Final Four: Last Day, October 18th

After more than five months in Yellowstone, I am down to my last day. By evening, the fly rods will be packed, the car pointed toward home.

Determined to make the most of the day, I get up and out of the tent before daybreak. The huge Rocky Mountain night sky stretches above me. The Milky Way and countless constellations arc over the craggy silhouette of the Madison Plateau to the south.

It is cold, the coldest night yet. The car’s thermometer says 16 degrees. I slept comfortably in the tent, but after two days of battling the weather, I am in no mood for another day of that. No, just savor this last morning; get to the fishing once the warming sun is well up.  I walk down to the river and back to build up some internal warmth, take in the dawning of the day, and savor the solitude. The dawn’s light qualities are magnificent. Not another soul contests my command over the Madison River at that hour.

A calm morning, welcomed after the past two days

I break camp before sunup, and head out. Confidence swelled by how yesterday ended, my destination is certain: back to that deep run at Talus Slope. I follow the advance of sunrise down Madison Valley, enjoying its warmth and the unfolding scenes. A herd of elk grazes casually near one of the meadow turnouts, posing as if on cue.

I come upon the morning’s first anglers at Haynes Meadow. A trio of twenty-somethings has staked out the inside bend where the river dumps into the deep run there. It is a great place to have breakfast (hot oatmeal, cups of coffee), watch their technique and enjoy the sun. It warms me as well as my wading boots that had frozen solid overnight.

The fishing begins

Breakfast done and boots thawed, I drive another half mile down to Talus Slope.  Time to go fishing, to pick up where I had left off, to enjoy casting in calm air after the nasty winds of the past two days.

In the good light of the morning and absent yesterday’s winds on the water, I now see what accounted for the rising fish yesterday afternoon. What I had thought was part of one long, deep run is instead a series of weed-covered mounds that form shallow shelves dropping into troughs. They create the perfect current break conditions for fish to surface-feed on such small insects.

Great way to start the day

Not ten casts into my fishing, I have the first strike. I land another big rainbow despite a couple of dives that tangle the line in those weedy mounds. It isn’t even 10 o’clock in the morning, and I already feel dialed into the fishing.

For the next hour, I have another half dozen or so good, hard hits.  But, no hook-ups. Content at first to miss a fish or two, eventually the string of misses drags upon my confidence.  Slowly as these things do, the error of my ways sinks in.

Landing the second fish yesterday, I had noticed it was hooked by the trailer hook. It was an extra hook I had tied into the streamer’s long tail in a prior season in order to cure the streamer’s tendency to miss fish.

Using hemostats to release yesterday’s fish, that hook had broken at the bend in the shank. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but the loss of that hook is having its consequences now. All the missed strikes yesterday afternoon and this morning are now explained. Hooking this morning’s nice fish was a fluke.

I switch to a different streamer and resume fishing. But, the magic is over and the bite with it. It is approaching 11 o’clock. Perhaps the sun is now too bright, or the pod of fish has moved further up the river. Against the backdrop of 163 days in Yellowstone, though, it doesn’t matter. The Madison River in mid-October is now permanently etched in my mind.

I turn back toward Madison Junction, and then south toward Old Faithful. My plan for the day calls for using the afternoon to explore the Lewis River, known like the Madison for its fall brown trout fishing; and then to camp for the night at the campground there. It will put me nearly two hours in the direction of home.

Turns out, it isn’t the best plan. Every new trout stream is cloaked in a veil of secrecy. It takes time to uncover just the simple logistics of where along the river to begin fishing…more time than my fast-fading last afternoon in the Park will allow.

Lewis River's Outlet from Lewis Lake

The Lewis River doesn’t make discovery easy either, falling away from the road as it does and out of sight. I finally find a little-used footpath that takes me to the river at its lake outlet. On the fishiness-per-hour scale, I go from the top of the graph back on the Madison, to the bottom here on the Lewis. I get in about an hour of good fishing time, that’s all. It is not totally fruitless, however, for I now have the measure of the Lewis. It is a gorgeous river. There is not another angler in sight despite the peak of the fall season; and I now know where to begin to fish it next time I’m in Yellowstone.

My plan for camping turns out to be no better than the fishing. Touring the Lewis Lake Campground, I find not another camper in sight nor the amenities that make Madison Campground so pleasant for late-season camping.

The season ends.

Abandoning the plan, I head for the Park’s South Entrance. The picnic area just inside the entrance provides a fitting place to take off my waders for the last time. Ted and I had fun fishing the Snake River from there several times. At 4:15 pm, my Yellowstone season ends.

Nothing destroys an outdoor buzz faster than the dull dashboard stare at oncoming traffic and endless asphalt. The Yellowstone feeling quickly ebbs with the light of the day.

It is cold and dark…that’s all…when I find a cheap motel for the night in Dubois, Wyoming. The next few days will be measured by number of miles driven rather than number of cast made. I’ve been a lucky man living a blessed life…five months living and fishing in Yellowstone National Park. It is time to go home.