After the Flood

What an opening act.  Two weeks ago, as the Yellowstone River sent a 100-year torrent of muddy water right into the creeks, I never thought I'd see this day this on this trip.  Remnants of the high water are way up the banks beyond imagination, reaching the lunch shack at the parking lot.  Yet, the creek is now a little scoured out, still has bug life, and a bunch of bigger fish I don't remember in these numbers.  The hatch was light, but adequate enough to keep fish up.  The trout numbers seem a little lower, but maybe some Yellowstone River fish have found a new home?  The water level is shallower in the main parking lot pool, but the log jam on river-left is gone and the banks are a little wider and less vegetated.  So the changes are noticeable, but not near as significant as I feared.

I had a banner morning on quality fish that were easy to see and stalk in shallower water with fewer weeds to block my vision.  It's amazing how all the pain goes away during those moments when I have a feeding fish in sight, its larger than those around it, I'm locked into making the right drift with the right fly, and I get the eat.  The combination of warm sun on the shoulders and icy water on my feet helps too.  Imagine what I could have done had I been able to fish more than a few hours, moved around more, and not missed/lost the number I did.  It was still a great morning.

The bank pictured on the right here, above the riffle, is brushed back.

Shallower and slower moving.  Not many fish up here this year.

This is the bank with all the big fish.

Lots of bigger browns

Bob's Ant pre-hatch baby!

Not color enhanced!

Just enough 

What's left of a PHD emerger.

Visibility was great in bright sun and lower water

It's wider here

Two guys above me in the riffle, one at the bottom way below me.  I had a ton of room in the prime run.

Had a sparse spinnerbfall towards evening

Evening Brown

The evening fly

I took three, count 'em three, of these flies from a large rainbow.  One of the parachutes was in another fish.  +4 on flies today, even with 6X all day.

Early Mornings

So underrated this time of year.  The fish rise at dawn's early light.  Nobody's on the water.  Calm, cool, and careful.  Not enough bugs for selectivity.  And this morning, tanks were out.  Pictures don't do 'em justice.  Worthy opponents that barely fit in the net.  Upstream stalks, ankle-deep.  Careful!

Solitude where 8 carloads ended up mid-morning at the Tree

Way longer than my arm.

Couldn't even get this one's head up.

They took it for a caddis or PMD.

Aftermath of a few days

Boiling

The river is boiling the evening, and for some of the past few days, the air temperature too.  Mornings OK.  Would be better if I could get around.  Caddis and PMD's.  Crowded on the weekend, but I've seen it worse than it has been on the weekdays.  Still can only fish a few hours at a time.   I should have come to the MO as soon as they lowered the water.  That day, immediately.  Learn from this too, if there's another year I can do it, and the water is this low at this time.  Might be next year, another decade, or never.  Blown opportunity.  It's a year of blown and missed opportunities, so why should I be surprised?  This one was all my fault though.  That damn Henry's Fork anyway.

Arriving on the weekend, campsites and pullouts were all filled. I had driven to Pelican years ago, and I remembered seeing two or three shady campsites there.  I knew how to get there, and one just happened to be open. I've fished this river seasonally since the early 80's, yet had never wet a line below Prewett creek, where the river leaves the Big Belts.  Now I have.  I only saw 3 or 4 anglers other than the occasional boat floating by.  More floaters than I expected, but not even close to the circus up top.  Its big down here, with plenty of room.  The road on the other side gives access to a couple miles of lightly fished water.

Got to love Cascade too. A well-stocked fly shop, grocery store, gas station, and laundromat all in the same block, on the same side of the street!  Just minutes from the campsite.  And its sure nice this year, at the end of June, to see across the big sky to the distant mountain ranges instead of struggling to breathe through the smoke.  

I spent some evenings up top at a couple of my usual haunts.  Couldn't pass up the no-brainer of boiling fish until dark on both sides of Craig.  One more morning, then off to the Creeks for 9 days.  Armstrong's, Depuy's, and Nelson's, oh my!

OH HELL YA

Right at Camp

Shadiest Campsite on the MO

Evening Caddis Blizzards

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Side Trip

When the wind is blowing 25-40 on the MO, I take an afternoon drive.  I hadn't been back to this one in ages.  Its on the way to a big spring creek, and on the back way to several spring creeks.  It was blowin' here too, but Norman liked it. I need to fish it again, and go higher up.

Montana Retirement Cabin.  Near good fly-fishing creek.  Needs work.

Move Around, Dummy

Sometimes getting into a routine backfires.  I get into routines.  Fishing familiar runs that have brought recent success, despite those runs not currently producing.  Such as it was for Millionaires and the Ranch View runs lately. I wanted the fish there to rise.  "Those" fish.  The ones I got into at the opener.  They wouldn't.  There were PMD's, at times lots, both hatching and spinners.  After a few piss-poor mornings and evenings, I moved to the upper ranch, and the fish were rising despite the crowds.  They weren't those 20"+ Millionaires fish, but they were nice enough, and damn sure welcome after pissing away three days down lower.  Lesson learned?  Maybe, maybe not.  But it'll be tucked into the memory bank for a while.  I was ready to move on, somewhere, anywhere, if things didn't brighten up.  The MO is rumored to be insanely crowded.  I'll probably still have to see for myself before hitting the creeks starting July 1.  Until then, Log Jam to 3rd Fence will work.  Ants and Moles did the catching.  I awoke the next morning to the wind.  Again.  Enough is enough.  Outta here.

Familiar Waters

A Harrop winged beetle creation from last year