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Sunday August 13, 2000 Cody is pretty much shut down on Sunday mornings. None of the coffee shops in town (Maxwell’s etc. are open early). Fortunately, the Albertson’s next to our motel is open and although you can buy pastries for breakfast, you cannot buy a cup of coffee. You can have a small cup as a customer, but you can’t buy a cup or a thermos refill. We tried. Stopped on way out of town at a Family Restaurant (quite crowded) for a fillup again of food. Then off back the way we came into Cody but we cut off on the second (when leaving Cody) County Road 7RP to fish a section of the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone. Huge Mule deer buck by road as we drove in. New Ranch Homes being built along the river on private land. Looked like outside money coming in to area for second homes and ranches. Real Estate prices may be going up as they have in many sections of Montana. Fished area by pullout on County Road (it’s gravel) which is BLM land. Pretty fast fishing for some trout and whitefish from 9 to 11:30 am. After 11:30, the pace slowed markedly but still you could pull the occasional reluctant participant out of the water. Biggest fish was about 18-20 inches. The country was somewhat scrub desert and although the mountains in the background were dramatic in their size and colors, it still didn’t appeal to me the way more forested areas do.
By now the temperatures were really rising and heading toward the mid 90’s. Headed back to Cody for lunch. After lunch at Maxwell's, AB, GK, and MS ventured into the Buffalo Bill Historic Center (http://www.bbhc.org/ - a large museum on life in the area as well as air-conditioned. Museum admission is $10, houses one of the, if not the largest gun collections anywhere, may artifacts & photos of the Bill Cody days, mounts of world record Moose, Bear & Deer, a Western Art museum, and life size examples of Native American villages. Well worth a visit. Al & JR press on to check out fishing holes for the evening and the next day. Look at the NFS just where it enters the reservoir and the area looked pretty inviting. There is free access on one side from a Fish & Game entry point, but better access is through the State Park (Buffalo Bill State Park – what else?) at a minor cost of $2 per vehicle. We recommended the latter. The Ranger on duty let us travel through the park to check it out. I am sure that they would let others do the same. On way back to Cody, JR/AM stop by a historical site marker pullout called "Colter’s Hell". Here you can see (and smell) the fumaroles in the area. The Shoshone River is down below in a very steep canyon. Not sure how to get access, but there is resort looking area at the bottom including a swimming pool which probably uses hot water from the fumaroles. Apparently the extent and amount of fumarole activity has lessened since Mr.(Private John) Colter was first here (and yes, it is the same Colter of the Lewis & Clark Expedition & Yellowstone National Park fame). Headed back to Cody for an emergency stop at The North Fork Anglers to put a loop end leader on JR’s flyline, and found great coffee at the Coffee Saloon who had Mocha Java on tap. Quite nice. They carried the latest coffee brand in "Custer’s Last Blend". JR discovered that the proprietors to be "Go Big Red" kindred spirits, oh those crazy Nebraskans. Met up with AB, GK, MS at museum about 5 pm and headed out to work the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone in the evening cool. AM, JR, and MS went back where we had found fast action in the am and AB/GK went on down the highway to an area opposite a place that sold fishing licenses on Highway 120 (there is only one before the Montana border) and accessed the Clark’s Fork there. AM/JR/MS found fishing quite slow with gusty winds. Fished till dark although there was a full moon. AB/GK also had moderate success fishing but identified a follow-up area downstream below the water diversion to better holes. Unfortunately they had gone upstream and only found the previous water just as light was failing them. We all met up on the highway and headed back to Cody. Dinner at Grannies, a Denny’s type place in Cody. Most everything was shutdown at ten pm. Monday, August 14, 2000 Coffee and pastries at Maxwell’s. Interesting folks who end up in Cody. I would guess our waiter would have been likely to be found in Seattle, San Francisco, or New York. Seemed very urbane for Cody. Not the wild west image or Marlboro man look. OK with me; you find cool people everywhere. Off to fish the State Park (Buffalo Bill State Park for those of you keeping
score) where the NFS enters the reservoir ( and yes it is the Buffalo Bill
Reservoir). Fished several spots with good looking water but absolutely no
action. Except for Mike S. who hit a 22 inch trout quite quickly but had no one
to take a picture of it. Majority ruled and we moved on.
Stopped by Wapiti Bridge on road upstream on the NFS. Slow for big fish but lots of little ones. Area appeared to have been consistently pounded by people pulling off road. Moved westward onto an unmarked fish access. Slow fishing with some small ones but none of size. Great looking huge pool, flogged to a froth, without as much as a looker. Took a lunch break about noon. MS/JR headed back to town to get out of the heat of the day while AB,GK, AM pushed on toward new water on the NFS. Found another large pullout and bushwhacked ½ mile back to the river. Fished it upstream for about a mile or so. Fishing was slow with occasional small trout. Ran into two guys fishing by an overpass as we reconnected to the highway. They were nymphing (big indicators) and were wearing bear bells. I thought the bells were cute and would certainly let their bears know where you were so they wouldn’t have work so hard to hunt you down. We came across the on-going major road construction site on the way upriver. We waited in a line of stopped vehicles (both directions at this point) as they were knocking rocks and scrabble from the hill-side down onto the road surface where graders moved it off the road. The rocks,etc, we think came from blasting about which there were many signs asking everyone to turn their two-way radios off in this area. As we waited, we watched in amazement as they inadvertently knocked loose a rock about the size of a fullsize pickup cab which came tumbling about 60 vertical feet down the hill-side, rolled at high speed across two lanes, and smashed through (without measurably slowing down!) those concrete jersey barriers and continued its plunge into the river about 40 feet below where it came to rest. When our turn came to move through the cleared road a few minutes later we elected not to dawdle since they left another rock about the same size on the hill side also precariously perched on a ledge. Kind of an interesting thing to see at the time. The construction crews did not seem perturbed, and looking at the river bed below, one got the impression that maybe that wasn’t the first rock to re-locate to waterfront. We drove on up the road to about 4 miles or less from the Yellowstone Park Boundary into more alpine areas. Followed a blocked off road back along the river for a mile or so. AB/GK fished the upper area and AM fished the lower section. AM found a narrow, deep canyon stretch with good pocket water but unwilling fish. Fishing slow. Headed back toward the Gaff Creek area to meet JR/MS which we did about 5:30pm. Fished in holes around Gaff Creek entry into NFS River. Everyone but AM were hitting big trout; AM had the lock on big, gigantic white fish (which fought remarkably hard!). As sun came off water about 7:45, started to see a significant hatch of Blue Winged Olives (or that’s what we chose to believe) along with some small, chartreuse body, white winged caddis (maybe a size 20 or less) and small dark caddis (maybe a size or 16 or less). Swallows were out catching their evening meal in quantity. Kept moving downstream as sun came off the water since fishing seemed to want to improve at that point. Found a really good hole at junction of Fishhawk Creek with the NFS – classic steam entrance with plunge pool and downstream sweeping backeddy. Lots of fish started jumping as sun came off water. Got JR/GK into a lot of big fish especially in the 8:15 to 8:45 time-frame as the light became quite low. JR’s LL Bean reel seat came off in the heat of the battle period so I loaned him my rod to use (6 weight 4-piece from Orvis handbuilt by Roy Nakano – great rod!). JR couldn’t keep the fish off of his Royal Trude (a size 12). GK & JR kept me busy netting their catches, taking their pictures, etc. as they would commonly get doubles with both having fish on at the same time. Under fishing pressure the fish would move downstream from the stream entrance but would stay in the hole. Lots of great and fast action! Finally decided to head back to town, and found the trail back to the cars using a headlamp I bought from REI. I think the headlamp is a great way to go when fishing until after dark since it leaves your hands free to carry gear, is very bright, and you can aim it to show you the features you need to see to come out of a strange location in pretty much total darkness.
MS & AB had also done well upstream in a deep rock slot and wide flat glide areas dotted with rocks. Standing on a rock, MS made a long, picture perfect cast with his 3wt. rod into a cloud of hatching insects. A 20 incher grabbed his tiny fly and proceeded to nearly empty his reel. Simultaneously, AB has on an 18" Cutt from the fast water in the rock slot, one of many caught in that area. Earlier AB runs a black wooly bugger through a deep slot next to a large bolder. On the first pass a 20 incher about jerks the rod out of his hands. A Fantastic evening of fishing. On the way back to Cody, we went through the same construction site which was all done under those really bright lights used for construction crews. They had all sorts of backhoes and road equipment working well after 10 that night! Very eerie scene – looked like something you might have seen in an updated Dante’s Inferno. Got back to Cody late and had dinner at the ever open Grannies. Followed up with a pleasant evening of OJ and Vodka back at the hotel! |
