Yellowstone on The Fly

First of I will say I have seriously been lacking on writing my reports so let me post a few up to try and make up for it. Better late then never.

Deni's family invited me with them on a vacation out to Yellowstone National Park and that was a trip I couldn't turn down. The drive was a long one since we took the long way around. Spent a day driving up to Oregon when we spent the next day at the Portland Aquarium. Then we went to Mt Rainer, drove to Boise ID to see a family

friend, then 4 days after leaving Sacramento we arrived at our time share in West Yellowstone. The family came here to see the sights and take in the beauty of this magical place and I came along for the ride with my fly rod in the back with the intention to take the advantage of any fishing opportunities I could while I was there. Deni's family was really considerate and gave me the chance to take a vehicle and go and explore the streams by myself.

This place is gorgeous and it is incredible to drive anywhere and have countless streams all to yourself to pursue the passion of the sport of fishing.

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I spent my first day drifting dry flies along the Gibbon River. immediately saw a lot of surface activity in the river and the second I got a dry fly in there they were crushing it.

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There were a lot of little brook trout here with a couple of small rainbows mixed in.

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There wasn't anything big here, but getting fish constantly on dry flies was a load of fun! Fished here for a couple of hours catching a couple dozen fish before the evening was over.

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The area also had plenty of sights to see which sure reminded you that you were in bear/wolf country.

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I ended my day after seeing a bison come down to the river 50 yards away from me to get a drink. I have no care to get too close to one of those things.

Next couple of days I spent my fishing time on the Firehole River.

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Threw dry flies around the area here and found biting fish that were big enough to put up a half decent fight on the sissy stick.

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I also found a lot more brown trout in this area with a few bows as well.

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I caught all of my fish on dry flies. It didn't seem to matter what color or pattern, I tried several different styles. I just worked every bit of water that I could and moved a lot. Pretty much every good looking drift I would find held fish. Often I would be able to catch one or two then the rest would catch on to my presence and I would just move on to the next hole covering a lot of water each day I went out.

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It had been quite some time since I've really dedicated myself to using the fly rod, but of course most of the rivers here fly fishing is required. The are of the cast and the amount of finesse required for it was a very peaceful and humbling experience for me. If your drift wasn't perfect or your execution was sloppy the fish would have no part of it and you would often have to completely give up on the hole and try again later. Plus being able to fish and just be in such a beautiful place was just absolutely mind blowing.

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It was important though to always keep an eye over your shoulder because of the amount of wildlife out here that could be a serious threat to you out here.

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Just encase you didn't know, Bison are massive.

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I did see a mama bear with her cubs, but I never saw any wolfs.

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Seeing them and stuff like this makes you realize who's house your really in.

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They also stress a lot about hot spings here too. They pop up a lot in particular areas. Some are marked and some are not.

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As inviting as they look I was told it was ill advised to jump in one and use it as a hot tub haha.

Last day I spent my time along the fire hole river since that's where I had my best luck and I hit a few spots on the Madison River since it was on my way out of the park. I got my biggest fish of there trip here at my last spot. A beautiful 12 inch brown that would not cooperate with me for a simple picture.

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I didn't want to keep it out of the water too long so this was the best picture I was able to get before releasing it.

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I had a great time in the park. Felt good to get some practice on the sissy stick and get back into the trout fishery. I feel like its been a while since I've done any serious trout fishing. Beautiful place to visit, I didn't take a lot of pictures of all of the tourist sights just because that's not what really excites me about the place. I enjoyed way more walking miles of river banks and being 1 on 1 with the place and the fish. I'll have to come out to this place again maybe in the fall and see how different it looks in a different season.

Till Next Time
Mark

Amador Night Trip 4/18/15

Had the urge to go and give Amador a shot. I don't think I've been out to Amador for a night run in almost 2 years now, I'm way over due. Ethan came along plus my

friend Dana, and Deni. Saturday night we were hoping that the dock wasn't crowded. I think the whole reason Ethan and I stopped going was because it got too busy and when there are too many people running around on the dock it makes too much noise and kills the bite. We show up to the lake at 2300 and see over 30 people fishing on the dock. Damn, I haven't heard anyone talking about it for a long time I was hoping people forgot about it, but I guess not.

We started off of the damn just to get away from the crowds hoping that we would be able to pick up a few fish here. We tried powerbait and glow jigs here for about an hour for nothing. After a while we noticed a few people leaving the dock so we grabbed all the gear and made our way over. Got out on the dock and there are probably still 25 people on the dock, including several children, ages roughly 4-10. I love seeing parents bring their kids fishing, but isn't it past their bed time? With so many people moving around the dock and all of the kids running in circles around the dock things weren't looking good. We stuck it out though hoping that the kids would go to bed soon and we could get some quiet out here. 0200 a decent amount of people leave and one guy came over and gave us some night crawlers that he had left over and hadn't used. Ethan puts one on and no more then 5 mins later he finally gets our first fish of the night.

2 mins later his powerbait rod goes off and now we got two in the box. A minute after that I lose one on a glow jig and while that was going on I had one taking off with my powerbait rod and I some how managed to miss that one too. Nice little flurry of action and great to finally get a few fish in the box after being out here for 3 hours now. After that we were able to get into a few more small flurries of bites every 30-45 mins. We ended up missing most of them. The fish were just biting super light and weren't really committing to there hits. I was able to stick two on the radical glow tubes, Deni got one on powerbait and we all missed a few hits each. Called it a night around 0330 with 5 in the box.

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Not the greatest night, but with the conditions we faced I thought we did pretty good. The whole time we were there on the dock I only saw 3 other people get bites, and by bites I mean there were only 3 bites at all that didn't come from our group. Ethan brought along a submersable light that brought the shad school right to us which I think helped us out a lot. The fish I did end up stick on my jig I had maybe just 4 ft below the light, with the light being maybe 2 ft below the surface. Will have to make the trip out again sometime soon on a week day and see if its any better.

Till Next Time
Mark

Morning With Pops 4/1/15

My dad recently came back from spending 3 months in Louisiana and he has been absolutely dying to get back to fishing. First opportunity was yesterday morning. We dropped the boat in the water at Wimpy's around 0600 and made our way down river hoping for some top water action. First stop it was still dark out, not sure if it was too dark for fish to bite or not, but we'll see. Sent out my first

cast getting my wood wet. After the 4th twitch I thought I heard a small spalsh . . . . . tried finding my plug out there in the darkness and I saw a huge wake where my lure was and then it hit me. Holy crap I got a fish following me. Heard and saw the second splash on my plug and then KABOOM!!! the water exploded and I slam that hook into the first fish of the day. Fish put up a great fight pulling drag and everything. My dad got the net around her and we put a solid DD fish on the boat on the first cast.

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A great looking and fat 31 inch fish. I know its bad luck to catch a fish on your first cast, but the day could end here for all I care it would be a great one. Kept plugging down the shore line for not much more attention.

One thing that was very noticeable was it was ridiculously cold compared to what it has been recently. Towards the end of our first drift I get one more hit on my plug and that sends my plug flying through the air. The second it lands back down the fish takes it down and I slam into a good schoolie. Got him in and I was able to Katch and nice 4lber for the box.

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As I was fighting the fish I saw the Intimidator boat fly by us. I tried holding my rod down to make it less obvious that I was fighting a fish, but I saw him glaring right at me and he knew. Didn't really want the guides to know I'm catching fish up here, but there was no avoiding it at that point.

Kept working out way down river looking for more top water action. It never came around though. After we switched to throwing the jerkbaits we were able to stick a couple of bass here and there.

Made our way all the way out to the SJ looking for stripers. After a few hours of searching for the first time this entire season we actually find a school of active fish. Nothing big, but were sticking shakers and small schoolies on back to back cast.

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Just as the excitement started with about 4 fish to the boat a bass boat come by and flies by right inbetween us and the shore going right over the top of our school and ending the party. WTF!!! . . . . . . . . oh well nothing we can do about it now. Moved on with our search and did manage to stick a few more shaker stripers with some bass inbetween. Ran back up trying a few points on the way back and did a little bit of trolling from spot to spot, but no more action came around for us. Got off of the water around 1300 and called it a good day. We'll be back out this evening trying for more. My dad is thinking of nothing else besides fishing so you will probably be seeing a lot of reports from me in the near future.

Till Then
Mark

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