December

Went down and fished the Current River for most of the day, though fishing was awfully slow. Nothing special really, fished from Baptist downstream to the first big, slow hole, the water low and very clear. Had a few hits on Pat's rubberlegs, heavily weighted and chucked through runs and the tails of pools, and a few half-hearted smacks at wooly buggers and other streamers. Nothing eventful, and I'm hoping things pick up in 2010.

As for resolutions, those are fairly easy. Fish harder- not necessarily more, though that'd be a lot of fun too, but I think I'd be a more productive angler if I simply tried harder. We'll see. Find a job, figure out grad school, write more, learn more, read more, perhaps invest in a vehicle with four-wheel drive, take some trips...

As for trips, that's been fomenting in my mind now that it's cold and snowy. The coast sounds nice- Texas, Louisiana, Florida- somewhere with redfish and, ideally, snook. Peacock bass in the canals around Miami still tempt me, as does another trip out west this summer. Something about chucking big terrestrials for big, happy cutthroats amongst big meadows or freestone pocket water and huge views seems delightfully comforting. Where I'd go though, that's still up in the air. Perhaps the Flathead drainage, or Idaho...

Spring- a trip to the Wisconsin driftless or Michigan seems like a good idea, perhaps coupling it with some trips for steelhead or big ice-out pike and musky. We'll have to see though, money is always an issue, though there's hope.

Talking at the flyshop last night the subject was broached of South America- Argentina specifically, next year, fishing for trout in Patagonia and golden dorado in the northern part of the country. It sounds awfully tempting, and if I could scrape together six grand, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

We'll see. That's the nicest thing about a new year, I suppose- the opportunities are boundless.

Happy New Year, I'll see you in 2010.

December

I got it in my head to go visit Maramec Springs Park, mostly because it's close, the fish are fairly dumb, I wanted to get some neat pictures, and there's a real chance to get into some hefty smallmouth there in the winter.

No smallmouth, and very few trout. I hooked a few briefly on WD-40's and small size 20 or so parachute Adams, but never was able to bring one to hand.

did catch a bunch of these guys, though, cubby little rock bass 7-10 inches long, that'd rise straight up from the weedbeds and rock crevices and smash those flourescent-tailed wooly buggers I'd tied for stocker rainbows the week before.








And I caught a number of these guys, who'd intercept my dries before they floated over the pod of trout I was working.












And this guy, who's identity I'm not entirely sure of.















And this mangy little bugger, who seemed entirely unconcerned at my presence.















It was okay. Not great, but okay.

December

I haven't been out fishing in too long, almost a month. A few days before Christmas I finally got the shack-nasties bad enough to head out to one of the St. Louis urban lakes which are stocked each winter with trout. I'm not personally fond of the idea- to me stocking fish which are fated to die seems rather cruel, and few of the lakes stocked seem really geared toward the "urban youth" the Department of Conservation is determined to target.

The initial idea was to try a "stocker slam," fishing a half dozen or so different ponds and catching a few fish at each. It seemed like a fun target, though as the day wore on, I nixed it. Instead I tied a half-dozen wooly buggers, black with various flourescent-colored tails, and headed to Busch Wildlife Area in St. Charles County.





Fishing was pretty uneventful, about what you would expect. It was chilly, and the water was only about 1/4 open. I fished for three or four hours, only getting a single bump. Saw a few deer, a couple turkeys, and some ducks, but otherwise the whole thing was pretty lame. It was nice to get out though, especially so close to the holidays.

November

Thanksgiving.

It was fun, the family went down to the farm, ate too much, and I wandered around for a few hours, taking pictures of the little wet-weather branch which runs behind the house (where I fell in, and fell in love, with water), the "old pond" (where I learned to fish, where I learned to fly-fish, and where I caught my first fish on a fly I tied myself, and where, as an eight or nine year old boy, seemed about as wild and remote as anywhere on the planet), and various other things which struck my interest at the moment.

Perhaps just the onset of winter, but wandering around like that on a place that's so familiar to you, you begin to get the sense of finality- the realization that things won't stay the same forever. That your life, that the world itself, is always dynamic, always changing, always altering and sometimes even re-inventing itself. Little remains truly static.

November

On the ride back from James Bridge the night before, I began thinking to myself, waxing sentimental about my rod. It's not anything particularly fascinating, a low-end St. Croix model I bought on clearance at a big box store. Nine feet long, graphite, and rated for a 4 weight line, it'd been my fishing partner when I was all alone, it had performed admirably for me on several dozen trips, it was, in a strange way, a fishing companion and my magic wand. I thought about naming it, as I suppose you're supposed to do with the things you love, whether they be a car or your dog. And the only thing I could come up with was Victoria, if only because the song by the same name, written and sang by the Kinks decades before I was born, happened to be playing on the radio at the time. Little did I know I had jinxed myself.

I was hoping to catch a wild rainbow today, all I'd caught all weekend were browns. They were fun, but even the little wild fish on the North Fork of the White are pretty powerful fish. I'd caught several last March up to fourteen inches, and it was amazing the fight in those fish.

I had no such luck, though. I worked my way up the run just outside the River House, up to a nice-looking gravel bar which dumped into a deeper tub. It looked fishy, and I tied on a big, heavy rubberlegs with a #14 Red Ass as a dropper. I lobbed the rig onto the bar and let it all tumble into the tub, when the indicator stopped and I set the hook.

I felt the tension of the fish, then heard the swift snap of the rod, and watched the top half hinge into the river. Stunned, I grabbed it and began towing rod, line, and fish through the water. The fish came to hand, a little stocker brown, foul-hooked directly in the caudal peduncle. this was what I had broke my rod on.












I yelled and cussed and waded back to the house, putting the rod back together as best I could with some aluminum foil, epoxy, and single-strand waxed nylon. No dice- it broke again after only a few casts. Disheartened, I decided to head south into Arkansas. There was a decent-sounding rodbuilding shop I'd read about in Mountain Home, and I figured I could perhaps make something happen there...

November

Fished the same stretch as the day before, Patrick Bridge to James Bridge, though this time I was in the drift boat with Creepy and Craig. Water was still up but very clear, and most of the day we spent casting heavily weighted rubberlegged stoneflies, with soft hackle droppers, and getting into fish.

Each of us caught around a dozen, Craig's biggest a 15 inch wild rainbow and myself with a pair of 15 inch browns. The real treat was the weather- sunny, clear, and in the 70's, I was fishing in short-sleeves and sweating!

Later in the day we met up with Dave and Damian, who were each fishing out of pontoons. Dave had caught a massive brown, easily in the 8 to 10 pound range. he showed us the photos, absolutely gorgeous fish.

November

I’d been invited a month or more before to go fishing on the North Fork of the White River with a bunch of folks from the fly shop. I’d been a regular there in middle and high school, taking fly tying classes there on Wednesday nights. I’d gone fishing with them last April on the same stretch of water; it was a lot of fun, and I managed catching some gorgeous wild rainbows and a few small browns, too.

The program was pretty simple, namely fishing heavily-weighted stonefly nymphs and a couple split shot under an indicator through deep runs and riffles, probing for fish. I was in Creepy’s float boat, one of those personal pontoon boats with the two oars that seems like a mobile fish vacuum. “It’s easy,” he had told me, “it floats like a cork.”

It was true, the thing did float like a cork, and I assume they’re not as difficult to maneuver as it seems. But it doesn’t take much energy to set the thing in motion, and it doesn’t take much effort on the oars to get the thing spinning in circles. I spent a fair amount of the day doing that, though within the last two miles, when I finally gave myself over to utter and total failure, things became quite a bit easier.

I did manage to catch a few fish though, all browns and all at the smaller end of the scale. The biggest around fourteen inches, the smallest around ten, and all on rubber legged stonefly nymphs. I missed two or three, though still not big ones, and had one that may have been pretty sizeable break off my 4x tippet.

October

I went down to the Current River, alone, to get back some badly needed fishing time. That big browns should be on the move sweetened the pot.










Fished from noon till eight, well past dark, and only managed two fish, a brown and a rainbow, both about fifteen inches. The brown took a caddis pupae dead-drifted through a slow run, or a fast pool, whichever way you'd prefer looking at it. The rainbow smashed a #8 wooly bugger as soon as it hit the water. Both were pretty fish, but I was a tad bummed at just catching two. But such is life.

I did miss two- a couple small browns which took whacks at my white streamer. Had one hooked, but it pulled out.

I thought about staying at Eagle’s Park, but didn’t for whatever reason. I think toilets and hot showers played a prominent factor. So I went to Montauk State Park and got a campground, started a fire, and didn’t bother setting up a tent. Instead I slept in my sleeping bag, on top of the picnic table.

October

My first jones was for wild fish, as it should be. I headed south, to investigate a little wild trout stream in the Ozarks, fairly well off the beaten path. I’d never been before and had no idea what to expect, although knowing a little about most Ozark wild trout waters, I didn’t have very high expectations.

Roaming along ridges and valleys on poor little gravel backroads, I finally wound up at an old fescue pasture with an innocent-looking sign barely noticeable along the


roadway. I pulled in and strung up my rod, trudging through locusts and greenbriar, multiform rose and other assorted brambles, for a few hundred yards before it opened up to the stream.

A pretty place, I walked into a tiny, but relatively deep, run along a tall stone bluff. Upstream was a small pool, not much bigger than one of those ten-foot galvanized swimming pools you sometimes see in people’s backyards. On one side, my side, was a small rootwad from

a young sycamore. I tied on a small copper John and attached an indicator about three feet above, and tossed the rig in behind the rootwad.

The first fish which came to hand was a six-inch striped shiner, and my heart sank, figuring this stream was another dog. The second fish, though, was a healthy, lovely, six-inch rainbow.

I probably caught twenty five or so of the fish in about two-hundred yards of stream, working both nymphs and dries. The biggest was a handsome twelve-incher which exploded on a hairwing dun. All the fish were pretty, though unlike many I’d seen out west. Their flanks were more a lemon-yellow, there tops a deep olive green, and their sides bisected by a crimson band, wider in the center than at either end. Purplish-silver parr marks, orange-red fins with white tips, and comparatively few and tiny spots, hardly any lower than the lateral line. Pretty fish though, and I adored them.

September

I sent an email to my boss letting him know I’d be back into work on the first of September. I figured it’d be easier than coming in earlier, and having to mess with a few days of pay before having to fill out a new timesheet.

I received an email from his assistant the next day, saying my job had disappeared in the three weeks I was out west.

It was worth it.

August

Go-time, the first time we’d be turning right out of the campsite instead of left. The last time I’d be on the Beartooth Highway this season. The last time I’d see Montana.

It took us six hours to get from Cooke City to Billings, a trip that typically takes three or four. But none of us really wanted to go, and we prolonged the trip as long as possible. We stopped at several places in the Beartooths to take photos, and that, coupled with the road construction, extended the trip. We also spent an hour or so in Red Lodge at the brewery there, tasting samples and drinking beer and eating reubens.

We got to Billings and were still hungry, so stopped at a Golden Corral and ate ourselves sick. Jake wound up laying on the pavement in the parking lot, holding his stomach and groaning.

We dropped Cain off at a seedy little motel in downtown Billings, for him to create his own stories. It was then our two cars- mine and Dave’s, headed east on I-90, back to the flatlands.

Back through South Dakota, again in the dark. It was a nervous trip, we were all in and out of consciousness, tired, our brains fried by camping and fishing and sun. I smoked a porcupine doing 85, and all that was left was a red streak on the road and a handful of quills in my new tires. Paul drove for a bit, until the intermittent fifteen miles of orange road cones began screwing with his mind. Even Jake drove some, through Iowa.

But we made it back to Winders’ parents house and split up, Paul and Jake getting into their car, Winders staying, and Dave and I heading back in our respective vehicles. And that was it, three weeks out west, over and done.

August

Our last fishing day, and we figured we’d better do it up right. Paul and I were intensely in favor of hiking up Slough Creek to the first meadow, at least, and seeing what it was all about. The only person who really needed convincing was Jake, but in the end, he relented.

We parked at the trailhead and loaded up with fly vests, beer, and snacks, and within forty-five minutes were over the hill and on the stream. Most of us took off downstream towards the boulders and pocket water, while Jake worked his way up through the meadow.

Fishing was about as easy as it was tough downstream. Fish were rising everywhere to spruce moths, and tossing fair imitations along wooded cutbanks and in pools produced fish more or less consistently. Once all of those were gone, I switched to foam ants and caught fish more frequently. Nothing huge, the biggest fish was a fourteen inch cuttbow- far more rainbow than cutt- a pink side, heavily spotted all over, white tipped fins. I was intent on keeping it, trying to do my part to limit the invasion of rainbows, but on its throat, when you folded back two little rolls of tissue, lay two faint orange slashes. I cursed the thing and let it go.

Paul and I did the best in terms of numbers, Jake the best in terms of sizes. Winders and I had a beer and spent a great deal of time sitting in the water, watching fish feed. Paul climbed up a rock wall to watch fish from forty feet in the air. In all, we relished in the scenery, and in our last day.

August

We woke up and tied some flies, trying to imitate all the things we’d seen but had no flies for- small pale yellow Sparkle Duns, olive-yellow stonefly dries, spruce moths, foam ants, beetles. We headed out of camp and down the long hill towards the Northeast Entrance, stopping at what had become the now familiar road construction. It was getting to the point where the lady holding the SLOW sign could recognize our vehicles and our faces, and would strike up a brief conversation telling us how long it was until we would be through the traffic, and what we were up to this day. We took the opportunity presented be a half-hour traffic wait to get out and visit the Cooke City Store, where we picked up some food and meat, flies and beer.

We fished Soda Butte primarily, though Jake and I wandered back over to the Lamar. Fishing was much slower than previously- it was warmer, the water had been packed the past few days, it wasn’t as windy. I caught two or three on the Lamar on olive stonefly imitations and spruce moths, though nothing big. Nor did I raise any big fish, though I did stop and watch a big cutt from a high bank, as it rested behind a rootwad in a deep run. Jake tried for it from across the channel with a big stonefly, and I had a few whacks at it with a six-inch long Sex Dungeon, but neither of us seemed to impress the fish.

We did, however, get awfully close to some awfully big buffalo. Jake wandered up and fished a run thick with willows, while I elected to go around the three or four acres of willows and leapfrrog over Jake to some better looking water a few hundred yards upstream. I turned around the edge of the willows and came out about 40 feet from a massive bull. I stared blankly at me, and I slowly, gingerly backed out, then made a wide circle around him. Jake, going directly through the brush, had been fishing only a dozen or so feet from the thing.

The upper part of the beat we were fishing wasn’t producing much better, so we walked up and over the bench, back to Soda Butte. From our high vantage point we sat and watched ten or a dozen other anglers fishing, poorly we thought, not catching anything. When a couple decent spots vacated we descended, like vultures on a carcass.

Fishing was still slow, and we weren’t picking up much. No surface hatches, and fish seemed reticent to come to hoppers and other terrestrials. We fished downstream, coming to a braided section, the left, slower branch holding a good number of fish. The other branch, the one carrying more water, also held a bunch of fish, but was being played by a guide with a family of four. They were far enough away that you couldn’t hear the conversation, which made his antics more interesting. He’d wade out to where the fish would station behind some clods of dirt, picking off ants or whatever else, and point down into the water, signaling to whoever had the rod at the time to stick the fly here. It was for naught. In the hour and a half I watched them, no fish were brought to hand.

We weren’t doing very well either, though. Jake took the tail of the run, where it opened out into a larger pool, while I took the upper section, where the pool above poured out into the run. We tried most everything, starting out with hoppers and ants, then going subsurface with nymphs and soft-hackles. Nothing. Jake tied on a little zebra midge, and I played around with copper Johns. Nothing. Finally, I tied on a bubblegum-pink colored egg, and immediately caught two. The kid from the guide, maybe fourteen or fifteen, would wander over when he saw I had a fish on, and would stand on the bank above the fish, scaring whatever wasn’t put off by the hooked fish in the water. That got irritating. And the fact that I was catching fish while Jake wasn’t, and that I was catching fish on something as dumb as a pink egg while he wasn’t, was noticeably galling him. I relished in it.

I wound up catching six or so on the egg, broke one off and went about tying on another. I had my head bent down, watching myself knot another egg to the tippet, and could hear swishing in the grasses in the meadow ahead of me. I figured it was the kid again, the nylon of his river pants swishing against the grasses, and that he was subsequently spooking the rest of the pool, again. I looked up, and my field of view was occupied by another massive bull buffalo, rubbing and mowing down a willow tree with his horns. I stood stockstill, the thing was all of twenty feet away and looked pretty pissed, and I had no clue what to do. I yelled down to Jake, who by this time had walked downstream a hundred and fifty yards or so. He looked up, noted the buffalo, then went back to fishing. So I just watched the thing for what seemed like an eternity, trying to judge whether a buffalo would see the little run separating myself and him as an adequate barrier to charging.

He wandered off though, and I breathed a genuine sigh of relief, and went back to fishing. I caught a few more on emergers in the falling light, before wandering downstream to the rest of the crew and heading back to the campsite.

It was about 9:30 when we got back to Cooke City, and the gas station was just about to close. Our two vehicles pulled into the lot to get gas, and we piled out. The first three in grabbed a bunch of snacks- frozen burritos, jerky, chips, and all the rest, and the nice, young, bored clerk was more than happy to keep the place open for us while we used the microwave, simply saying “You boys look like you could use it.”
Forty minutes later, when we left, she seemed much less inviting. But we were on our way to the campsite, had a fire and a few beers, and crashed.

August

For the life of me, I couldn’t find my fishing license. It was stowed in one of those little plastic wallet sleeves- my seasonal Montana license within a little paper sleeve from the True Value in Red Lodge, as well as an expired daily Wyoming permit and my folded up-Yellowstone license. I doubted I’d ever actually get stopped and checked, but I couldn’t in good conscience fish without one. Plus the plan for today was to fish Slough, and if there was anywhere in the Park you could expect to be stopped, I figured that was it.

We needed beer and other sundry goods anyway, so Jake, Cain, Winders and I drove over to Gardiner. I dropped Cain off at Mammoth, so he could take a look at the hot springs and some other touristy stuff, while Winders, Jake and I went to the fly shop and grocery store.

It was early, eight or nine or so, and the three of us bought a fair stock of beer, as well as a couple steaks and some andouille for dinner that night. It was to be epic. We wandered over to Park’s and got flies and floatant, and I inquired as to whether it was possible to get a replacement license. Apparently they couldn’t do it, I’d have to go back into the Park and find a license dealer there.

Off we went, picking Cain back up in Mammoth and heading through the Lamar Valley to Slough Creek. My new plan was to drop everyone else off, then drive over to Tower and hope there I could procure a replacement license. Off they went, fishing, and I headed to Tower. The nice man behind the counter there explained that the Yellowstone license system was still entirely paper-based, so I’d either have to drive back to Old Faithful to get a replacement license or buy a new license there at Tower. I did the latter, and the ink wasn’t even dry on the license before I headed out the door, to meet up with everyone back on Slough Creek.

Fished Slough again, and it was quite boring. Windy, crowded, more of the same- the only redemptive quality of the crowd was to bring out some women- bored women sitting in lawn chairs reading novels as their husband/fiance/boyfriend fished poorly. That wasn‘t so bad, most everything else was. I was so pissed after I rounded the third bend and there were already a half-dozen anglers there that I took off upstream, determined to find at least some meager solitude.

I walked up above the campground and found my consolation. I walked upriver to some cataracts and pocket water, pretty, but not particularly fascinating. I walked overland through the campground, looking for water in the way of a spigot as compared to for fishing. I wound up finding the campground manager, an outgoing older man who asked how the fishing was. He told me the spruce moths were on up above the campground, that he was headed over to Gardiner to pick up some new flies, as that’s all the fish would take. I smiled.

I had read about spruce moths in John Holt’s books on flyfishing Montana. He’d written, in passing it seemed, about the potential for big spruce moth falls on Slough Creek. I hadn’t paid much attention to it, figuring the chances of it happening while I visited were practically nil. But I walked up the creek and there they were, hundreds of tawny-colored moths flying erratically and flopping onto the water en masse. It wasn’t a blanket hatch by any means, but the surface of the water was pocked with pale bugs, and big fish were rising methodically, wandering around the pools sucking them under at will.

But just like t he day before with the stoneflies, I had no moth imitations. I had elk hair caddis, and they caught two, and I had some Goddard caddis, which worked better, but nothing that the fish couldn’t resist.

Most amusing was the pool right above the campground. I was on the bank, watching a big cutt wander around the pool eating moths, occasionally casting to him but otherwise just fascinated watching him. A SUV pulls up and two teenage boys, twins, about fourteen, flop out, fly rods in hand. Mom and dad pull out a blanket and watch them from the bank, with a couple glasses of wine.

One was Jacob. I’m not sure the other one’s name, but he was much more into it than Jacob. Jacob sounded much more interested in ensuring his brother’s failure. Jacob was a little shit. I didn’t like Jacob. I listened to them bicker and argue and curse for half an hour, leaving after one of them had spotted, crowded in on me, then blew that big cutthroat I had been working with.

I headed farther upstream, leaving the pool to the boys, and was re-rigging when someone said hello. It was a guy, in his early twenties, bedecked with a spinning rod, asking how I was doing.

I told him, and he sort of sheepishly asked “Can I buy some flies from you?”

He gave me a twenty, and I gave him a handful of hoppers and humpies, as well as a couple PMD’s I had bought at Parks, and which had rose a few fish. I felt a little bad, though, as most of my productive flies were already lost, so I really gave him only a few I’d feel comfortable fishing myself, the rest were sort of my second string.

I fished on up until dark, raising and missing a few fish on Goddard caddis until I broke the last one off, before heading back down through the campground to the cars. Paul and Kyle were already there, and I went down and fished to a big cutthroat I’d noticed in the pool below the gravel lot earlier in the afternoon. It rose to a dirty-yellow spinner imitation, but I didn’t hook the thing.

We all met up in the dark and had a beer, hanging around the cars and waiting for Dave and Jake to wander in. A ranger came by and checked our licenses, the first time that had happened in the Park, and we talked about fishing and the fire to the west, fish management and college. Back to the campground we went, and Jake, Winders and I fixed our meet and other goodies in the rain, drinking a bit too much before becoming bored with the dampness. We crashed as soon as we crawled into our sleeping bags.

August

We headed off to Slough Creek, it was pretty uneventful. Crowded- everywhere you turned there were already 3 or 4 people fishing. And windy- not as windy as last year, but still tough to fish in. I was skunked, and wound up casting patiently to a nice-sized cutthroat for two hours. He bit, twice, but I never brought him to hand.





















Towards evening we headed over to Soda Butte Creek, on our way back to the campground, and stopped and fished. It was nearing dark, and fish seemed to be rising everywhere to small, yellowish-colored mayflies. I tied on a # 20 parachute Adams, and in quick succession caught a half-dozen fish while everyone else hemmed and hawed. I gave Jo a fly, and she got into fish, then Paul, and he caught two or three. We fished until we were in the dark, catching innocent, stupid little cutthroat- all from thirteen to fifteen inches. It was delightful, and I was giddy hauling in fish after fish.

August

Today, the Gibbon River- arguably my favorite river in the entire Park. From the road it doesn’t look like much- it’s pretty, a big, wide, calm, meandering meadow stream in the massive Elk Park area. But when you get up to it, you realize it’s far more. Tremendously undercut banks and thick vegetation beds, incredibly clear water and shy, spooky trout. Even the little ones are nervous. It’s fun, gorgeous, textbook water.

But I’ve never caught a fish there. Some sort of voodoo which I can’t seem to shake. I can get fish to rise, I can get fish to bite, I just can’t get fish to hand. For two seasons now I’ve tried, and for two seasons I’ve failed. It’s a weird sort of masochism, I suppose- I keep going back because I’m a sucker for humiliation.

We parked along the road and hoofed our way to the water- Jake, Jo and I working upstream while everyone else fished down. I got a couple hits on black ants and caddis dries, as well as some serious hopper looks, but nothing really incredible. Jo got a couple hits, but nothing. Jake slayed them, as he typically does on this water, mostly on Cherynobl Ants. He even hooked up with a big brookie, he put it at somewhere between fifteen and eighteen inches.

I’m incredibly lazy on this river- watching the water, watching the fish, musing at the grasses, wondering how far the woodline is, wondering if that’s a bear or an elk or just a stump way out in the meadow, wondering about the old, extinct geysers that pock parts of the stream bottom, showing tubs of crusty, strange rock. I suppose that’s part of the reason for my epic failure- it’s such a pretty place, it seems like such a shame just to pay attention to the fishing.

But I do want to catch a fish there. Someday.

August

My own personal D-Day- I was to go to Billings to pick up the rest of the crew. The plan was to meet them at the airport at 8, so I got up around 5 and took off through Yellowstone.

No time to take pictures, but it was gorgeous- the sun rising behind me, fog over the Lamar valley, buffalo milling around everywhere and pronghorn cruising along near the river. I made it to Gardiner in 50 minutes, then headed north to I-90 and on to Billings.

I got to the airport about ten minutes late- no biggie. Winders, Jake, Paul, Cain, and Jo were all there. Dave, and his Bronco, were to meet up with us as well, but he was hung up somewhere in the Dakotas. The six of us hung out, shot the shit, and mutually agreed it was time to find the Old Chicago, grab some lunch and beer.

We had to wait a half-hour in the parking lot for the place to open, making us look especially pathetic. But the pizza buffet and the accompanying brew made up for that. We spent a good deal of time there, eating and drinking, until our appetites were sated and the conversation was stale.

Dave was nowhere. Well, he was somewhere, somewhere near the border of North Dakota and Montana. But he wasn’t in Billings, and he wasn’t at the Old Chicago. We waited, and waited, and decided it’d be best to take off without him, make it to Gardiner, and meet him there.

So we headed back to Livingston and bought groceries and, more importantly, beer, then headed south towards Gardiner, where we picked up fishing licenses, flies, and shot the shit with the folks at Park’s fly shop. Great people. Dave was still nowhere to be seen, so I left a message telling him we were going fishing somewhere around Gardiner, and that we’d meet up with him in Gardiner in the evening when he got to town.

We picked Indian Creek, an moderate-sized stream right off the road that’s positively loaded with eager brook trout. I figured we’d get the skunk out of the boat early, especially since Cain and Winders had done very little fly fishing. Plus a mess of brook trout for dinner would surely be a good beginning to a week of fishing. So the six of us- Jo, Paul, Jake, Winders, Cain, and myself, set out.

Easy stuff- bushy attractors and dumb trout. And not much in the way of fancy gear- most of us were wet wading in shorts or swimming trunks and sandals, a sorry lot of anglers indeed. But we caught fish, a lot of fish, and the skunk was officially out of the boat.

I think we kept about eleven total, the biggest probably twelve or thirteen inches. Nothing phenomenal, but a lot of fun, and a great way to start the week.

We headed up to Gardiner in the dark, watching elk eyes in the headlights. Waited around and Dave showed up, then we were off to camp. Got there, ate our trout, drank some beers and got re-acquainted with each other. The whole crew. Delightful.

August

Fished Slough Creek for a bit, though the wind was killer. No fish brought to hand, so I moved on.

I instead went up to investigate Tower Creek, a brook and rainbow trout fishery near, oddly enough, Tower Store and Tower Campground. I figured the steep valley of Tower Creek would help cut some of the wind.

It did, and I caught fish- picking pocket water for spunky ten inch rainbows and brookies. It was fun, dapping bushy dries behind boulders and pools, some not much bigger than a kitchen sink, and pulling up bright little gems of fish. Shame I didn’t bring my camera. I fished till dark, catching a couple dozen brookies from four to twelve inches, and one rainbow about ten inches long. Beautiful.

I got back to Cooke City hungry, on the prowl for a big, greasy burger. I wandered around the main drag, peering into windows and looking for such sustenance- but all the places had a half hour, forty minute wait. I was impatient.

I did, however, wander across the street to a quiet little establishment with a green awning advertising burgers. I slipped in, and immediately realized why the place was so vacant- it wasn’t a burger joint at all, but a mid-class place seemingly owned and operated by a handful of beautiful women with thick eastern European accents. I, on the other hand, stank of fish and sweat, and hadn’t shaven since God only knows when.

It didn’t prevent me from eating a heaping plate of chicken alfredo. Content, I went back to my campsite and slept.

August

Settled in at Soda Butte Campground, near Cooke City. It was cheap, their was a toilet and water, scenic- and it had bear boxes. Plus it was close to three of the better waters in the Park- Soda Butte Creek, Lamar River, and Slough Creek. I was able to get a gorgeous site right by the creek and set up all the tents, pulling out and storing some of the other gear.

The only downfall to the campground was road construction on the Beartooth Highway, which could lead to delays of a half-hour to forty five minutes trying to get into the Park. From there on, though, things were golden.

Once settled in, I ran down to Soda Butte and fished for a bit, exploring the water. Didn’t catch anything spectacular, but gorgeous scenery and a few little cutthroats to share the day with.

August

I didn’t set up a tent, again. Instead, I slept in my sleeping bag, on the picnic table. I woke up around 5:30, time to go.

Was at the West Yellowstone gate by 6:00, and breezed through. The plan was to get a Yellowstone fishing license at Old Faithful, then fish my way up the Gibbon River to Gardiner, where I’d stop in at Park’s fly shop, and look for campgrounds for my group. But the nice older man at the gate informed me the general store at Old Faithful doesn’t open till eight, nor did the road from Madison Junction to Gardiner, as a result of road construction. I’d have to do some touristing.


I was at Old Faithful by 7:30, and milled around snapping pictures of the geysers, hot springs, and other features. Didn’t see anything fascinating in the way of wildlife, nothing big, just some ravens and eagles. Got my license and a bite to eat, then headed north.

I didn’t wind up stopping at the Gibbon, instead fishing the Gardiner River at Sheepeater cliffs. Nothing spectacular, just some little brook trout. I did get to watch a cow and calf elk for quite some time, though, which was nice.

August

That was the first time I’d heard wolves. Like, genuinely, in real life, heard wolves. They didn’t sound close, but I heard them. And that contributed to the loneliness, to the feeling of utter desolation.

That the day was the last of the unplanned was sending pangs throughout me as well. The realization that from here on out, things were more or less regimented- I was to go to West Yellowstone, I was to go into Yellowstone, I was to go to Cooke City and Silver Gate, I was to go to Gardiner, I was to go to Billings. The fishing was still up to me, but the destinations were now concrete. It made me, in some strange way, uncomfortable.

But I did wake up early, my car covered with a rime of frost. I watched the sunlight peter over the hill and down to me, all the while munching on a pop tart and an orange. I didn’t bother fishing the dink lake again, just headed back down the gravel road and over the mountains.

I had wanted to stop and fish a small stream for big cutthroat, reports I’d heard said the fish surpassed the magic 20 inch mark. But the same reports said access was terrible, and landowners were assholes. No matter, I could never find the stream anyway.

Instead, I made a cannonball run up the mountains and down into a little tongue of Idaho, right to Henry’s Lake. It was fun seeing in the early morning, though I had no desire to purchase an Idaho license and dick around there. I smelled. I was headed to West Yellowstone.

By eight in the morning I had made it to the Slide Inn, on the Madison River. A very cool shop owned by Kelly Galloup, purveyor of the Sex Dungeon, Circus Peanut, and other big-fish flies. I had been introduced to the Sex Dungeon the spring before, and thought it was a beautiful, fishy thing. It was neat going to the shop, seeing all the flies, all the experiments, like a fly-tying mad scientist. I bought some tippet and some Gatorade, then was on my way.

I made my way around Hebgen and Quake lakes, took a wrong turn, then wound up in West Yellowstone. Strolled around downtown, visited the various fly shops, and partook in lunch, did laundry and grabbed a shower before going and finding a campground at Baker’s Hole, on the Madison River.


I talked to Jake and Paul, who I were to pick up along with Kyle and Eric in less than a week. Friday, to be precise. This was the only concrete date on the whole trip: I must pick them up at the airport in Billings on Friday. Until then, I had time to play.

Everything I’d read about the Madison stated it wasn’t much of a summer fishery. Most of the big fish moved in and out of the river during the spawning season, spending most of their time eating in Hebgen Lake. But Jake egged me into going fishing that night, saying he had looked it up, and there was supposed to be a caddis hatch.

I did, and there were. Caddis- when the wind would die down you’d see them clustering around eddies and the margins of streams, and the whole river was alive with mouths- making the great sucking sound of a hatchery raceway at feeding time.

fish were about the size of raceway hatchery trout, too. All rainbows, none greater than about six inches. I had two pulls that felt like more substantial fish, but wasn’t able to see them, much less bring them to hand. The most eventful moment was when I was tying a fresh caddis on and hear an enormous crash in front of me, like an anvil hitting the water. I looked up, and I was eye to eye with an osprey at about twenty feet, as he carried off a dainty little rainbow. Awesome.