By now it should be obvious that I’m using all these Yellowstone photos from last summer as space filler because I haven’t been doing any fishing lately. That’s not all bad. I put off a lot of chores last year so I could go fishing, and winter is as good a time as any to do them. On the other hand, not fishing is never better than fishing. Still, I never did get around to writing much about our big trip last year, and this provides a good time to relive it.
Gina Meeks fishing the Gibbon River near Norris.
After we came up empty in the Elk Meadows section earlier in the trip, we fished the Gibbon for short periods on two more occasions. One time my dad and I drove over to Elk Meadows again for a few quick casts late in the evening. Dad said he was just going to help me watch out for wildlife, so I fished alone while he “watched.” How a two thousand pound bull bison can sneak up on two grown men, one of whom is supposedly “watching for wildlife,” I’ll never know, but one did. I was in the midst of being frustrated by a huge hatch of small caddis when I heard Dad yell my name. I turned just in time to see a bull bison trudging nonchalantly between Dad and I. We were only about 30 yards apart. I froze, and the bull just walked right on past. I never figured out that hatch. The bugs were smaller than any of my flies, and I was beaten once again.
I really only have one more photo that I want to add to the photoblog (I do eventually plan to use the photoblog for its intended purpose, but for now I’m using it to archive old stuff from the former site and catch up on stuff I never got around the posting during the redesign). On another day, the girls and I stopped to fish around Norris for a few hours. Jacqulyn got herself a nice little brown of about 11 inches. I caught a few rainbows and spooked a couple of nice fish. The trouble was, not surprisingly, the wind. To fish effectively, you needed to stay low and make gentle casts, but to actually get your fly to the water when the wind was gusting, you had to stand up and slap the fly down. Some fish weren’t spooked by this. The big ones were. I grabbed this photo of Gina, and you can see she was learning from my instruction. She’s standing well back from the water in an attempt to avoid spooking fish (Okay, I don’t remember telling her to do that, but it is good strategy).
We fished a few more spots I haven’t mentioned yet. We hit a small brookie stream one evening and caught enough to take back for supper. I dusted them in flour, corn meal and spices, and pan fried them. We also hiked into Cascade Lake one day. The lake was chock full of small cutthroats, and they actually seemed to be fairly selective. They were rising to callibaetis duns. My parachute Adams was good enough, but it had to be the right size. I was hoping for one of the lake’s grayling, but we never got one. I’m pretty sure I missed a couple though. We made the short hike into Trout Lake on another day where there were plenty of other fishermen. I spotted several large trout, but never could convince one to take anything I tossed their way. There were several maddening refusals. One kid who claimed he’d never fly fished before (and looked it) came by and asked for advice. I pointed out a few of the large fish for him, and he promptly caught one on an ant after lashing the water to a froth with a dozen false casts. The fish was around 20 inches and broad-shouldered. He never gave it line, just dragged it up onto shore. What can you do but laugh? I did, heartily.
I can’t remember the exact order of days, and I didn’t keep a journal like I had planned. But I know we spent our very last day on Slough Creek. For some reason, there was almost no one fishing the lower meadow. It was a great day. We caught some nice fish, saw bear and wolf tracks in the mud, and experienced the absolute worst wind of the entire trip. On the way back to Canyon, as we drove across Dunraven Pass, we came upon the enormous spoke plume of the Lehardy fire which began that day near the rapids of the same name.
I have some scenic shots that I will post tomorrow and then some random snapshots that I’ll post Friday. That will bring this series to a close and force me to finally come up with some new content. Below I have posted a few more fishing shots that are pretty cool but won’t be going in the photoblog.
Take care,
Nathan
Jacqulyn and Gina returning from the little brookie stream where we caught supper.
Me at Cascade Lake. Lest everyone get the idea that everything was perfect, the bugs were absolutely terrible. I really hate deer flies.
Here we are trying to catch a big cutt on the Yellowstone River. We could see his tail sticking out from under a rock, but couldn't get him to take.
I don't remember who took this photo, but it's a nice shot of my father preparing to fish Yellowstone Lake.
