Pastor John
07-29-02, 09:50 AM
Just got back from a week in the Yellowstone area. I will be in a trance for several days, I’m sure…
Spent the week at Hubbard’s Yellowstone Lodge south of Emigrant – absolutely fantastic lodge: gourmet meals, excellent hosts, and great guides. Here are the details:
Arrived in Bozeman Monday at lunch, made it down to the lodge about 3pm. After tossing our bags into the room, we met our guide for the week and immediately launched one of the drift boats out on Merrell Lake, the lodge’s private trophy lake. The result? Four nice rainbows that smashed our damselfly dries; largest was about 20 inches.
Tuesday, we floated the Yellowstone fishing Prince nymphs (#12) trailing behind a Stimulator (#8). The river was rather off-color due to rains during the previous few days, but we still did well. Largest rainbow was 24 inches, and we caught about a dozen fish. We beached the boat at lunch and fished up Mill Creek and caught cutthroats from about every pool for about two hours. The cutts weren’t particularly fussy about what fly they would eat, but demanded a drag-free float. Fortunately, it took two or three botched casts to put them down, so we did pretty well.
Wednesday morning we fished Nelson’s Spring Creek for the most “technical” fishing of the week. These rainbows were tough to fool. They had seen every type of fly and tippet, and wanted specific flies. It took me a while to catch on, but we finally fooled four rainbows in the 16-18 inch range, using small Baetis dries. Tough fishing, but it was exciting to watch a rainbow evaluate my fly and drift and then make a commitment to take the fly. In the afternoon we fished Tom Miner Creek near the lodge for cutthroats – plenty of them and since it was mostly meadow we had great success with hopper and cricket patterns.
On Thursday we took off for Yellowstone NP and fished Slough Creek, Soda Butte Creek, and Tower Creek. Slough Creek yielded several rainbows and a couple of browns on a variety of flies, mostly Wulffs, Stimulators, and other attractor patterns in #10 and #12. Slough’s legendary reputation meant that we were about fifth in line to fish each pool, and it didn’t really have the wilderness feeling that I enjoy so much, although we did see plenty of bison and a moose. The highlight of the day was Tower Creek at the confluence with the Yellowstone; we caught 12-14 inch cutthroats all afternoon on various attractor patterns. I’m a real enthusiast of the cutthroat – their evaluative and gentlemanly rise is a real heart stopper; learning how to set the hook on these took some training. The water is so clear and the fish so visible that it’s easy to jump the gun on the hook set and miss the fish. But we got our share…
Friday we toured the park and ended up in West Yellowstone. Everything that you hear about the park is true – absolutely stunning scenery, lots of wildlife, and trout streams too numerous to count. The Madison, Firehole, and Gibbon were closed to fishing due to high stream temperature. Surprisingly, the other streams did not seem crowded; we saw and talked to plenty of other anglers, but there was lots of room for everyone with the abundance of water available.
Saturday we left West Yellowstone heading north and spent a half-day fishing the Gallatin inside the park. This was classic meadow fishing, all hoppers and crickets, and the river yielded an abundance of rainbows, browns, and cutthroats. By now I had learned that the way to fish meadow streams is to stay out of the water and spend lots of time on your knees (not necessarily praying, but trying to keep a low profile). These fish were not fussy about patterns, but demanded a drag-free float before they would take the fly. We put our share down due to clumsy walking or casting, but there were so many fish in the river that we ended up with more than a dozen in a couple of hours.
Can’t say enough about Hubbard’s Yellowstone Lodge! Although very expensive, the staff and accommodations were fantastic. Gourmet meals, great wines, and superb guides made this a very special vacation. Highly recommended – we’ve already booked our trip for next year…
John
Spent the week at Hubbard’s Yellowstone Lodge south of Emigrant – absolutely fantastic lodge: gourmet meals, excellent hosts, and great guides. Here are the details:
Arrived in Bozeman Monday at lunch, made it down to the lodge about 3pm. After tossing our bags into the room, we met our guide for the week and immediately launched one of the drift boats out on Merrell Lake, the lodge’s private trophy lake. The result? Four nice rainbows that smashed our damselfly dries; largest was about 20 inches.
Tuesday, we floated the Yellowstone fishing Prince nymphs (#12) trailing behind a Stimulator (#8). The river was rather off-color due to rains during the previous few days, but we still did well. Largest rainbow was 24 inches, and we caught about a dozen fish. We beached the boat at lunch and fished up Mill Creek and caught cutthroats from about every pool for about two hours. The cutts weren’t particularly fussy about what fly they would eat, but demanded a drag-free float. Fortunately, it took two or three botched casts to put them down, so we did pretty well.
Wednesday morning we fished Nelson’s Spring Creek for the most “technical” fishing of the week. These rainbows were tough to fool. They had seen every type of fly and tippet, and wanted specific flies. It took me a while to catch on, but we finally fooled four rainbows in the 16-18 inch range, using small Baetis dries. Tough fishing, but it was exciting to watch a rainbow evaluate my fly and drift and then make a commitment to take the fly. In the afternoon we fished Tom Miner Creek near the lodge for cutthroats – plenty of them and since it was mostly meadow we had great success with hopper and cricket patterns.
On Thursday we took off for Yellowstone NP and fished Slough Creek, Soda Butte Creek, and Tower Creek. Slough Creek yielded several rainbows and a couple of browns on a variety of flies, mostly Wulffs, Stimulators, and other attractor patterns in #10 and #12. Slough’s legendary reputation meant that we were about fifth in line to fish each pool, and it didn’t really have the wilderness feeling that I enjoy so much, although we did see plenty of bison and a moose. The highlight of the day was Tower Creek at the confluence with the Yellowstone; we caught 12-14 inch cutthroats all afternoon on various attractor patterns. I’m a real enthusiast of the cutthroat – their evaluative and gentlemanly rise is a real heart stopper; learning how to set the hook on these took some training. The water is so clear and the fish so visible that it’s easy to jump the gun on the hook set and miss the fish. But we got our share…
Friday we toured the park and ended up in West Yellowstone. Everything that you hear about the park is true – absolutely stunning scenery, lots of wildlife, and trout streams too numerous to count. The Madison, Firehole, and Gibbon were closed to fishing due to high stream temperature. Surprisingly, the other streams did not seem crowded; we saw and talked to plenty of other anglers, but there was lots of room for everyone with the abundance of water available.
Saturday we left West Yellowstone heading north and spent a half-day fishing the Gallatin inside the park. This was classic meadow fishing, all hoppers and crickets, and the river yielded an abundance of rainbows, browns, and cutthroats. By now I had learned that the way to fish meadow streams is to stay out of the water and spend lots of time on your knees (not necessarily praying, but trying to keep a low profile). These fish were not fussy about patterns, but demanded a drag-free float before they would take the fly. We put our share down due to clumsy walking or casting, but there were so many fish in the river that we ended up with more than a dozen in a couple of hours.
Can’t say enough about Hubbard’s Yellowstone Lodge! Although very expensive, the staff and accommodations were fantastic. Gourmet meals, great wines, and superb guides made this a very special vacation. Highly recommended – we’ve already booked our trip for next year…
John