More than a fish story…..

8/23/2018 – Yellowstone

I met my guide at Park’s Fly Shop at 7:30am, loaded up his SUV, and headed into the park. He asked me a couple of days ago if I felt up to hiking in to a very remote area of the park to fish a section of the Yellowstone River that is seldom fished. Of course I said yes. He also asked me if I had any ankle or knee or hip issues he should know about. I said no. Before we left, he asked me again if I was up to a difficult hike and again, I said yes. We drove west of Tower Junction (saw my first moose) to a place that did not seem to be near any water…..he reminded me we would be fishing the Yellowstone River but we had a good hike to get there. We parked the SUV, loaded our gear into backpacks and headed straight into the woods. The first thing we saw about 30 yards into the woods was a huge male buffalo. We decided it would be best to veer well around him. We continued deeper into the woods and quickly started going downhill on a hill that was, no kidding, about a 35-45 degree slope. There was nothing even close to a path, and there were lots of pine trees, small shrubs and a ton of dead, fallen trees to hike around and over. In some places your boots would sink 6 inches or so into the ash like dirt. My guide warned me but I really had no clue. The actual distance we covered was less than a mile but it included at least 700 ft of elevation drop (which means 700 ft of steep elevation climb on the way back after you are dead tired!). And the altitude already makes the air much thinner than I am used to.

Words cannot describe how difficult it was to navigate our way down into such a deep canyon. This is the same canyon as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone….just further north. In some places it was all I could do to keep from sliding downhill. When we finally got down to the bottom, we took a much-needed water break and proceeded walking along the shore downstream over rocks and massive log/tree piles that were left from the spring runoff, and around scalding hot springs, until we got to the first fishing spot. It was about a 1/2 mile downstream. There a few sandy areas along the way but we didn’t see any footprints or any other sign that anyone else had been there. I can certainly see why……from one of the tourist overlooks where you look down into the Canyon, it would appear to be inaccessible. The other side of the river in the Canyon is even less accessible. We actually stopped at the Canyon overlook a couple of days earlier and took some pictures. If I had known that was where we would be fishing, I wouldn’t have believed it…….and then I might have told the guide to take me somewhere else!

The good news is the fishing was OUTSTANDING! It’s a good thing….if we didn’t catch fish I might have sued him for fishing guide malpractice! 🙂 Since we were fishing in the park, we had to use barbless hooks and return all native species of fish back into the river. We caught a lot of native cutthroat trout and a couple of rainbow trout (which are considered non-native species). Every rainbow caught is supposed to be killed since the park conservationists are trying to return the rivers and streams to native species only. There were several articles in the Yellowstone park information about this program. The guide cleaned the larger of the two rainbows we caught and I brought it home so Nancy and I could eat as an appetizer one night. The rest of fish were all native cutthroat trout. We didn’t keep count but I’d say we caught approx. 30 fish, most in 12-14 inch range. About 10 were small ones in the 6-8 inch range. My rig consisted of a dry fly with a nymph or stone fly “dropper”. We caught fish on both, but the fish primarily hit the dry fly.

We fished our way back upstream to where we first got to the river. After a long day, I looked up at where we had to go and seriously questioned if I could make it out. But of course, I had no choice. So we started up and just took breaks every so often so we (mainly I) could rest and catch our breath. It took about an hour to get out and by the time I got home, it was 7pm. It was a very long and strenuous, but very successful, day of fishing. And as difficult as it was, I’m so glad I did it. It was an experience I will never forget. But I won’t be doing it again anytime soon! 🙂

Nancy wasn’t able to get into the park for the day since I have the senior National Park pass…..and she isn’t old enough to get one (she loves to remind me about that!:) She did the laundry, went to the grocery, and then explored more of the area around Gardiner. She drove up the mountain and down about 5 miles of gravel road to the small community of Jardine. That is where she took the pic of Gardiner shown below. She talked with an older gentleman and he told her they usually have about 8 ft of snow on the ground, starting in September and it’s usually gone by the end of May! He and his wife love it up their…they moved here from Florida (can you believe it!). We can’t really imagine living here!

She then crossed the river and took another gravel road (Old Yellowstone Rd.) and saw some amazing scenery and a big Pronghorn. Per Wikipedia, “…the deer like Pronghorn is neither antelope or goat. It is the sole surviving member of an ancient family dating back 20 million years. It is the only animal in the world with branched horns (not antlers) and the only to shed it’s horns as if they were antlers.”) It’s closest living relative is the giraffe (really?). They are so cool looking! She also found three good sites around Gardiner (not inside the park) for us to return to tonight with our chairs and binoculars to look for other wildlife. We sat outside on a beautiful and warm evening and enjoyed a cocktail together. Then I took a shower while Nancy cooked dinner. After dinner, I fell into bed completely exhausted.

But today was definitely another great day!

The first pic is the overlook that looks down into the canyon we hiked. The second is the view. We hiked down and fished the left side…..and again, the pics really don’t do justice to the difficulty.