Well, another long year has finally come to pass, and John Edelen and I, joined by three new accomplices, made our ritualistic journey to a trout fisherman’s paradise in our nations first and greatest National Park. We set up our base of operations in Hank and Marcia Woolman’s cabin in Silver Gate, Montana. John’s friend Richard Webster from Maryland , who is now an honorary chapter member, and chapter member Rob McAbee were on their first fishing trip to Yellowstone and our own Roger Sprouse filled out the fivesome and brought with him a couple of earlier trip experiences with him as John and I did.
Starting a few weeks before our departure, I began my serious watch on weather conditions and forecasts daily. I also checked stream flow charts each night to get a feel for the trends in the daily fluctuations of run-off and with much hope and optimism watched the peaks drop steadily every day over the last two weeks. With a week to go, I was confident in knowing that for the third year in a row we were going to be a part of the first anglers to fish the Northeast corner of Yellowstone under good conditions since the Park opened for fishing in late May. I knew this meant that good numbers of large Cutthroats would be lurking in certain spots just waiting for a well drifted fly to just happen to pass by.
Due to the closure of the Beartooth Pass, we had to detour down through Montana from Billings and cross into Wyoming and take the Chief Joseph Highway just north of Cody and although the drive was beautiful, I sorely missed the alpine drive over the 10,000 ft pass with it’s snowdrifts broken by large patches of amazingly colorful wildflowers and blue reflective lakes that were dimpled with the rises of trout.
Upon arriving at the cabin, we hurriedly unpacked, picked up our licenses and shortly after we were plying the waters of Soda Butte Creek upstream of the Pebble Creek junction. The water was clear and still a bit fast, but certain spots held willing Cutts and several were landed on small Christmas Trees and Chubby’s emergers. Our first full day, we started on the lower end of Soda Butte just above it’s confluence with the Lamar River. Still a bit fast , but clear, feeding cutthroats were found in the usual places, corners, behind dirt clods , tight to the bank and in back eddies and fishing was good during the typical peak times, 10:30-11 am until 3 pm. Our second day, the Fourth of July, we ventured to Slough Creek to fish the lower section below the campground for some large and smart cutts and cuttbows and we were not disappointed. Due to a good PMD and Drake hatch, we all enjoyed good success and many 18-21 inch trout were landed. It also began the trend of close encounters of the buffalo type that began with me standing in waist high grass and brush along the far bank on Slough, and upon hearing a rustle behind me, I looked back expecting to see Rob standing there and instead found a 2000 pound monster barely a rods length away and with a high bank and an eight foot deep seam in the river my only escape was along the bank and I covered 40 feet in the blink of an eye and looked back to ponder my next evasive maneuver only to find the beast staring with a look of Ha! Got ya didn’t I! I yelled over to Richard, and he responded with,” That sure was a Kodak moment and my reply was, “No, that was a ____ in your pants moment”!, and I would not be the only one to have that experience. Well, Slough Creek fished so well we returned the next day and had another great day and then the next day we took the grueling hike to the first meadow, and as always it’s worth every step, and we encountered a good PMD hatch followed by Drakes that made for some great dry fly fishing and we also came upon the remains of what was probably a wolf killed bull elk, it’s massive antlers lay on a gravel bar inviting an interesting photo session. Yes we did touch it, but did not move it a fraction and no rangers jumped out of the high grass meadow with summons book in hand.
The last days we spent on the Lamar River, where PMD and Drake hatches gave us our best days of fishing and also several more buffalo encounters. During one episode, John was standing on a narrow shore line with a bank about 7 feet high just a few feet behind him and a group of bulls walked over and were looking down on top of him and snorting their disapproval of his presence, you had to be there to have seen the look on both parties faces and pictures just don’t do it justice. In the same spot, Roger and I had one walk across the road in front of us as we walked toward the river. He went into the river where we were going to fish and bolted into the willows where he stood and snorted at Roger for the entire morning. Rob snuck up on Roger later and as he was unhooking a trout, let out a snort that gave Roger one of those moments I spoke of before, you could here the cussing and the laughter over the roar of the riffle even with hearing like mine.
John and Richard also got another close-up while they strung up at the truck, several bulls passed by the vehicle barely more than an arms length away. The bulls mingled close to us both days in this area, snorting and shaking their heads in a show down between the kings of the Lamar Valley.
The towns were a lot quieter this year with the closure of the pass, but Silver Gate still put on a heck of a fireworks display on the fourth. The narrow valley in which it lays made the thunderous echoes of the shells twice as loud and I am sure all the wild critters of the surrounding mountains high-tailed it for quieter ground that night.
We spent our nights enjoying dinner and our own company at the cabin or at the Beartooth Cafe in Cooke City, 3 miles north of Silver Gate. We dined on delicious Teriyaki steak and cold Headstrong Ale and Moosedrool while we enjoyed the scenery both inside and outside the cafe. Heck, we even saw some pretty feet. It’s a long story I won’t get into here, but that Headstrong goes straight to the head just as it implies and by the grins on our faces you certainly would have understood if you could have seen us.
A newly re-opened establishment down the street from the cabin was once the town’s brothel and we went in for a drink and met the new owner who was dubbed Miss Atlanta. She told us of the history of the place and upon entering the ballroom, the balconies that ran down both sides were filled with rooms that each still had the nameplate of the lady that resided there during its heyday. It’s supposedly haunted by one of the ladies. When the power went out and ended the evening, maybe it was her looking out for us, because we were on our way to the Miner’s Saloon, and who knows what else we might have encountered had we not been sent home early.
Well as I have said in the past, this place just gets in deeper with each trip and calls for my return, and once again another year of waiting is well under way. And as those days pass slowly by, one thing I’ll remember as it was so aptly put by one of my comrades, “What happens in Yellowstone stays in Yellowstone”, and to that I can only add: “At least until we return.”