The Park

Just a long weekender to be sure its all still there, ya know.  Windy.  Really rainy on day one.  Plan was to fish the Fork Friday, and opening day on the Firehole Saturday.  Well, the Fork didn't have much going on Friday morning, and a lot of lightning, rain, hail and wind all afternoon.  I got to cast to one fish before the minimal hatch of march browns was blown away and the rumbles started.

Saturday I made it into the park, "opening day," and to the Firehole after a 2 1/2 hour buffalo-jam in Firehole Canyon.  (They need to greatly reduce the number of those stupid, worthless things in that park!)  The fish were rising to PMD's and caddis on the Firehole, but man, what's all the hype about all those 8-12 inchers?  I saw a couple that might have gone a whopping 14, but really?  The place was packed!  License plates from all over, including a ton of locals.  I get its unique and a cool place to fish, but with all the great water that surrounds it?  I hadn't fished it in over 20 years.  It may be that long again.

I left shortly after noon, and drove back down to the Madison.  At the second pullout I checked, there were some pretty nice heads taking bugs (baetis) along one long cut bank, eating within inches of the bank.  Just what I like.  It was "splendid," as Charlie Brooks once put it.  I spent the afternoon in one 1/4 mile stretch, that I had all to myself no less, casting to rising brown trout of respectable size.  Not big, but they'd eat those Firehole rainbows for breakfast.  They ate caddis and adamses too.