Bought my $40 ticket to five months in paradise!
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It is one week exactly till the Yellowstone opener. Took a quick tour through the park today (Saturday) to see what the various waters were doing. Of course the NE corner streams are really blown. The Yellowstone follows suit. The western streams (with one exception), as usual, will probably fish well on opening weekend. Here are a few images of Yellowstone’s major rivers one week before the opening in 2013.
Confluence of Soda Butte Creek and Lamar River, 5/18/2013
Lamar looking south into the Lamar Canyon
Slough Creek video, just below the Campground
Slough Creek below the Campground
Gardner River at Indian Creek confluence-still some snowpack to come off here.
Gibbon River just above Gibbon Falls – If we don’t get a lot of rain, this will be a good river on the opener
Firehole at Muleshoe Bend – Well inside the banks and great visibility
Firehole at Biscuit Basin – Again well inside the banks and unlikely to get any higher before the season starts and their were some good insect activity going on. Couldn’t get into Fountain Flats or Goose Lake Meadows because of Bear Management Area Closures
Firehole in Biscuit Basin, confluence of braids
Madison at Grasshopper Bank – Again, inside the banks, unlikely to get any higher. Clarity is good.
Gallatin River inside the park. Probably will get worse before it gets better. Still pretty pukey
Yellowstone River below Point of Rocks
Video-Yellowstone River (north of park) at Yankee Jim CanyonOn the way out of the park, got my $40 annual permit and $10 non-motorized boat permit. Am set for a season of great fishing.
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Strategy without Tactics is a Slow Route to Victory, Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat - Sun Tzu
Super awesome Mike. Really appreciate the post.
What’s going on with the banks near the Gibbon? I see bison tracks but that also looks like someone took a wheeled vehicle through the mud.
Zach
What’s going on with the banks near the Gibbon? I see bison tracks but that also looks like someone took a wheeled vehicle through the mud.
Zach
I think you are referring to the Muleshoe Bend image on the Firehole. Indeed I noticed the distinct symmetry of the bison trails on the slope above the river. My assessment is this. During the summer, this slope is extremely dry and sandy, without much vegetation. Anglers trudge up and down it and pretty much destroy all the trails that accumulated over the winter. There’s one hard trail along the bottom. In November when the park closes this area becomes a bear management area and no humans should venture into it until the end of May (even though I did last Saturday). This is also a thermal area, so I don’t know how much snow accumulates on the slope. But what was obvious to me was that once winter sets in, the ground gets and stays wet for 7 months without any human traffic. The Bison appear to take a rather straight route each time they traverse the slope around the bend, thus leaving the symmetrical tracks. Trust me, by evening on May 27, after three days of anglers trudging up and down this slope, it won’t look the same.
Strategy without Tactics is a Slow Route to Victory, Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat - Sun Tzu
Very interesting, Mike. It almost looks like they were walking the water’s edge as the water receded? Would that make any sense?
Great pictures, by the way. The starkness is very appealing.
Nice pictures Mike.
It’s a special place.Out of interest, is it hard to get your own stretches of river ?
Sounds like it gets busy.www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Out of interest, is it hard to get your own stretches of river ?
Sounds like it gets busy.David,
Fishing in Yellowstone can be very frustrating if you are on the wrong river, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some places, some times of the year can get very congested with a mix of local (150 mile radius) and out of town serious anglers and those ever present tourists who fish once or twice while they visit Yellowstone. That said, over the course of a season, it’s really easy to find good fishing and solitude on every one of Yellowstone’s premier rivers. I have spent many, many lonely hours on the Lamar, Madison, Gibbon, Gardner, Lower Yellowstone and Firehole without ever seeing another angler. Here are my tips:
In the early part of the season (June-August), the days are long – get out on the water before the sunrises and you’ll have hours of lonely fishing. In the Fall (Sept-Oct), the mornings are cold, get out early to avoid the wimps. Evenings are almost always lonely.
If the river is paralleled by a road – get as far away from the road as possible. A ¼ mile off road in Yellowstone can seem like a different world. Look at the maps and find those sections of rivers that are accessible by bush wacking or taking angler trails. The Black Canyon of the Yellowstone and lower Grand Canyon provide some really outstanding big water fishing in lonely country if you are willing to work for it.
If the river is paralleled by a road – get on the other side of the river. Finding a way to cross and “Fish the other side” can isolate you from crowds very quickly as a great many Yellowstone anglers don’t know how to wade in the bigger water.
Don’t let weather deter you, especially in the Fall – Snow and rain are common and it will keep the wimps off the river.
Learn the seasons, river characteristics and associated techniques for each of the various river systems. Each has differences that do make a difference when you really want to catch fish. Most of the rivers do not fish well all season for a variety of reasons and most of the rivers do not fish well over the entire length of the river. Some sections and type of water are significantly more productive than others. A lot of anglers on the Madison and Firehole spend a lot of hours fishing unproductive water because it’s both easy and they don’t know the fish aren’t there.
Finally, if you are fishing lonely water and are intruded upon by obnoxious, disrespectful anglers, don’t tolerate it. Take the opportunity to tell them to go find their own spot in no uncertain terms.
A Lonely Place Like This Just Takes A Little Work-
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Strategy without Tactics is a Slow Route to Victory, Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat - Sun Tzu
This has been an awesome post, Mike, and we appreciate it.
For some reason there seems to be almost a bias against Yellowstone in that area. Probably because fishing opportunities are so good in places like SW Montana or eastern Idaho. And maybe because you can’t really float large sections of water in the park, and guides don’t make their living hiking 8 miles very often.
Have you ever fished the brown trout spawn in the neck between Shoshone and Lewis Lakes? That looks like quite the undertaking but it would sure be fun to spend a week in there in October.
Thanks
I’ve only been into the Lewis/Shoshone channel once and the fishing was decent. I walked it and it was a day trip so in the Fall it becomes a long day. It is a bit isolated from the backcountry camps on Shoshone so doing overnights is also a challenge. I have never ventured out across Lewis in the kayak because of the notorious wind but reaching the channel by boat is an option for the brave.
However, if you want spawning browns in the Fall, the Gardner is a much more logistically easy river and doesn’t get much pressure. The one place I really want to go is Heart Lake, camp overnight and catch the abundant Cutts and Lakers from shore. If only the Bears would behave.
Strategy without Tactics is a Slow Route to Victory, Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat - Sun Tzu
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