Fishing in Yellowstone Country

By Dave Pollack, NCFF

In late July and early August this year Mario Renzi, Bob Steinberg, Greg Voss and I (Dave Pollack) fished the waters in and around Yellowstone National Park. The weather was fine and the waters in very good condition, except for a couple of days when rains made some, but not all, of the streams and rivers unfishable. We made our headquarters for the trip in West Yellowstone, which is convenient to the Madison and Gallitin Rivers and most of the other waters we fished. Mario and I stayed on for a few days after Bob and Greg returned home and for those days stayed in Gardiner because of its convenience to the Soda Butte and Lamar Rivers in the Park.

We began our fishing on the Madison the night we arrived, with modest success, and then fished the Madison with guides for the next two days. We prefer wading rather than floating because, although the cost is the same, the wade fishing is more technical and much more interesting. And we had plenty of fish, browns and rainbows up to 20 inches. There were plenty of large rainbows, notwithstanding the concern about Whirling Disease, and the Madison River browns must be experienced to be believed. Beautiful and strong, they often leap like rainbows when hooked, and when one of those big browns runs out to the current there is small chance of landing it. Although some fish were caught with caddis, flavs, pmd's, stimulators and various terrestrial dry flies, our most productive fishing was with nymphs, and among the nymphs the serendipity was outstanding. Mario tied samples of the Crystal and Brown Serendipities as “favorite flies” for the September meeting; the recipes should be in the October newsletter.

We fished the Madison in various places day and night, but we also fished several portions of the Gallitan, Taylor Fork, Pollack’s Creek (it has a name but I am keeping the stream and its location secret), Fan Creek, Specimen Creek, and West Fork of the Madison. We caught browns, rainbows, cutthroat, and cutbows, mostly on dry flies. Each of us had his favorite flies, with Renzi and I doing most of our fishing with elk hair caddis, X-caddis, stimulators, Madam X’s, parachute Adams and pmd's and, in my case, ants and beetles.

Access to our favorite waters inside the Park was difficult because of road construction, but we all had the chance to fish Soda Butte Creek, which was wonderful. Mario and I also fished, in the Park, the Gibbon, Gardner, and Lamar Rivers, and Lava Creek. Our fishing in the park was primarily with dry flies for cutthroats, with some rainbows and brook trout as well. Most of the fish were caught on Caddis and terrestrial imitations. The most spectacular day for Mario and me was the last, when we fished first Soda Butte, landing innumerable cutthroats up to about 15”, and the Lamar, where we had even larger fish, with my 21+ inch cutthroat, caught on a size 14 Chauncey Lively beetle, taking the cake.

I asked Mario to read this report, and he made, among others, the following comment: “A number of writers have made the comment that we often fish for trout because trout don’t live in ugly places. The Yellowstone country lends support to this. It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful places to fish that I have ever experienced.” I’ve fished in a lot of places and absolutely agree with Mario. Yellowstone National Park is magnificent, and there is a wonderful diversity of waters in the Yellowstone area, every one different from every other and each grand in its own way.

This was not an expensive trip. Mario and I left on July 26 and returned on August 7. That’s 12 nights of motel accommodations with 11 full days and quite a few nights of fishing. The entire cost, including air fare, a rented car, two full days of guided fishing, motel accommodations, food, fishing licenses, and flies and other incidentals was less than $2,000 for each of us. And a fisher staying for only one week, and being careful about the size of the car, the number of flies, and other incidentals, would get away for far less. Mario, Greg and I would be pleased to provide detailed information about this kind of trip to any interested Club member.

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