Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Yellowstone/MT 2020

Obviously, this year has been a strange one.  Got back from Chile just in time before the shutdowns.  Fishing this spring got off to a decent start here in PA, but then major drought set in around mid June and pretty much killed the trout fishing.  I was definitely ready to get out west this year.  After a couple of flight rearrangements, we were able to make it out fairly smoothly.  The smoke from the Bridger Foothills and Lone Star Fires, not to mention others, made climbing up the sides of mountains somewhat of a chore.  Felt like I smoked a carton of cigarettes some mornings.  Crowds in the park were out of control.  Seemed like every trailhead was packed.  Although the fishing pressure and the amount of people doing stupid things like trying to pet bison and stopping in the middle of the road seemed to be on par with previous years. 

We were able to nymph a good number of fish, but the top water fishing seemed to come in spurts....not really unexpected for this time of year.   Most mornings were in the 40s, so it took some time for things to warm up and get going.  We took all the video gear with us this year with the intention of putting something short together, but never really got motivated to turn 25lb packs into 35lb packs, so it pretty much stayed in the vehicle.  On the last day though, I threw one of the action cams attached to a float through one of my favorite holes.  The pic quality is pretty poor, but still pretty cool (last photo).  

It was good to unplug for a week, catch up with some good friends, fish some favorite spots, and explore some new ones.  Hope  you enjoy the photos.  



There is a mountain behind that smoke.






Soda Butte one of the days the smoke was not too bad. 





Brad and Paul Weamer (weamerflyfishing) getting it done. 







Unfortunately, the yellowbrick road was 7 miles of hiking up and down a mountain in the smoke and prime bear habitat for subpar fishing this day.  Cool hike though. 





Big Bull in full rut, thrashing the ground and rolling around.  


Still frame from the action cam.  There are trout mixed in there with whitey....and this was just a small section of the hole!