I got home late last night after a lovely day fishing with the Bruun’s but it didn’t stop me from getting up early this morning for Granny’s and my jaunt to Yellowstone Park. The forecast for our weekend is unreal with temperatures in the 50°s and clear skies. We caught the sunrise over the backside of the Tetons as we weaved our way up my favorite road – Route 32.
Granny and I were on a mission to fish a few of our beloved Yellowstone haunts. The waterway we love most is Slough Creek. This little gem of a river gets hit so hard in the summer we haven’t been in years. But it’s extremely late in the season so we felt we’d be safe to go. Lo and behold, we had Slough all to ourselves. But that’s because the winding meadow stream was frozen!
Last weekend we suffered horrible weather with snow and cold in Victor. Up here in the Park it was far worse and temperatures dropped to minus 10°. Yes, you heard me right – 10 below zero! -10°F!
Despite my doubts of catching a fish, I gave Slough a try anyhow. I carefully worked buggers through the ice channels. The fish were nowhere to be found. The attempt was beautiful nonetheless roaming with the buffalo. Our Slough Creek highlight went from fishing to eating. Granny grilled us up some delicious hotdogs on the stove.
I’m not one to give up and I dang sure wasn’t about to get skunked on day 1 of our little expedition. While Slough meanders slowly with hardly any current in October, the main vein of Lamar Valley is the Lamar River. The Lamar is larger and has some good current between the pools. Though it was cold, it wasn’t frozen.
I broke out my 5-weight and put on a brown tungsten bead wooly bugger. In Yellowstone flies can’t contain any lead but tungsten is legal. I picked out a couple good runs on the Lamar and went to work. The river was slightly off-color so I wasn’t so confident.
Well, good news. Though things didn’t appear prosperous, I managed to catch five very nice Yellowstone Cutties from the Lamar. The day was saved.
Our original plan was to camp outside Cooke City, MT tonight but we’ve ended up on the mountainside overlooking Gardner, Montana. Everything was closed in Cooke and the lonely town was buried in snow and too frigid cold for camping. It’s going to be cold here also but not nearly as bad. We usually don’t camp into November but this is an unusual year. Tomorrow we’ll fish the Yellowstone River and Lewis Lake.
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