The next day we decided to hike a couple miles further downstream than we had the previous day, right to where the stream enters a steep canyon. The canyon section is nearly impossible to fish just because the water's so fast and the walls are so steep you can't walk along the bank in most places.



A little ways up from the canyon I hit a nice little side channel that held some productive looking water. A couple of drifts through there produced a missed strike and a refusal on the big stonefly, so I went to a slightly smaller, but still big (size 12) humpy. Bingo!

I followed that fellow up with a LDR on a decent brown and another missed strike from a cutt. A bit further upstream we came across a really nice, deep, slow pool. With faster water in the middle, my buddy took one side and I took the other. I pulled four nice cutts out of there, while he picked one up on his side.





One photograph is enough!



Farther upstream, I hit another little side channel and immediately saw a nice fish rising. With the high water on this stream, the side channels were really the hot place to be this week. Although the stream as a whole is pretty big, it's a much different feel when you're fishing a channel that's only 10' wide, and then gives up fish like this (stupid shadow, get out of there!):



We went quite a ways upstream without catching much except a few small whitefish. Finally I wound up on the opposite side of the stream from my buddy after he'd fished a nice looking run with no success. There was some very fast water in the middle of the stream, and some big, deep pools behind some big rocks on the other side. I climbed out on one of those big rocks and looked down to see a realllly big cutt (at least for this stream) holding in the bottom of the pool. I tossed a big dry out there and got no response for several casts. Then he disappeared. So I watched for a while longer, and when he reappeared, I put on a big, heavy wooly bugger. I got him to turn and look at it, but that was it. The water was swirling so much in this hole it was nearly impossible to control where your fly went. Successive casts to the exact same place would result in the fly doing completely different things. Finally, after about 10 minutes of trying unsuccessfully to catch this fish, I decided it was time to move on and try for the two fish that I could see rising in the next pool up. As I tried to move upstream though, the bank just kept getting steeper and steeper, and I realized I wasn't going to be able to get back down to the river by continuing upstream, so I headed back downstream. As I did, I thought I'd try to see if that big fish was back in his hole. Just as I peered over the ledge, I saw him come up twice and take a couple of bugs on top (couldn't see what) and then go back down. So I tied on a big grey dry fly (my flies are all pretty generic) and put it over him. On about the 20th try, he came up and took it! Now, the problem was that this bank was REALLY steep, and there was a tree across the river just downstream from him, so I really had no way to chase him downstream. Fortunately, he didn't try to take him downstream, and I was able to find one little spot where I could get down to the river. If he had tried to take my downstream I might have just had to create my own A River Runs Through It scene and jump in after him. Thankfully it didn't come to that, and I was able to land him while staying dry. Unfortunately, my lens cover didn't open all the way. I measured him along the rod though, and he came out right at 19".



Unfortunately, the day wouldn't stay that fantastic. A mile upstream or so, I hooked into a nice fish that I wasn't quite sure what was at first. This stream has always held a lot of Yellowstone cutts, a few whitefish, and an occasional brown. So when I hooked this guy, I wasn't quite sure what he was at first. When I landed him, my worst fears were realized.



A rainbow. Well, a cuttbow, really, as he had some light slash marks under his jaw. This was the first rainbow I've caught in this stream, and it was downright depressing. This stream is one of the last strongholds for native Yellowstone cutthroats, so the presence of a rainbow/cuttbow was not what I wanted to see. In fact, I emailed a game and fish biologist about it afterwards and discovered that this was the first time a rainbow/hybrid had been found above the canyon. They were hoping that the canyon had enough waterfalls to act as a barrier to keep the rainbows from moving upstream. Obviously, that was no longer the case. My theory is that the high water last year made it possible for a few fish to move upstream, as I've caught far more browns, and now a rainbow, in the last two years.

That fish isn't in the river anymore though, and she made a fine supper. Thankfully, she still had eggs in her, so she hadn't spawned yet, so hopefully I was able to keep the cutthroat population as genetically pure as possible. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of keeping fish, but there was just no way I could return this fish to the stream, knowing what I know about the threat it poses to the cutthroats native to it.