Montana/Yellowstone Trip

[lastchance]

My buddy and I had one great time on our trip to Montana/Wyoming. The Yellowstone Park scenery was spectacular. I kept telling him that "This is like fishing in a postcard." We were surrounded, literally, by purple mountains majesty, amber waves of grain, stunning valleys and foothills, sagebrush, buffaloes, pronghorn antelope, black bears, elk, mule deer, whitetails and coyotes. We actually saw two grizzly bears along with the afore mentioned wildlife. Our first stop was the Soda Butte where we encountered our first grizzly, but luckily we were in our rental. It was only 10 yards off of the road. We fished that are two days later and kept our heads on a swivel and our bear spray at the ready. One morning I was about to walk the foothills down to the Lamar River when a game watcher stopped me. He said, "You're not going down there to fish are you?" I said I sure am. He then pointed to a grizzly on the river looking for food. Needless to say we waited until he ambled back up into the mountains. The fishing was slow the first 3 days because of very cold temps. We awoke to temps in the 30s and days when it didn't get beyond 50. We still managed to catch fish, but it wasn't nearly as good as we expected. The temperatures warmed about our 4th day (we fished 10 days total), and the hatches began along with the hopper, beetle and ant fishing. We had some great BWO hatches, along with PMDs, sulfers and Flavs. My buddy can correct me if I forgot some bugs. AS I mentioned before the F. E. B. Hopper did yeomen's work along with the Chaos Hopper. AS the weather warmed the fish began to look up. Of course, I was catching fish on the F. E. B. Hopper during the cold weather. I landed an 18" Cuttthroat, my biggest cutt of the trip. I landed another fish over 20 at Trout Lake, a place you must experience if you're visiting the park. The scenery is incredible. We floated the Yellowstone River one day with a guide friend of ours and he put us on some great fish time and time again. We landed cutts, rainbows, browns and I even caught a brook trout. Matt said it was only the 4th brookie he saw that far up the river. Matt Long of Long's Outfitters is a great guy that knows every inch of the river. He's a hard worker and does whatever it takes to please his clients. Our final day was spent on a Armstrong Creek in Paradise Valley, where we fished over some heavy, broad-shouldered trout. I definitely will make another visit to the area and I hope it's next year. The first photos (left to right) 1. Soda Butte Cutte; 2. The Miner's Saloon at the foot of the Absaroka Mountains; 3. Soda Butte Creek with Absaorkas in background; 4. Yellowstone River Cutt; 5. Armstrong Creek Brown.