Mike Cline
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Rolf,
Park season closes end of October. October is prime time on Firehole and Madison. No crowds, crisp weather and lots of fish. Got to be prepared for the likes of this: http://www.itinerantangler.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?num=1255313331/0#0
I am curious as to how many of us actually worry about the margins and who gets those $ in the value chain of the products we buy. If you are going to pay $595 for a flyrod that you want, do you care where the profit $ out of that $595 goes. Would you be offended to findout that a component supplier was making 300% margin on one a small piece of that rod.
I consult with a lot of companies in a variety of industries and for some elements of some supply chains, margins on individual components and materials can be extremely high. Those margins are necessary to establish and sustain infrastructure and scale to meet the demand for the material. If flyrod manufacturers believe Fly Shops are the best way to sell their product, then those Fly Shops have to be part of the value chain, and take some margin in the process.
I am in and out of the Bozeman airport 3-4 times a month and from the huge number of rod cases being carried around, I don’t think it will be a problem.
Thanks guys
Mike, we fished the EG by the tree farm and had no luck. It was supposed to be a slam dunk there, have you fished there much?
I’ve fished the E. Gallatin 7 times so far this year–3 times after runoff. The last time last Thurs. I normally fish the Dry Creek to Swamp road section (MZ and Skinner Ranch), so am unaware of how the upper river has been doing. So far the irrigation returns have kept the river a bit murky but that has not affected the fishing. Its tougher on Sunny days and early in the day, but when you get cloud cover, the hatches of Caddis and PMDs are really prolific. So far this year, I’ve landed 3 20″ + fish and lost a number of others. Lots of fish in the 12-18″ range. Its a good fishery, but you really need to get away from the roads and fish the remote sections. Next time you are nearby, I’d be happy to take you on kayak float.
Mike, you are officially killing me since I will not make it to the Park this year. I love Yellowstone; love everything about it — the history, the fishing, the wildlife, and the element of risk.
Zach
Zach, if you love the history, you might like this story I told a somewhat adversarial editor friend of mine on Wikipedia the other day. We were bickering about a Yellowstone related subject so I decided to share my experience with him. It is a great place.
Original Research of the 1st Order
Unfortunately interactions between Wikipedia editors can sometimes seem impersonal. We don’t often remember that other editors see the world through their eyes, not our own. To that end Gavin, I wanted to share with you what I did this fine Sunday morning. I went fishing, leaving the house early at 4AM. My destination was the Gardner River just inside the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. The fishing was good, but the experience was even better. As I have done many times before, I traversed the Gardner Bench—a triangular and xeric landscape bounded on the NW by the Gardner River, the NE by the Yellowstone River and the south by the gentle slopes of Mount Everts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ConfluenceGardnerYellowstoneRiver.jpg
The confluence of the Gardner and Yellowstone Rivers, from the Bench, Sunday July 11th, 2010My destination was the south side of confluence of these two rivers, a location etched in the history of Yellowstone, but a place that bears no mark of what occurred there on September 13th, 1869. Three men with nothing more than a few weeks supplies, some pack horses and blankets crossed the confluence and made their way across the Gardner Bench into Rescue Creek. The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition had entered what would become Yellowstone National Park in but a few short years. As they crossed the Gardner River and looked south into Wonderland (a name that would eventually glorify the park in its early years), Cook, Folsom and Peterson were gazing into Terra incognita. As they left the river, if they looked back north they would have seen a skyline dominated by Electric Peak and Sepulcher Mountain, mountains that were unnamed and unexplored as they traversed the Gardner Bench. Mount Everts another unnamed and unexplored mountain would guide their right flank whilst the Black Canyon the Yellowstone dominated their left. They were unknowingly pathfinders for the more comprehensive Washburn expedition the following year, a group of 18 men who also crossed the Gardner Bench into Wonderland. It was as if Gardners Bench was Alice’s rabbit hole into Wonderland. In 1871, the Hayden expedition chose a better route into the interior of Wonderland and the Gardner Bench became just another landscape. The Army built a small firing range on the bench in the 1890s and while its remnants can be found tucked alongside a small hill the bench is a wild place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SouthAcrossGardnerBenchYNP.jpg
Dawn on the Gardner Bench looking south into Wonderland, July 11, 2010The Gardner Bench today has not changed much in 140 years. There are only a few games trails that traverse it. There are no signs, no markers, no memorial to the men who traversed it into Wonderland 140 years ago. It is, as the crow flies, but a half mile from the highway that brings millions of people to Yellowstone every year, but very, very few people ever traverse the Gardner Bench. Anglers have trails along the rivers and hikers take the Rescue Creek trail at the base of Mount Everts to walk into remote regions of the park, but there is little need to traverse the Gardner Bench. When I do it, as I did this morning, I do it at dawn. I do it because when I gaze south across the Gardner Bench into Wonderland, I am seeing the same thing Cook, Folsom and Peterson saw 140 years ago. It is not terra incognita today, but at dawn crossing the bench takes me back 140 years.
I thought I’d like to share this with you.–
Keith,
Drag that hunk of plastic over to the Coosa or Tallapoosa rivers in AL and have a ball with spots.
Neil,
Here’s one of the two bugs that survived the Gardner.
Simple Tie: Tail-Deer hair clump with a bit of flash, single strip of foam, dubbed body of ice dub, deer hair wing with foam folded back, legs, and hi-vis orange para post. Indistructable and effective.
Hi Vis orange para post is very useful for us old guys on rough water like the Gardner.
Mike – I will be in Bozeman the first week of September. What patterns should I tie to fill a box?
Pretty much depends on where and how you want to fish.
Neal,
I fished a pretty amazing Stonefly hatch on the lower Gardner River over the last week — at least 14 hours on a pretty rough and tumble freestone stream over the course of 3 trips into YNP this last week. In total I suspect over 100 fish were caught. I used only three foam hopper flies (#8) during the entire time. Except for the one I lost on a tree, the other two are still fishable. They float, they can be seen, and if tied right are nearly indestructable. I’ll post a picture or two when I return from this road trip.
PS Hopper season is here, the benches above the Gardner are alive with adults of all sizes.
I buy a lot of stuff online primarily because of availability and variety from a lot of different types of companies.
