Fishing Report

I’m beginning to find time to go fishing. The season has opened in the Park. Snowmelt runoff has subsided. Fish are cooperating.

My first full “weekend” (Wednesday-Thursday) last week fell just before the Park opener, so I went back down to Between the Lakes on the Madison River below Hebgen Lake. The water clarity was much better than the previous week. Fishing nymphs under an indicator, I had a fun couple of hours fishing the pocket water. This nice rainbow trout followed a couple of dinks, and I missed one other solid strike.

Rainbow Trout, Madison River Between the Lakes; red Serendipity

After reading the current speeds and water depths around boulders and in the seams for a while, you start to see a pattern where the likely places are for fish to lie. Then, it’s a matter of getting the cast-and-mend right for a proper drift. When the puzzle pieces finally fit and that indicator is pulled under, it’s very satisfying.

Where are the fish? Reading the Pocket Water

This stretch of the Madison is on National Forest land. Though it doesn’t have the wilderness feel of the Park, it is still a beautiful place to be fishing. For three hours that afternoon, I shared it with just one other angler.

Heidi was arriving the next day down in Bozeman, about two hours away. US Highway 191 takes you down the Gallatin River valley. Once beyond the Park boundary, it’s Montana fishing regs. The Gallatin (one of the three headwaters of the Missouri River, named in1805 by the Lewis & Clark expedition after the then US Treasury Secretary) is open for fishing year-round.

It’s a beautiful tumble-down mountain stream down there, boulder-strewn and the current almost never relaxes. It is not effortless fishing, but it is great fun searching the seams and eddies for one of the river’s surprising big rainbows.

Late Season Snow on the Madison River at National Park Mountain

The weather system that hit the region last week was in full swing with gusty winds and snow squalls. I felt a little foolish stopping to fish in those conditions; no other anglers were around to lend an air of legitimacy. I only had an hour or so to fish. It was all worth it, though, when I hooked a very nice fish in a classic lie behind a midstream boulder. I must have spent at least half a dozen casts to get the drift right before it hit. I saw its size when it rolled, and then it was gone. Operator error or that small size 18 hook on the Serendipity, it sure is challenging to get a good hook set in those conditions.



Going fishing in this weather? The Gallatin River at Taylor Fork

Back in the Park this week, I get in a couple of hours of fishing right after work. Biscuit Basin on the Firehole is just ten minutes away. The river runs through a wide meadow stretch for about two miles. It is lightly fished. The bison, elk and a coyote like it there too, so you do need to look up from your fishing every once in a while.

Firehole River Brown Trout on a Blue Wing Olive

The river is beautiful there. Undercut banks, deep runs, deceptively fast current speeds. You don’t have to get in the water to fish, but you do need to keep your silhouette low. The first afternoon, caddis were in the air and there were a few rises. Couldn’t get much going, had the wrong leader on. The next afternoon, mayflies were on the water and again a few rises. I air-released a couple of dinks and then landed this nice brown trout.

Meadow fishing on the Firehole below Biscuit Basin

I returned last night, armed and ready for some good dry fly action. When no bugs or rises appeared, I switched to a wooly bugger with a nymph dropper. Quickly caught a couple small rainbow trout on a Prince Nymph. Just about quitting time, I landed this dandy brown trout swinging the streamer through a deep run. Another good-sized fish slashed at the streamer right on the surface at the end of a cast.

Firehole River Brown Trout on a Wooly Bugger

Early evening on the Firehole River

It was a beautiful calm evening as I walked for the car. Last weekend’s wintry weather accentuated the tranquil scene. A dozen elk moved in behind me to graze in the meadow as I departed.

At the Office

The job started for real last Friday when Old Faithful Inn opened for the new season. It opened with a bang; sold-out,329 rooms. It will be that way just about every day of the season until closing mid-October. 

Old Faithful Inn Entrance

This is my new office, the Old Faithful Inn. The Inn is one of the iconic symbols of Yellowstone National Park right up there with the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the bison, grizzlies, wolves. It opened more than a century ago (1904), was built in less than eighteen months from logs and stone harvested in the Park. Its all-log Old House is anchored by an open atrium that rises almost 100 feet, centered on a massive stone fireplace. Two wings added in the 1920’s provide traditional hotel rooms.



Lobby View in the 85-foot high all-log atrium

Every railing & bannister is lodgepole pine, hand-chosen to fit

 Xanterra, my employer, contracts with the National Park Service (NPS) to operate the Park’s nine lodging facilities. NPS is in charge of everything in the Park having to do with mission and philosophy. For Old Faithful Inn, this means no TVs in the room, no air conditioning(“there’s a fan in the closet, ma’am, and an open window will allow our cool Rocky Mountain air in”) or wi-fi, and minimal lighting that imitates candlelight a century ago. Most guests understand this; it’s what they come for. A few guests did not expect such minimal amenities and are disappointed.

It is a stunning piece of architecture. Something like it could never be built today...safety codes and finding artisans to craft it. It's in amazing good shape, considering it sits atop one of the most active volcanic basins on the planet; is 7,365 feet above sea level pounded by Rocky Mountain weather year-round.

 It is a delight to watch the guests seeing the Inn for the first time. They stand in the lobby and just gaze around. They sit for long times just soaking in the atmosphere. They take closeup photos of the impossible stair and railing supports that were hand-chosen lodgepole pines custom-fitted to each position.

 Quite an office. 

I am one of 20 on the Front Desk team: one of 17 Guest Service Agents, plus 3 managers. The Front Desk is staffed 24 hours; mercifully, there are two Night Clerks who rotate the graveyard shift.

The Front Desk; that's Patty & Sue, two of my coworkers

We make reservations, do guest check-in & check-out, make dining reservations, sell activities, and take the myriad guest requests for housekeeping and maintenance.

Morning Walk

Work doesn’t start today until 5:00pm, leaving time to enjoy some of Yellowstone midday.  After two days of cloudy, chilly weather, a light south wind has brought warming temperatures and a bright, blue Rocky Mountains sky. It's a welcome change.

Firehole River, just below Old Faithful geyser



I took a long walk in the Upper Geyser Basin right here at the Old Faithful complex. There are extensive boardwalks and paths that take you close-up to many geysers, pools and hot springs. Old Faithful is just that. Its eruptions are predictable, every 90 minutes +/- 10 minutes around the clock. Very convenient for the majority of visitors who make it this far into the Park, catch an eruption of Old Faithful "on the clock", and then have to leave for another Park destination.

Boardwalk through Upper Geyser Basin at Old Faithful

But, it is just one of many surprising and beautiful thermal features. Grand Geyser, for example, is harder to catch, with a once daily, +/- 2 hours eruption prediction.  There was a crowd of two dozen people patiently waiting on the benches as I went by. I saw its spectacular eruption an hour later from a considerable distance. The ones who stayed closeby on the boardwalk were well-rewarded for their patience.

Lion Geyser

 The wildlife was much more active with the improved weather. The chatter of different different birds filled the air. Away from the boardwalk on an adjacent trail, I watched two elk cows warily working their way upwind on a far ridge. Again, binoculars are essential equipment out here. I picked them up 400-500 yards away.

Elk on the ridge

Unlike the bison which wander seemingly unconcerned about a predator’s ambush, the elk are on high alert for bear or wolf. And unlike bison cows which give birth amidst other bison, elk cows seem to wander off on their own to have a calf in seclusion. I guess that’s what these two were doing. On the fishing trip here last June, I came upon an elk with her newborn calf in the narrows of Firehole Canyon. That calf was not more than hours old, still wobbly-legged. Amazing fortitude!

Heart Pool

Back to the sights in the geyser basin. You are completely surrounded by an endless variety of color, shape, texture. For the photographer, is this paradise, or purgatory? So many images to capture, yet where do you stop? Our own little point-and-shoot camera did not seem up to the task.

First Day Off

Monday was my first day off after seven straight days of training. Time to go fishing. The Park’s fishing season doesn’t open for another two weeks, so the destination was the Madison River below Hebgen Lake, about sixty miles away outside the Park’s West Entrance. That section of the river is open now.


The Firehole River at Biscuit Basin

The West Entrance is normally a 1-hour drive (average driving speed inside the Park is only 30-35MPH…two-lane highway, traffic, on alert for animals on the road). My plan was to be standing in the river fishing by late morning.

That was the plan. I was on the road by 7:45 AM, a good start. It’s just that Yellowstone country got in the way. Took me 2 hours just to get to the West Entrance instead of one.



Bison are frequent in the Firehole's meadow sections

I couldn’t take my eyes off the landscape and wildlife. Everything was dazzling in the slant of the clear morning sunlight. The relief of the mountain ridge above the Firehole River; the geyser steam trailing high into the still morning air; the wildlife. Stop-stare-binoculars-camera. That’s the way it was all the way down the Firehole to Madison Junction; then all the way down the Madison to about Riverside Drive, where things finally  begin to look “normal”. Sagebrush takes over as the lodgepole pine falls away.

The Madison River at Big Bend

With binoculars, I spent over 10 minutes just watching a coyote working the meadow at Fountain Flats for its morning meal. The sun over its shoulder, ears tilted forward intently. What it can see-hear-smell that is beyond our comprehension!

The magic morning light lasted for about an hour.  By 9AM, the air’s sharpness was gone. Too bright, the sun’s angle wrong. Now I know what photographers always talk about.

Until you see it for yourself, the Park’s unique landscape is difficult to appreciate. For that thirty mile drive to the Park entrance, there is not a single house, building, settlement, crossroad, fenced pasture, or flood control structure on the rivers. There isn’t now, there never was. This landscape was never settled. The bison roam, the rivers roll on, the mountains tower, the geysers spout. It is profoundly unique.

The Madison River at Riverside Drive

On to the fishing. This will be a short report. The Madison River below Hebgen Lake is one of my favorite places to fish out here (it’s the scene in the masthead photo of this blog). I had high expectations for the day. All dashed by spring runoff from Cabin Creek, a small tributary notorious for this condition as anglers familiar with this area know too well. The river was fishable when I arrived early afternoon.

But, the temperatures soared to the upper 70s, sending Cabin Creek’s snowmelt into overdrive. The water clarity turned from slightly milky, to milk chocolate by 4PM. Fishing was over. Even the resident osprey wasn’t catching fish that day.



The Madison River, off-color with snowmelt

Yet, being there for the fishing gave me a front-row seat for the pecking order of the river birds this time of year. It’s breeding season, and they will do anything to protect their nesting territories. That osprey sent a bald eagle, a much larger bird, packing when it ventured too close to the nest. Two Canadian geese have also laid claim to that corner of the river. Though tolerant of a blue heron, the osprey, and mergansers, they aggressively rose together to chase a raven, a notorious nest-raider, from the neighborhood.

Elk and Bison along the Madison River at Seven-Mile Bridge

I was back into the Park as evening settled along the Madison River. It had been nice to get my Montana fishing season underway, just as it had been nice to run a few errands in West Yellowstone. My first cup of Canyon Coffee this year tasted great, and it felt good to provide a little patronage to Blue Ribbon Fly Shop, a favorite out here.

  

It was even nicer to be back in the Park. Tranquil, unspoiled, majestic. Like no other place I know.

And, we are going to be here all summer.

A Western River's Place in History

The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is located right off I-90 at Crow Agency in eastern Montana.




Battlefield Cemetery overlooking the Little Bighorn River

The place got its name from the river it overlooks.
My hour-long stop there on the drive out last week was time well spent. Like the national monuments at Shiloh and Gettysburg seen on other trips, this one was equally moving. The clash of landscape, circumstance, and sheer timing are profound.




Iron Sculpture at Indian Memorial

We all remember Custer’s Last Stand from our childhood history books. That side of the story is well told here, putting this battle in the historical perspective of the decades-long struggle between Western settlers, the U.S. Government, and the Plains Indians.

In 1991, an act of Congress changed the name of the monument from Custer Battlefield to Little Bighorn Battlefield, and an Indian memorial to honor Native American participation in the battle was erected. 

Testimonial along the wall of the Indian Memorial

More than a century later, it does that extremely well.

Road Trip Lodging

Interstates are great for making time and covering long distances on a road trip. But, they hide the local countryside and landscape from view.  

KOA, Hardin, Montana

So, I found my lodging away from the highway exits for the five nights. I didn’t earn any national-brand frequency points, never once found a chocolate on my pillow. But, it sure made for interesting views of America.

Cedar Pass Campground, Badlands National Park

Weather was good enough to tent-camp for two nights. Another two nights, I slept in sleeping cabins (supply your own bedding, bathhouse facilities). Tornado warnings chased me into more secure shelter for the night in southwest Minnesota, where I stayed at a mom/pop motel in Fairmont, population 14,000.

Best deal was camping in the Badlands National Park for $8. Highest price was in Gardiner, Montana, where $60 for a sleeping cabin proved I was on the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park.

Rocky Mountain Campground, Gardiner, Montana

Best locale was the Badlands, not only for the fantastic landscape and wildlife but also for the American West history that oozed from the town of Interior, South Dakota.

City Limits, Interior, South Dakota

I learned to really like KOA campgrounds: dotted all along the interstate; reservation system; always clean/well cared for; free wifi, hot coffee, and USA Today in a newsstand.

2,100 Miles, 9 States, 5 Days

Last week was my travel week for getting to Yellowstone National Park to start work. It’s an awful lot of driving, but what a great experience to see the American landscape unfold before you. 

It isn’t just the distance; it’s also the diversity of landscape and the variety of places.  The lush rolling farmland of northern Indiana. The industrial brawn of Gary/Hammond. Feeling Chicago’s urban energy driving the Dan Ryan Expressway. Then, onto the American prairie where agriculture is king. Minnesota’s farms are gigantic, manicured, all grain crops, a thousand or more wind turbines; so different from South Dakota’s grasslands and cattle. 

A camping overnight in Badlands National Park is probably the trip’s highlight. The geology there is surreal (75 million years old; dinosaur fossils chronicle the time when the mid-continent was covered by ocean). In its 220,000 acres (just one-tenth the size of Yellowstone) wildlife abounds: in my short stay, I saw mule deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, and western meadowlarks everywhere singing their heads off in the warm spring air. Dinner that night was a burger & beer at the Wagon Wheel Bar & Grill in Interior, South Dakota; population, 67. Afterward, I walked two blocks to the edge of town in one direction; and two blocks to the edge in the other direction.

Three rivers crossed stand out.  I-90 crosses the Mississippi at Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Though already tamed there by Army Corps dams, it is still an impressive river. The steep limestone cliffs and drumlins that roll for several miles on the Minnesota side remind of the river’s power over the eons. 

Next was the Missouri River midway across South Dakota.  After endless miles of flat prairie, a long, steep-grade decline was evidence of its strength. And, its place in American history when Lewis & Clark toiled upriver two hundred years ago and sparked the nation’s imagination.

Finally, there was the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana, site of Custer’s Last Stand. A wonderful National Monument there tells both sides of that tragic story; the American government under President Grant, the Sioux Nation under Sitting Bull. Prairie rivers like the Little Bighorn were the arteries of prairie life back then.  Water, transportation, game and crops.

I reported for work here at Yellowstone National Park yesterday. A cold front and the 3,000 foot elevation change put springtime on hold here. Work may have started, but not the fishing. The season inside the Park doesn’t open until Memorial  weekend. Training first, then I’ll be at the front desk of Old Faithful Inn when it opens for the season May 18^th.