Where We Fish: Epic 2014 West Yellowstone Trip

October 8th was a much anticipated day in 2014. It was the first pilgrimage to fly fishing Mecca in West Yellowstone for Bishop Wyatt, Mortensen, Utley, and Gourley. We left on the afternoon of Wednesday the 8th for the five hour drive. Once we arrived, we hit the fly shop where we learned the proper method for surviving an attempt at fishing Barnes Hole on the Madison, and the derivation of improper fly names from the local fly shop bum. Utley also begged the location of the bar that had the best Rocky Mountain Oysters--he apparently had a previously undiscovered penchant for testes none of us knew about. I refused to eat said male anatomy from any mammal, and the masculine quips which ensued were quite sporting, until the fishing began! Then no amount of imaginary fried Capra testosterone could compensate for skills. However, we all caught so many fish everyone lost count, and since Utley had no tape measure, we will never really know who caught the biggest one this trip! Honestly, our first day of Oct. 9th was slow. We started on the Madison. Mortensen caught one brown out of Barnes Hole and the rest of us caught scowls from the locals. We tried fishing the Madison further in the park along the West Entrance Rd, where Utley hooked one. We moved on to the Gibbon River. It was beautiful, but produced no fish. Sadly, Utley's rod met its demise there. We finished the day at the picturesque Firehole River. There Bishop and I landed quite a few dinkers of 6-8". The SPOT maps, pics from the first day, and the GoPro video are below.

GoPro West Yellowstone Fly Fishing Oct. 8-9th, 2014

Day two of our trip, October 10th, we headed to Slough Creek First Meadow. It was a beautiful sunrise drive. We found a heard of Buffalo by the outhouse, then had a brisk walk uphill to the First Meadow. There were some Fishery Biologists there sampling in their helicopter that was fun to watch. Slough Creek was unlike any river we had ever fished. It was the slowest moving river with several deep holes loaded with Cutthroat Trout. Fishing was slow, but grey or brown streams with a slash of red were working. Gourley pulled out two from one hole, and then the best part of the day: Mortensen had been fishing another hole for several hours throwing everything he had at fish surrounding a brush pile. They gave chase, but never took. Utley had one go for his streamer, but got no hook up. Gourley fished the cut side of the back by crawling through the grass to the edge and fishing with an emerging Caddis pattern. That resulted in a beautiful take and nice fight from a 15" Cutthroat. The best part was the radio call to Mortensen and his exasperated reply, "You caught a fish out of the hole I fished for two hours!" We hiked out and made a stop at the Lamar River. There was a fantastic hole there, but we still did not hook up with any fish. The GoPro video is below with pics added further down. Enjoy!

GoPro Yellowstone Fly Fishing on Slough Creek & Lamar Rivers

The final morning of our amazing West Yellowstone trip was the best fishing yet. Bud Lilly's Fly Shop gave a not so secret spot to fish just outside of town on the Madison River. It was a cold, overcast morning, but the fish were hitting soft hackles hard. All of us hooked and landed fish. Bishop caught the most fish. Mortensen hooked the most fish, but was apparently turning into a fish hippie and feeling sorry for hurting their little fishy jaws, because he kept letting them get off. He did land a nice 16" or so Rainbow. His best catch of the day was his favorite: a nice fat slimy flying whitefish. Gourley landed a very acrobatic 16" Rainbow as well. Then Utley capped the day off with around a 19" Rainbow. It was a beautiful stretch of river to fish. Enjoy the GoPro video below and some more pictures. There is no SPOT path for this "secret" river location.

GoPro Yellowstone Fly Fishing on the Madison River

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