Saturday, July 1. While Kevin and family did final packing for Glacier, I packed for a flyfishing day in Yellowstone Park. After goodbye hugs, I drove south on 191, I saw that the Fawn Pass parking lot was not occupied by a truck inspection stop and state police today (as it was on my last trip), so I pulled in and started on my hike to Fan Creek. This little creek is supposed to house 12" cutthroat, rainbow and brook trout. I gingerly crossed the Gallatin over small bridges, nearly flooded by beaver activity, then headed into the woods for the 1.3 mile hike to Fan Creek.
In my Yellowstone fishing guidebook, the header on many stream descriptions has a small shadow outline of a grizzly bear and a moose; an alert to fisherman that they are entering countryside where human animals are not at the top of the food chain. I definitely 'felt' that I was in bear and moose country, a feeling that was only heightened by being alone on the trail. I whistled and occasionally cleared my throat to alert the bears to the presence of unpalatable (hopefully!) human food so they could move out of my way. I kept a wary eye out for trees that I could climb if it became necessary. After a mile, I could hear some animals trotting toward me from the side. Startled I peered over a little knoll to see what was coming, and was extremely relieved to find it was two mule deer bucks. They did not seem particularly frightened of me. I trudged on.
The stream was a beautiful meadow stream, as promised by my guidebook. With my polarizing sunglasses, I saw no fish whatsoever. After an hour of mosquito swatting and casting of multiple flies into suggestive pools, I decided I must be at the right place at the wrong time. So I hiked back out.
In West Yellowstone, I eschewed McD's for a local dive, where I had a 60-year old male waiter serve me a huckleberry shake (good!) and burger. After a visit to a local fly shop and now armed with flies the locals were using, I headed into the Park again. The Firehole river was really tempting me again, because I knew the fish were there. I visited my old favorite 'hole' and tried each of the 3 fly types in succession in a place where I knew there were fish (they were jumping!). Finally, the last fly seemed to do the trick as I got several strikes in succession, and managed to land a small rainbow. Success! Later that day I fished the Gibbon and the Madison. Some more strikes on the Madison, but I was too slow to set the hook. Ah well, it was a gorgeous day to be on the river. I must have stayed until late evening because I didn't get back to Big Sky until after dark.
Oh, one other adventure for the day; I was driving into the park on a 2-lane road with heavy 40mph traffic coming out of the park (toward me). A white Ford taurus veered gradually out of the oncoming traffic as if to pass - the only problem being that I was in his passing lane! I noticed that it was a no-passing zone and there was no place for him to pull back in, so I figured something was wrong. My best quick guess was that he had fallen asleep. I was right. As he approached, the car was still going straight, headed for the shoulder to my right. I pulled in to the centerline as far as I dared to let him pass, and as he got close to me, I honked my horn to wake him up. Out of the rear view mirror, I could see his brake lights flash on and dust flew up as he screeched to regain control of his car. My heart was in my throat for a while after that. After that little incident, I realized that humans were still by far the most dangerous animal in Yellowstone!
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