Yellowstone on the Fly

I'm home! I survived, even enjoyed, a two week road trip with my wife, Lydia, and our 5 children to Yellowstone National PArk and back. For those of you who are not exactly familiar with how far south we are located, that is an 1800 mile trip EACH WAY!  In total we drove over 4000 miles in a minivan. My third trip to Yellowstone. I don't think I will ever get used to the spectacle of volcanic activity inside the caldera or the spectacle of wildlife in Lamar Valley. Yellowstone is my second favorite place to be in the whole world...second only to the Lower LAguna Madre. It's good to be home and be back out on the water catching big, strong redfish. It snowed on us in Yellowstone! I'm like a lizard; I LOVE  the heat. It's so good to be home.

But, this is a fishing blog and, as you can see from the photos, we fished Yellowstone. For those of you fortunate enough to be familiar with the Yellowstone/Snake River area, you probably already know that we were there just a few weeks too early for fishing. There were so many streams and rivers still blown out from the runoff of this winter's snowpack. We knew this before arriving, but decided to pack our six piece travel rods and hope for the best. Thanks to the helpful staff at High Country Flies/Jack Dennis Outdoors in Jackson, Wyoming, we were armed with several dozen local flies and, most importantly, information and directions! W spent a few hours on three different days fishing the Firehole, Gibbon, and Madison Rivers. We caught enough rainbows and brown trout to put smiles on the faces of me and my boys. We caught most of our fish on dry flies casting to visible fish and, at times, nothing more than what looked to be productive, slower moving water. Even though I spent twelve years fishing small streams and tailwater in New Mexico, I felt very much out of my element on this trip. It's so, so good to be home! 

As always my boys fishing tenacity made me proud! We will continue to dream of catching a Cutthroat in Slough Creek. It will happen one day! In the meantime, get down here and join us for some red fishing. Summer fishing patterns are in full swing.