Yellowstone

This is the closest business to the the west entrance of Yellowstone, right outside the gate. I haven't tried the pizza but the diet soda is served in barrels and the WiFi works at the outdoor tables even when they are closed.





I fished today on the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.





Firehole Falls





A grown man carried a big white teddy bear down a treacherous slope, just to place it in front of the falls and snap pictures. His wife explained they were doing a series of children's books about national parks. When I got back to the truck, there was a copy of such a book under my wiper.






Cliffs over the falls


My first Yellowstone fish was a native cutthroat trout, which I caught out of this plunge pool, on a soft hackle wet fly.


It was windy part of the day up on the flats, but it's blocked pretty good here.

Further up the Firehole. Long sections of it are riffles.





These pics are not fuzzy, the flower is! Fuzzy like dandelion gone to seed.


Flyfishing honeymooners. She was outfishing him.

Tough getting down to the water in some of these places.

I drove up the canyon road, stopping at all the parking spots and I would take the camera and go look at the water, snap a few pictures and evaluate the fishing prospects of the place, then either swap camera for fly rod or else drive on up the canyon. Well, at this one spot, while trying to look at the water and take pictures, I encountered . . . .

Elk! Cows and calves. They are related to deer, so I don't know why they aren't does and fawns but they're not.

I said I didn't think my camera was powerful enough to get good wildlife photos. I wasn't thinking of Yellowstone where "wild" is relative. You're not supposed to approach within 25 yards, so I walked around them . . . .



And one of the cows cut me off! I ended up fishing here for a while, taking care not to hook an elk with my backcast, and they eventually crossed the river and ambled on their way.


Close-up of the cute little calf.

My current campsite is quiet and peaceful and lovely. Very late last night I walked over to the lake shore so I could see more of the sky and appreciate the stars. I know I blathered on about the stars a few days ago, but they are even prettier at the new place, because there are no lights within miles other then flashlights and lanterns.

I just wish it were closer to somewhere I want to fish. It's a pain getting in and out of there. It would be a perfect place for someone that wanted to spend a week fishing that lake. I guess I'm hard to please. I didn't like my last site because it was an RV park on a highway in a town. Now I'm in a lovely wilderness setting and I want to be closer to the action.

There's a hatch of pale morning duns every morning on the Firehole right now. I'll fish it again in the morning, and when it finishes, I may fish the upper Madison, in the park also. Then I haven't fished the Gibbin River yet and might split another day between the Firehole and Gibbin or Madison and Gibbin.

Then, as much as I'm enjoying Yellowstone, I may move on, north into Montana, and fish the lower Madison. I keep hearing about the salmonfly hatch up there. Salmonflies are great big stone flies. The trout love them but besides that, stoneflies are good hatches for us novice flyfishermen. They are big and clumsy and they flop around and slap the water like, well, like a novice fly fisherman trying to be graceful. These little mayflies like the pale morning dun require a delicate touch. I'm a lot better at it then I was a week ago but still it would be fun to fish with big easy flies for a while.