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July 17, 2002 Trip is one-half over…..sigh……..really a good itinerary so far except for the heat. Cool this morning at the Lake – air is very clear after the thunderstorm the night before. Lake is calm. Birds are singing, chipmunks are begging for food as JR & I sit in the rockers on the porch at the Lake Lodge – bison still grazing in field in front of me. We gather the team together at about 7 am. Chatting with Jeff over breakfast he share some info from earlier Yellowstone trout surveys he has done where he found that based upon 110 fish whose stomachs he pumped, he found that terrestrial grasshoppers represented about 5.2% of the food in their stomachs whereas ant and beetles were about 25%-35% each!! The moral of the story is to use Ants and Beetles a lot more when fishing terrestrials!!
Caddis Flies Gary LaFountaine Nymphs Ernest Schwieber Hatch Guide for Western Streams Jim Schollmeyer Reading the Water (Orvis Guidebook) Tom Rosenberg Headed out to the Yellowstone River to fish at Nez Perce Crossing. At about 11 am there was a huge hatch of PMD’s and gray drakes. AM was able to find a position on a flat adjacent to a huge drop-off into emerald green water. The fish would come up from the deeper water and feed on the flat. Since you could see the fish swimming and feeding, it was sight fishing all over again!! How cool!!! Hooked 7 of the critters (about 3 pounders)– 6 on PMD spinners & adams parachute emergers (hey whatever works!) and one a lightning bug nymph under a stimulator. All on 6X tippet. Wow – what a rush – time really did stand still – finally the feeding was over, the fish slipped back into the deep emerald water – it was quiet again by 12:20.
My impression was
that time stopped during the hatch – surprised it was only 1:20 hours long and
that it was so short – a time perception dichotomy.
It was good to see JR catch the big fish but I think it was more fun when he was missing them. This is also the moment JR swears he's hanging up his "small" trout net and buying a bigger one anticipating next year's adventures. We packed up our gear and headed out in the trucks for Tower Creek. Lots of people at the parking lot – seems like they must be holding a political convention there but it is just the normal touristy traffic for that location. It is about a 0.6 mile hike down to the Yellowstone River from the crowded parking lot. I planned to fish the Yellowstone River with large ugly nymphs & buggers (for clarification for those looking at our photos from the trip, these references are about the types of flies we plan to use and not my fishing team-mates). On the way down to the river, we pass a viewing platform for Tower Falls (the people draw for this site). Continuing down the dry no-longer paved trail, we finally reach the banks of the Yellowstone River.
Met up with a small group of flyfishers (3 folks plus guide?) who looked at the River and decided to head back up the trail without even fishing. Chatted briefly with them as we arrived and they were departing - they didn't think the river would clear soon as it is running absolutely opaque with a light yellow silt loading. The river appears to be a fast moving (somewhat thin) mud flow. Rain upstream is eroding the yellow-looking clay and soils from the steep banks into the river. We note that it got even more opaque in the time we were along the river in this area. I fished stonefly and wooly buggers deep in the River slots without any success. AB finds two fish behind a boulder in the mainstem river on a stimulator. Meanwhile, MS and Jeff had headed over to the mouth of Tower Creek which feeds into the Yellowstone River below the Falls. Suddenly I hear shouting from Tower Creek – as usual I am the last to figure it out. MS had started catching fish, GK, JR, and AB had headed over and also started hauling fish out of Tower Creek. Fortunately by the time I got there it was determined that there were an infinite number of 14-17 inch cutts in Tower Creek for the catching.
So I was able to continue catching fish pretty much at will as well as the others. JR becomes our collective netmeister so he can be in the all of the pix with the fish!
Due to the heavy silt loads in the Yellowstone River many cutts had moved into the cleaner and well oxygenated water of Tower Creek. Apparently the word had gone out among the fish community denizens so that a whole lot of them moved in. The favorite rig was a stimulator and dropper (any kind of scruffy small nymph) although I think you could have caught them on a pig-n-jig or corkie/yarn or any fishy looking thing. Sure glad the guide we had met deemed the area unfishable. It was a great and fun fishery that day. We even had an audience although we did not know it at first. Turns out that the folks above us on the trail could watch us haul the fish out – one after another – I am sure we are now the objects of many stories about good fishing can be in Yellowstone. Probably a lot of parents with kids were annoyed that they did not bring their fishing gear!! While hiking back up the trail to the parking lot, one of the spectators commented, "You boys sure put on a show!" Returned back to Nez Perce Ford about 6:50; no hatches going on and no fish being caught although there were a reasonable number of fisherpersons waiting in the water. We geared up and waded in to hold our favorite spots while we awaited a hatch and the return of the leviathans. We waited…..we waited……we waited……it thundered….we waited…..it downpoured……we waited……got soaked due to wet wading and due to rain……we waited…………hmmmm……we waited. Well, to finally liven things up we noted two guys on the far side of the river hiking upstream (toward the Lake) in shorts and t-shirts. It’s getting kind of chilly and night will fall soon with concomitant drops in temperature (we’re at 7000+ feet after all). A helicoper (it’s old and looks Russian but apparently is not) cruises closely over our heads going down stream. We hear but can’t make out the message from some shouting from a couple of fisherman who are close to the far bank. A Park Ranger mobile pulls into the parking lot (I check to be sure I have my fishing license) with another civilian in the car. They go over to Questionable Point and look over at the two guys heading upstream. Wandering over to them, I ask them what is going on. Apparently 3 fellows (from Germany?) decided to hike downstream from the Lake and went about 6 miles on the far side of the river. They had no extra clothes or food etc. They also had a bad sense of timing and now had several miles to hike back in the cold and dark. The one person of the hiking group with the Rangers had swam successfully across the river looking for help and a ride back. The other two tried swimming but got scared in the current (which is considerable) and turned back to the far shore. They had to hike out – they will be a couple of tired and cold fellows at the end of this hike. The Rangers were monitoring their progress to be sure they got back OK. The Park Service had a small group of Rangers hiking up from the Lake to bring the fellows flashlights and warm clothes but they expected these guys would have to hike out on their own. Sort of a "punishment fits the crime of poor judgment" I guess. It turns out that the fisherman were trying to show the hikers a path across the River where they could wade out – probably up to their chests I would guess - but the two hikers decided not to get into the water again it appeared. Kind of an interesting end to the evening as the fish never did show up. They probably moved upstream to some local bar. Back to the Lake Lodge for a cafeteria dinner – great basic food which is very similar to that at the Lake Hotel but more informal. After dinner, MS checked back home and learned that his pup Jake had passed away. Very said ending to the day and we all felt bad for MS. Thursday July 18, 2002 Up early and check out after a breakfast feast again at the Hotel. Morning is again perfect. AB and I discuss structural bonding strengths of bird’s nests versus aerospace structural bonding. Think I convince him that epoxies are a lot stronger than bird spit. Swinging by Bridge Marina, we note that board shows a closure of fishing as of July 17, 2002 on the Madison, Firehole, and Gibbons (below the Falls) along with all tributaries to those sections. Heading back to the Fisheries office by the Lake Hotel, we talk with one of the staff who filled us in the on the detail. Closure is due to excessively high water termperatures. Fish that are caught and stressed end up perishing in high percentages in the warmer waters so the Fisheries folks closed the streams until further notice (i.e. the temperatures drop). The Fisheries guy suggests Yellowstone Lake shorelines, Yellowstone River, Lewis River below the Falls (can be tough fishing). So we have to replan our day which had been to work the closed waters. During our deliberations, AM sorts out the flies we procured from Jeff into groups of for each of us. Decide to head back toward West Yellowstone and work the waters below there in the Madison River. We head through familiar waters that we have loved to fish in the past via the Firehole and Madison Rivers on the way to West. We get a good look at a bull moose with a big rack (antlers that is) next to the road by Biscuit Basin. Finally reach West just before noon. Cruising the fly shops during lunch (Arricks, Blue Ribbon Flies, Madison River Outfitters, Bud Lilly’s, and Jacklin’s), we find a really cool tippet dispenser ($39 at the shops!) – brand name "Otter Creek" and web site at www.fishpondusa.com. MS finds a replacement net net for his antique trout net at Arrick's flyshop (http://www.arricks.com/ ) ....he's been searching for a replacement for years on these trips. He was amazed that the replacement netting was only $15 and they did two hours work installing it for free!! Good for another 20 years! AB also had his Orivel reel measuring tape lose a screw on the hike into Slough Creek. No more than mentioning it, the shop owner pulled out a new unit from the show case and handed it to AB. Wow!!! What great warranty service!!! Looking toward the Madison River drainage in Montana, we note heavy dark clouds overhanging the drainage and wonder what might be happening down there about 30 miles from us. Headed out toward the $3 bridge to fish in the late afternoon but the heavy continual rains and heavier thunderstorms alter our plans. We elect to head toward the Gallatin River in the Park Northwest corner. We fished the Gallatin from Specimen Creek entrance upstream to milepost 26 (about ¾ mile).
The river is smaller here and still sinuous in its banks giving lots of corner pocket water. Heavy growth of willows and bushes reach right up to the stream making precision backcasts a high priority. AB rolls several large fish early, then hooks into several small fish and AM manages only a singular small hookup. Lots of moose tracks along the river bank and through the brush. we are not clear if the trails are fisherman trails which moose use or if they are moose trails which fisherman use. We did have a sizeable mayfly hatch about 7 pm but no rising fish in our area. Still overcast and somewhat rainy. Stimulator and dropper seemed to be best although nothing was hot – used all 6X tippet. Our whistles got a good workout also. We'd read about a hiker two years earlier who got malled by a momma Grizzly. We had been told (and believed!) that surprising a momma Grizz isn't a good thing, ergo, much whistle blowing. Back to West for AB and AM (the others headed back earlier) in the dark. The little LED light AM wears on his baseball hat is very bright and quite adequate for hiking back out of the woods. Most restaraunts have closed already but we get burgers at Bulwinkle's. Also had a local brew called "Troutslayer" – Maybe it will help my fishing tomorrow!! Off to crash at the One Horse Motel – our place to stay when in West Yellowstone. |
