they finally saw the source of the river they’d been following as they passed thru the narrow canyon they called the Gate to the Mountains.  What they saw was the snow capped Rocky Mountains.  The Missouri River is made up of the confluence of Gallatin, Jefferson & Madison Rivers at Three Rivers, Mt.

Just downstream from our fishing location, Merewether Lewis also described the “Great Falls of the Missouri”.  Now called Great Falls, Montana.   It took the Corps over a month to portage around this massive series of falls.  This is where Lewis also said, “the men’s curiosity has been satisfied regarding the Great White Bear”.   The members of the Corps were warned by the Mandan Indians of Dakota Territory about the number of Grizzly’s in the area of the Great Falls, but they thought the Indians firepower to be inferior to theirs.  “The bears should be no problem”, after all, their rifles dropped Elk & Buffalo with one shot.  They found, as predicted, the area was infested with bears and every night the bears invaded camp.  After several encounters where Grizzly’s chased them into the river after being hit with several well placed 50 caliber balls without apparent effect, the men began to gain respect for the power of the Great White Bear.  Their curiosity about the bear had been satisfied.  No one was killed, but they had many close calls. 

No worries about visiting Great Falls these days, the K-Mart parking lot seems to keep the bears scared away.

 

 We met our host, Arnie of the Missouri River Outfitters, he booked us in and gave us some tips for some evening wade fishing spots & a couple recommendations for dinner.  Off we went to explore the area, driving down river.  We ended up at Osterman’s, a great little riverside tavern & restaurant.   The steaks & walleye were outstanding and the air conditioning felt great as the thermometer outside said 108.  A new record for the day in Helena. We fished a series of channels between several islands that evening.  The area looked fishy, but we weren’t too successful.  Al & Andy stayed until dark & did find a few willing Rainbows.

 

The next morning, we had a great breakfast that Arnie whipped up, eggs, bacon, & blueberry pancakes, then we went out front to meet our guides.  We’d rented two McKinzie River style drift boats for the day.

Arnie told us the river had 5000 fish per mile, with an average size of 17” and the fish in this river “didn’t need your fly”.  We found out why.  While launching the drift boats we observed a trico (small bugs) hatch that extended from the waters surface some 200 feet in the air and were so thick it looked like a cloud.  Back eddies on the river had a 2” thick mat of dead bugs.  These fish definitely didn’t need OUR fly for food.  How could we possibly convince these trout to bite our one little fly, given all this competition?

 

Our guides gave us a few clues.  We had to “sight fish”.  Meaning we had to choose one of the many fish gulping flies off the surface of the river, carefully approach the fish from downstream, but not too close, these fish are spooky.  Then study the feeding frequency of the chosen trout and carefully make a long cast placing your tiny fly in a basketball size circle directly in front of the trout, just when his feeding frequency would have him ready to eat his next bug. 

Blind casting to a section of water without choosing a particular trout was fruitless.

This was PhD., Super Bowl, Tour de France, Indy 500, World Series type fly-fishing and a new challenge for the Yellowstone Gang.

 

We launched our drift boats at Craig, Mt.   Craig is a small western town, a tavern, motel, gas station & fly shop.  Of course civilization had arrived here also, as the Orvis fly shop had a drive thru espresso window.   Is nothing sacred?   Well at least it was more than a 100 miles to the nearest Wal-Mart.

 

The guide rowed upstream across a deep channel.  Arriving at a gravel bar, we got out of the boat, dragging the drift boat upstream a couple hundred yards, to a moss covered gravel flat in the middle of the river.  There were large fish gulping flies off the surface all around us.   It promised to be another hot day as the temperature was already in the high 80’s at 7 AM.   The day before had been over a 100 in Missoula.  Practicing sight fishing as the guides had recommended both Greg & Andy landed nice fish.  A beautifully marked 18” Brown & a similar Rainbow.

Drifting downriver, past the iron bridge at Craig, JR picked up a dandy rainbow in front of the Hemmingway house & we hooked-up on a few more nice fish while “nymphing beadheads” on our way to the next flat.    Along the way we drifted past the Roy Rogers Ranch on the east shore.  Each flat was better than the previous, with pods of gulping trout working the area.  A huge brown working the edge of the river near a pile of brush eluded Andy’s best efforts to float the perfect fly over his nose.  Buried in the brush, it was nearly impossible to lay in a cast without snagging the brush, but a nearby rise produced a beautiful 19” rainbow.

Turning around, there was another pod of fish sipping the surface near center channel.  A quiet & deliberate stalk got me within casting range, but based on the size on the ripples on the surface I suspected the trout to be 10 to 12 inches.   I had a strike & set the hook.   20+ inches of rainbow went airborne.  I was so surprised I forgot to give him slack and he straightened out my size 18 fly hook, but that was ok, what a fish!

Mike & Al drifted past us and reported similar luck stalking these Missouri Rainbows & Brown.

By now it was 108 degrees and a case of Gatorade & half-case of water plus standing in the river were the only things that made it possible to be fishing.  It was hard to comprehend that the area we were fishing this afternoon had been a Lewis & Clark camp just a paltry 200 years earlier.  The Corps worked so hard each day that most of the men would consume as much as 12 pounds of meat a day.  We were pretty hungry, sun burned, de-hydrated and ready for dinner also after 12 hours on the river.

The Missouri River is a spectacular fishery that will challenge the skills of any angler.   After a full day of experiencing this great river, we pulled the boats & headed back to the lodge for a hearty steak dinner.

 

After dinner, Greg & Andy jumped in the truck, and what else…..went out for a little evening fishing!

 

The next morning we were off for more exploring.  We ended up at the base of Holter dam.   There were large trout everywhere.  Andy decided to switch to a spinning rod with IGFA 4# test line to see if he could set an IGFA Montana State Rainbow Trout record, but these PhD trout defied all attempts.  Al & JR caught several nice trout.  This river is definitely worth a return trip.

 

Chapter 3  “Yellowstone Park”

 

About noon we headed down the road for the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park and Gardner, Montana.  Gardner has a beautiful stone arch that marks the original entrance to the Park used by the first visitors in the 1800’s.   Gardner is a small, quaint, western town located high on the bluffs above the Yellowstone River as it leaves the Park to flow north thru Paradise Valley.

 A quick stop at Park’s Fly Shop for licenses,  a new hat for Mike (he’d lost his favorite “Park’s Fly Shop” hat purchased two years earlier and was chomping at the bit to replace it) , a few flies and a little G2 and we were on our way after a quick stop to check into our motel.   Our motel “room” was an entire house overlooking the Yellowstone River in the canyon below.

 

We decided to have dinner early and stopped in at the Mammoth Hot Springs Lodge.   Great BBQ London broil, good service and reasonable prices.  Eating at Lodges in the park has always been a positive experience for us.

 

After dinner we headed out to follow up on a tip we picked up in Seattle.  Joffee Lake was touted as a little know fishery near Mammoth.  After winding our way thru the staff housing area, the maintenance yard, a few snow plows and a ½ mile of rutty road we found the beautiful little lake.   Trout were dimpling the surface & beavers swimming the edges.  The wind was up so we decided to walk around the lake so we could take advantage of the wind with our casting.   Joffee lake was loaded with beautiful little Brook Trout up to 14 inches.  We had a great time catching these colorful little beauties.   I think all the trout species are beautifully colored & marked, but I believe that brook trout must have gotten in the “pretty” line twice when God was creating trout.

 

Next we went down to the Gardner River just above where it enters the Yellowstone for a little evening stream fishing.  The wind was up and the fishing was tough.  Al & Andy used a stimulator & bead dropper combo and only managed to turn a couple fish.

 

The next morning the group was up early looking for that first cup of coffee.  This group doesn’t work well without plenty of good coffee.  Al says, “A day without Starbucks is like a day without sunshine.”  No surprise to anyone, he found the only Espresso shop in Gardner and we were in business.  Boy, what I’d give for a birddog with a nose like that!  Al has been spotted, several times, on a river with a Starbucks cup in one hand and a fly rod in the other.   Good thing he’s expert with that fly rod as most people have trouble casting with two hands.  We’re considering submitting him for the “Starbucks Poster Boy” competition.

 

Next stop was the store at the Fishing Bridge near Yellowstone Lake, where we met Jeff Morgan from Oregon.  Jeff is the guide, author & custom fly tier that Andy fished with for Atlantic Salmon the previous fall.   Jeff had tied us about 90 special flies designed for the park & planned to fish with us for several days.

We checked in at the Yellowstone Lake Lodge, gassed up and headed out.   Our plans originally included fishing Pelican Creek above the area closed due to Grizzly activity this day, but Jeff found out that the fire service was using the Pelican Creek area for staging their efforts to fight a large forest fire to the north of the creek.   The area was closed.

 

Chapter 4  “Slough Creek & the Soda Butte”

 

Since this was the opening day for the Yellowstone River, and Pelican creek was closed, we decided to avoid the crowds on the Yellowstone and head out for Slough Creek in the northeast corner of the Park, an hour & a half drive.

 

When we arrived at the Slough Creek trail head, we leaned that the trail had just been reopened by the park service.  The area has always been notorious for Grizzly bears, and the bears had killed an elk earlier in the week and were feeding on it near the trail.  The trail just reopened this morning.  

We geared up and headed up the mile & a half trail, packing a lot of water & water filter bottles.  Almost the entire trail was uphill. The altitude started at over 7000 feet and the temperature was 102.   The air was thin & hot.   Along the trail we ran into a couple wranglers leading  strings of pack horses out for supplies.  They told us there were several Grizzlies along the trail up at the second meadow.   They had to stop for an hour or so while a momma Grizzly with cub were on the trail.   Must have been fun trying to keep a dozen horses calm in 100+ degree weather, with biting horse flies everywhere & Grizzly scent in the air.   Good thing we had only planned to go to first meadow, at least we wouldn’t be fishing in the middle of the bear family, but the horse & deer flies tried their best to bite chunks of meat off of us nearly as large as bear bites.  If we’d had a scale, likely you could stand on it and watch your weight go down as the flies bit off chunks and flew away with them.  Still have a few scars from that episode 6 weeks later.

 

We packed in our wading boots and changed from our hiking boots into them when we arrived at the meadow.  The water was gin clear and the cutthroat were huge & everywhere.   The mountains surrounding the meadow made for spectacular scenery.  This sight fishing required one to make a stealthy approach on a fish from downstream with a tiny fly or beetle.   Staying on the high cut bank, and hiding behind tufts of grass, making perfect casts, while swatting biting flies made this fishing difficult, but the rewards of catching these beautiful Cutthroat Trout made it all worth while.  After several hours in this Cutthroat paradise, we decided to take a break during the hottest part of the day, have lunch back on the tailgate of the truck, then head  over to another favorite spot, the Soda Butte River.

 

 

 

The Soda Butte River flows out of the mountains near Cooke City then drops into a large sagebrush & scrub pine valley.   It meanders with braded gravel filled channels for several miles until it reaches the Lamar River.   The weather was beautiful & the Soda Butte was in prime fishing condition.  We decided to have one group head up to the top part of the valley while Greg & I stopped at the “soda butte” near the middle of the valley.  The “soda butte” is a large mound of soda deposits that spews sulfur rich water with the resulting evaporation leaving the white/yellow mound as the result.   The “rotten egg” smell permeates the surrounding down wind area.

The Soda Butte was clear & low & was fishing well this day with it’s typical complement of beautiful 12 to 20” Cutthroat Trout eager to gobble a Chernobyl hopper or trailing beadhead.   A green crystal flash  Wooly Bugger also attracted viscous strikes from larger fish laying in the bottom of deep blue black pools.  Everyone was successful in pulling at least a few of these great trout to the net for a picture and quick release.

Al & JR stumbled across an elk carcass near the stream & took a terrific picture of large Wolf footprints near the elk.  Laying his flyrod near the tracks in the moist sand the tracks were larger than the flyreel.   BIG DOGS!  These wolves were members of the Lamar Valley pack featured in a recent National Geographic film.  Awesome animals.

 

Heading back after a great fishing adventure, we stopped a Roosevelt Lodge, a collection of rustic log buildings & cabins commemorating President Roosevelt’s visit to the park. We’ve stayed at the Lodge on past trips as it provides us easy access to the northeast corner of the park.  The cabins are “rustic” and not too large.  In fact when we tried to sleep two anglers to a cabin, we had to put the table & chair on the porch so the second person could lay on the floor.  We stop at the lodge anytime we’re in the area as it’s one of our favorite places.

  Dinner & a couple of bottles of Moose Drool beer at the Lodge hit the spot.

We returned to our cabins at Yellowstone Lodge and talked into the evening about the wonderful day of trout fishing we’d just experienced.

 

Chapter 5  “The Yellowstone River”

 

The next morning we had a great buffet breakfast at the Lodge and headed out for the Buffalo Ford (now called Nez Pierce ford) just above the magnificent Falls of the Yellowstone River.

 

The fishing here is great, but the fish are very smart.  The right fly, the right presentation, the right place and you might catch one.   Andy found a nice 19 incher, while Al hit the mother load, several classic brilliantly colored cutthroat to 20 plus inches.  Mike was following up on a great piece of water across the river which lead him to wade a deep channel to a small island.  Good thing he’s 6’5”.  He and another angler shared a beautiful azure blue drop-off coming off a white sandbar near the downstream end of the island.   Jeff, meanwhile, was providing Greg & JR with some of his specially tied flies along with a little coaching, near a little side channel full of big Cutts.  With many casts, looking for that perfect presentation, they caught several cutthroat that topped their personal best.

 

A little later, while standing on a little spit of land with the river flowing by him at 20 feet deep, Al hears a SNAP in the woods behind him.  He turns to see a huge bull buffalo about 10 feet away.   Oh no!, what could he do?  He took it’s picture!

The buffalo entered the river and began to swim across.

Out in the middle of the river were 6 anglers who had forded a deep part of the river, over the top of their chest waders, to reach a gravel bar in the middle of the wide river.   They were having a ball catching big numbers of beautiful Yellowstone Cutts.

The buffalo swam to the gravel bar they were standing on and stopped.  He’d just spotted the anglers.  Buffalo don’t see to well.   The anglers were facing away from the approach of the bull and hadn’t seen him coming either.

Soon both parties realize each other.   The 6 anglers split, 3 went upstream, 3 went downstream in the thigh deep water on the gravel bar, trying to make room for the bull to pass.

 

The bull had other ideas, he fixated on one angler and begin to follow him.  When the fisherman went upstream, the bull went upstream.  When the angler went downstream, so did the bull.  The bull was closing in on the angler as he began to move quickly toward the far shore.   But, between him and the far shore was another deep channel of the river.  The angler kept going.  At 5’-7” he was up to his neck, well over his chest waders and tippy toeing as fast as he could….with the buffalo swimming right behind him.  

The angler beat the bull to the far shore, but not by much, crawled up on the bank, and moved downstream quickly.  The buffalo chose the same exit spot, ambled up the bank to the green grass on the far shore and began to eat.   Everything was ok, except, now the poor guy had to wade back across the river and fill up his boots with ice-cold water again.

 

After catching a few more Cutts, it was mid-day & we stopped for a tailgate lunch of smoked salmon, cream cheese & bagels, washed down with a big bottle of Gatorade.

 

Chapter 6 “The Gibbon River”

 

We decided to head over to the west end of the park and fish the Gibbon River above the falls and below the meadow during the hot part of the day.  Off we went.

The Gibbon is a beautiful little stream with great little pockets & pools in this section.  There was no doubt in our minds that this stream would produce some great fishing.  The YG split up with a few going downstream & a few upstream. 

Our Motorola Talk-About radios make it easy for the group to spread out on a river, yet stay in contact.  One of our best outdoor tools.

As good as the stream looked, fishing was slow.  Al hooked a nice one, but did an LDR (long distance release),  Greg & JR also found a couple downstream.  Jeff carries a thermometer on his vest and decided to check the water temperature.  74 degrees, no wonder the trout weren’t biting.   Way too hot.   The Gibbon has geysers and hot water springs running into it and coupled with the nearly 100 degree weather recently the stream was overheated.

On the way back to the trucks, Jeff managed to catch one nice cutthroat. 

Another quick tailgate snack of roast beef & bagels while we held a strategy session on our next adventure location.   Back to the Yellowstone.

 

Chapter 7  “Tower Creek”

 

Upon arriving at the Yellowstone River we were surprised to find that the river was muddy.   The weather on the west side of the park where we’d been fishing the Gibbon was clear and hot, but the east side had a huge rain storm.

A muddy trout stream isn’t exactly what we had in mind, so now what?   From our experiences with fishing in rainy areas like Alaska & the Olympic Peninsula (200” of rain per year) we knew that fish often move out of the larger rivers when they muddy up and into the smaller, and clearer, feeder streams.  If that held true in Yellowstone, then what we needed was a small clear stream.

Looking at the maps, we found a likely candidate.  A small feeder stream to the Yellowstone that flowed through wooded areas that would be less susceptible to muddying up.

It was a ¾ mile hike down into the Yellowstone Canyon to the confluence of Tower Creek and the Yellowstone River.  The weather was hot & humid and the smell of sulfur was strong in the air in this tortured landscape of deep multi-color canyon walls, fumaroles & hot springs.

As we came down the canyon wall and approached a long gravel bar along the Yellowstone, we notice three anglers were already there.  We stopped and chatted with them as they started to hike up out of the canyon.  It was a guide from Cody, Wyoming & two clients who’d planned to fish the Shoshone River that day, but the rains had blown it out, so they decided to come to the Yellowstone.  We asked how the fishing was and the guide said, “The rivers’ too muddy, we didn’t even wet a line.”  I thought, “A long hike without even giving it a try, but ok, you’re the guide.”  We said “Yeah, it looked pretty bad, but we’d give it a try anyway” and wished them good fishing as they headed up the canyon.

We took a break to re-hydrate after our hike and change out of our hiking boots & into our wading boots, leaving our hiking gear & raincoats on a nearby log.  Then set off down the off-color Yellowstone River looking for Tower Creek.  Climbing along the side of loose sandstone canyon walls, we noticed that a few Salmon flies were crawling up on the rocks in preparation for hatching.  These flies are 3 to nearly 4 inches long, with bright orange bodies, a favorite food of Cutthroat Trout.  With that little clue, we searched our fly boxes for large Stimulator pattern flies with an orange body, tying  a bead-head dropper on 16” below the Stimulator for good measure, which is a Western trout fishing tradition.

 

 

An eighth of a mile further and we reached Tower Creek.  This bolder strewn little stream was located in a deep, vertical walled canyon.  We could hear the roar of  the 200 foot Tower Falls just upstream.   The water was running crystal clear, just what we’d hoped to find.

The footing on the sandstone canyon walls was treacherous and narrow which had the group going single file and cautiously.   Jeff & Mike reached the stream first and decided to wet wade to the opposite side of the creek where the fishing access was easier.  The water was ice cold.

Mike’s first cast rose a beautiful cutthroat, followed by another and another.

 Al positioned himself on a small crumbling rock ledge about 12 feet above the creek to give himself casting access to a large pool fed by rushing white water and crowned by a car size bolder just downstream from the main body of the pool.  In golf, this would be classified as a tough lie.

Al’s an excellent fly caster and all these obstacles didn’t deter him from laying a perfect cast at the head of the pool.   The Stimulator no more than landed on the water and a spectacular 20” Cutthroat rose to the fly!  JR scrambled down the bank and into the water at edge of the stream with his net to provide an assist.   Skillfully Al guided the trout around the large bolder and into JR’s waiting net.  Andy took a quick photo and JR release the beautiful fish.

Meanwhile, Andy & Greg were fishing the confluence of the creek and the river, catching one trout after another.   We all took turns on the little rocky ledge and caught an unbelievable number of fish, many of them in the 18” to 22” category.  Jeff & Mike had hiked upstream on the opposite bank and were having similar success in the pocket water produced by the many boulders in the stream below the falls.

After several hours of unbelievable fishing we headed out, having hooked and released some 35 cutthroat to the best of our accounting.  We sure were glad that the Cody guide had decided that the fishing was no good in this area without giving it a try.  We’d sized up the situation pretty well, the main river was muddy, so these Cutts had moved out of the muddy river and into a clear side stream to clean the silt out of their gills, just like our experience with the Salmon & Steelhead of the Olympic Peninsula & Alaska had shown us.

On the hike out, we stopped for a breather at one of the tourist lookout points above Tower Falls.  There was quite a crowd of tourists milling about.  One of them said, “You boys put on quite a show.”   “Oh, what do you mean?”   “Well, all these folks have been standing up here for hours watching you guys fly fish that stream.”  “You guys put on quite a show!”   Well, so much for our “secret” fishing hole.

 

Exhausted from a great day of fishing, we headed back to the Yellowstone Lake Lodge for a great dinner overlooking the lake & a toast to a fine day of trout fishing.

 

 

Chapter 7  “Yellowstone Lake”

 

Morning came and we were up early.  It was our day to break camp at the Yellowstone Lodge and move base camp to West Yellowstone.   After sampling the awesome Lodge buffet breakfast one more time, we’d planned to fish Yellowstone Lake in the morning, and the Firehole, Gibbon & Madison rivers along the way into West Yellowstone.  The Firehole & Gibbon rivers come together at Madison Junction to form the Madison River.  All of these rivers are great fishing, but the Firehole is special.  At Biscuit Basin on the Firehole, you can hear Old Faithful erupt as its waters cascade down to the river.   Bright, tiny yellow & chartreuse grasshoppers are everywhere in the fields as you walk to the river and the exact replicas in our fly box are just what the trout are looking for.   The waters of the Firehole are made up of cold springs and most all of the bubbling hot springs and fumaroles of Yellowstone Park including the famous Old Faithful.  Just think, fishing the waters of Old Faithful as they flow downstream to the Madison, Missouri, Mississippi and finally ends up at New Orleans & the Gulf of Mexico!

 

Jeff came back from the Fishing Bridge store with some bad news.   The river temperatures had been rising due to all the hot weather and the Firehole, Gibbon & Madison rivers in the park had been closed.  The water was over 72 degrees, stressing the fish and the rivers would be closed until the water temperature dropped below 72 for three consecutive days.   So much for that plan.

 

We did head over to Yellowstone Lake, after a quick tour of the Lake Marina where we did a little G2 on renting a boat.  We’d talked about renting a boat on a future trip and running to the far south end of the lake to take in some really remote fishing.  There are minimal trails & no roads accessing the remote streams on the far end of the lake.  This area is also known as “big time Grizzly Bear territory.”  We could just imagine how good the fishing could be in an area this remote.  But, that was for future trips, and Jeff was going to show us some new fishing techniques on the shores of the lake today.

 

We’d fished Yellowstone Lake on previous trips and our method was to cast a black & red crystal flash wooley bugger past the deep shore drop-offs and work them back slowly.  That method had produced a few nice Cutts, but Jeff was going to show us totally different tactic.

We stopped near a large calm bay on Pelican Point.  Yes, Yellowstone Lake has a large population of White Pelicans.  These white birds tend to populate many inland western lakes & rivers, while their brown cousins can be found along the ocean shores.

We pulled our 5 & 6 weight rods from their cases and Jeff opened his fly box to show us a collection of tiny chronomid style flies, small size 20 hooks wrapped with just a touch of olive green dubbing.  We couldn’t imagine how we were going to use these tiny flies in this huge lake.  We all tied one on and headed for the shoreline.  Jeff said we were to put on our Polaroid sunglasses and walk the shoreline looking for cruising fish.  The fish would be following the shore break, the area of small gravel within a few feet of the shore and the sandy bottom of the lake.  If we found a fish working this area for food, move quietly several yards ahead of him, & cast the tiny fly just beyond the shore break, giving it time to slowly sink to the bottom.  As the fish following the shore approached within a couple feet of the fly, begin to slowly retrieve the fly.

Sure enough, just like Jeff predicted, there were a few large fish cruising the shoreline.  Several well placed casts, waiting for the approaching fish, then a slow reterive……no luck….try again.  We played this game of cat & mouse with these lovely fish for more than an hour, but the finial score was anglers zero, Cutthroat win.

We all agreed that we were intrigued by this method of sight fishing for the wily Yellowstone Cutthroat and we’d definitely be back to try it again.

 

Chapter 8  “West”

 

About mid-day, we packed up and headed past Old Faithful, the Firehole River, the famous Madison River and a few dozen Elk on the way to West Yellowstone, one of our favorite towns.

Known by the locals as “West”, the town has many of our favorite fly shops and we always enjoy staying at the “One Horse Motel”.  We stopped in to see Becky at the One Horse, got our room keys and moved in.  Then off to town, two blocks away, to visit our friends at the fly shops.  Madison River Outfitters, Bud Lilly’s, Aarick’s & Jacqueline’s, we always need a few new flies and the latest info on where the fish are biting.   After three years of looking, Mike finally found replacement netting for his favorite old trout net.  Eight bucks and it was strung into the old net for Free! 

A little dinner at Mountain Mike’s BBQ shack, another favorite, but JR said the Chicken Fried Steak had fallen off a couple of “beaks” in it’s rating.   5 beaks is top notch chicken fried steak, Mike’s had dropped from 4 to 1 beak.  Oh no!

 

Chapter 9  “The Gallatin”

 

From all the G2 we gathered at the fly shops we decided to hit the Madison River below Quake Lake.  We drove north out of town and noticed dark black rain clouds to the west over the area of the Madison River.   Using our CB’s, we quickly revised the plan,  “Keep going north, up to the Gallatin River, the weather looks much better to the north.”  “Pull over at mile marker 136, at Deer Creek”

The weather was threatening rain, but it held off.  We followed an elk trail through sage brush and heavy willow patches.  We’d heard of Grizzly activity in the area, so we were all talking loudly or blowing whistles that hang from our fly vests.  The last thing you want to do is sneak up on a Grizzly.  This was very close to the area that we had fished a few years earlier, only to find out when we got to West that a hiker had been mauled by a Griz just after we had left the area.  The Gallatin is a pretty little river, but we found it tough fishing.  We did get a few nice fish to rise, but missed hookups.   Mike, JR & Greg left about sundown, but Al & Andy decided to stay and see if the evening bite was going to be any better.  It was a little better.  Andy caught a Brown, Rainbow & a Whitefish in one pool on three successive casts.  Al hooked a couple nice fish just above.   A little more action and then it died.  By now it was well past dark and Al & Andy used their headlamps to find their way back to the highway.   The loud talking and whistle blowing was at max volume.  Besides the potential for Grizzly’s there was a lot of Moose sign in the area.   We were bushwhacking thru heavy willow growth, a moose favorite.  We couldn’t see 10’ ahead of us.  Some Park Rangers say they’d rather deal with a Grizzly than a surprised Bull Moose or even worse a Cow with a calf.

We were glad to make it to the highway!  A mile & a half hike in hip boots (mine were leaking & one boot was full of water) we were back at the truck.

 

As we put our rods away, hung up our vests and took our boots off, I smelled the distinct odor of elk in the air.  I wet my finger and held it in the breeze.  “That way, right up that canyon Al, smells like a big herd.”

We were beat so we drove the 50 miles back to West and were ready to hit the hay at the One Horse, but we were a little hungry, so we stopped at the only open bar/restaurant in town still open and had a couple great 1 pound burgers and a bottle of Moose Drool.  Bed felt good tonite & sleep came quickly.

 

 

Up early the next morning, we headed down to the Book Peddler, our favorite coffee shop/bakery/bookstore.  We had hoped to see our old friend Jim Danskin (the oldest guide in Montana & Wyoming, born in Yellowstone Park) to share stories over a cup of coffee, but Jim wasn’t in town this morning.  We talked to several of his guides & our friend the Park Ranger.  The coffee, rolls & stories were great.  We always look forward to our mornings & sharing stories at the Book Peddler.

 

Chapter 10 “The $3 Dollar Bridge Hole”

 

We talked about places to fish today and decided we need to fish the “Three Dollar Bridge Hole” on the Madison River.  If things didn’t work out, it could be the last time we had access to the spot.

The $3 Bridge Hole is an 800-acre piece of land with 6 miles of the famous Madison River flowing thru it.  The Madison flows out of the mountains of Yellowstone Park, thru Hebgin Lake, then Quake Lake and breaks into beautiful light green sagebrush filled valley surrounded by high rugged mountains.  The Madison is a classic trout river at this point, full of big boulders, fast water, braided channels & plenty of pocket water as it works it’s way to the town of Ennis. 

 An old guy owned the place and for 50 years had allowed fisherman to drive thru the sagebrush and park on his property.  The only thing he asked was that you place $3 in an envelope at the parking place.  Everyone felt that $3 was fair to allow access to one of the most famous trout streams in the world.

 

Then the old man passed away, and his family planned to sell the property.  The developers were “chomping at the bit” to buy the property and build a bunch of houses as they have on the upper part of the Madison.  What a shame, the most famous trout stream in the world ends up in somebody’s back yard.  This is why we thought it might be our last time to fish the place.

But, earlier in the year, Trout Unlimited and a couple other conservation groups heard that the property was going up for sale.   They approached the heirs and asked about buying it.   Two million dollars was the asking price.  The word got out to the world wide fishing community along with help from the Orvis Company (1^st fly fishing company in the U.S.) and within 8 months they had the money.

We pulling into the parking lot of the $3 Hole and were happy to find a letter & sign saying that the property had been successfully purchased by Conservation Groups and turned over to the State of Montana for public access forever.  The steel box was still there to deposit a $3 parking fee to help maintain the property, and we were more than glad to drop in a twenty.

Greg walked down from the parking lot and immediately tied into a beautiful Madison River Rainbow.  Mike, JR & Al went downstream, Andy & Greg upstream.   Andy ran into a real hotspot and managed to catch a couple fish & miss quite a few more, when the Motorola Talk-about radios began to crackle.  “Look to the south, here comes a big rainstorm!”  We all started working our way back to the trucks.  A quick lunch in the pickup while the rain pounded us for an hour.  The rain clouds cleared and the sun came out, so we headed back out to the river.  A few more nice trout and we were on the road again.

 

Chapter 11 “Headed Home”

 

 Thru one of our favorite little western towns, Ennis, MT., and then north to I-90, we talked on the CB’s about where we wanted to fish this evening.  The Anaconda Ponds were we’d found great Brown Trout, the Jefferson River that we’d never fished,  the Ruby River with big fish & even bigger rattlesnakes, maybe the Beaverhead, another river on our “to do” list.

 

The run west down I-90 was punctuated by a huge Montana rainstorm.  The rain poured so hard you couldn’t see the hood of the truck, lightning flashing everywhere & several inches of rain ran across the road.  Thoughts of finding a place to fish changed to pure survival tactics to weather this tremendous storm.  The CB chatter was to look for an overpass that we could pull under quickly, as we knew these kinds of storms were usually accompanied by huge hailstorms.  We needed a place to hide out quickly if we were going keep our trucks from getting bashed to pieces.  The storm finally broke and we got thru it in one piece.

We ended up at Rock Creek, 20 miles east of Missoula.  Al called ahead and got us a couple great cabins at  “Rock Creek Mercantile” fly shop & we headed over to Elkstrom’s Stage Station for a great dinner.

Back at the cabins, Andy the trip treasurer, called for a settling of the bills.  Who owed who what?   You’d think two engineers, a financial manager, an accountant & a business manager could easily and quickly figure this out.  Wrong!   We ended up with one of the beds covered in cash, IOU’s and bills.  Two hours & a couple drinks later we had the answer.   No doubt fly fishing takes precedent over finances with this group. 

The next morning we fished Rock Creek for a bit & headed back to Elkstrom’s for some more of that great fresh side pork for breakfast.

We had another 7 hours of driving ahead of us to get back to Seattle, but all agreed this had been one of the best trips ever and it certainly had forwarded the goal of the Yellowstone Gang to “fish ‘em all before you get to old to get out of a pickup truck.”  As of this trip, the Gang has fished nearly 60 rivers of the west and is already planning for next years adventure!