Irafly
07-18-2005, 09:57 AM
July 2nd: My friend Kristy and I hit the road towards Warm Springs around 2:00 in the afternoon. We camped there that night and hit the water early the morning of the third.
July 3rd: I landed 7 fish by one-ish in the afternoon. All were browns. The largest was 18" and the smallest was 8". The small fish was the exception, all the other fish were easily over 15". I hooked all but the little guy on a little stone fly nymph. I also hooked 3 other fish that LDRed me one of which was easily the biggest brown I've hooked in my life. Right after the hook up he ran down stream a little, then jumped three feet into the air. I'll admit that my lower jaw dropped a little. I can't really estimate appropriately how long he was but I've landed enough fish in the 28"-30" range to know that he was at least on the upper end of that scale. Not to mention his girth. All of the fish for that matter seemed rather girthy. I made a fatal mistake while playing him though by yelling up to Kristy for her to come and take a picture (See Heart Break at Rocky Ford). Just as she was starting to walk down he took off down stream for one last run that put the final strain on my 3X tippet. Oh well at least I got the jump. Kristy missed a few but then finally managed to pick one up just before we left. We also saw an Osprey work the same hole over on three different occasions (the same hole I picked the little guy up in).
July 4th: Into Cody for the day with Kristy's family. Her parents have volunteered in the park during the summers for over 25 years. Nice to have a little inside information.
July 5th: Hiked into an area of the lake where we heard that we could pick up some lake trout. Kristy and I hit them right away and for 6 hours it was pretty much non stop with the method we were using. Besides her and I 6 other members of her family hiked in with us. I can't tell you where and I can't tell you how we were fishing but I can tell you what was not working. After a few hundred casts with the spinning rods and spinners and only three fish vs our umpteeth fish the others were quick to accept our help setting them up with flies and rods. The one exception was her brother fishing a shooting head with a black bugger. He ended up landing 6 or so quickly stripping that. In the end I landed over 40 lakers in about 4 hours of fishing.
July 6th: We hiked back into the same area. Only 4 of this time. Same result.
July 7th: Fished Nez Perze(sp) Creek. I ended up landing around 30 small browns. Most of which took an adams irresistable fish right next to undercut banks. The fish were small, but they were not stupid. I watched several inspect my fly before turning away from it. Watch out for the thermal activity here. A little hot water down your boot helps you watch your step.
July 8th: I hiked and explored the upper reaches of another creek in the park. I ended up catching lots of little Bows in the 8"-10" class with four that pushed 12". I also ended up picking up two 11"-12" inch cuts and one small grayling that oddly ended up in the area of the creek I was fishing. Later on that day I slipped much further down the creek and ended up catching a bunch of brookies.
July 9th: Mostly this ended up being a day of rest but Kristy and I did manage to make it out for an hour to fish Yellowstone lake. We fished around the Lakes area off a point (maybe Gull?). The wind was brutal, but we picked up three, fishing nymphs under indicators.
July 10th: Back to the same spot for lakers with similar results.
The biggest bummer though came on the 9th when I went to check my digital camera to see how much disc space I had left. I ended up, by some freak of accidentiality, reformatting my entire memory card with all the pics from the first 6 days of the trip. 85 in all, plus a cool video of thermal activity on the Nez Perze. So the pics are limited.
IRA..
July 3rd: I landed 7 fish by one-ish in the afternoon. All were browns. The largest was 18" and the smallest was 8". The small fish was the exception, all the other fish were easily over 15". I hooked all but the little guy on a little stone fly nymph. I also hooked 3 other fish that LDRed me one of which was easily the biggest brown I've hooked in my life. Right after the hook up he ran down stream a little, then jumped three feet into the air. I'll admit that my lower jaw dropped a little. I can't really estimate appropriately how long he was but I've landed enough fish in the 28"-30" range to know that he was at least on the upper end of that scale. Not to mention his girth. All of the fish for that matter seemed rather girthy. I made a fatal mistake while playing him though by yelling up to Kristy for her to come and take a picture (See Heart Break at Rocky Ford). Just as she was starting to walk down he took off down stream for one last run that put the final strain on my 3X tippet. Oh well at least I got the jump. Kristy missed a few but then finally managed to pick one up just before we left. We also saw an Osprey work the same hole over on three different occasions (the same hole I picked the little guy up in).
July 4th: Into Cody for the day with Kristy's family. Her parents have volunteered in the park during the summers for over 25 years. Nice to have a little inside information.
July 5th: Hiked into an area of the lake where we heard that we could pick up some lake trout. Kristy and I hit them right away and for 6 hours it was pretty much non stop with the method we were using. Besides her and I 6 other members of her family hiked in with us. I can't tell you where and I can't tell you how we were fishing but I can tell you what was not working. After a few hundred casts with the spinning rods and spinners and only three fish vs our umpteeth fish the others were quick to accept our help setting them up with flies and rods. The one exception was her brother fishing a shooting head with a black bugger. He ended up landing 6 or so quickly stripping that. In the end I landed over 40 lakers in about 4 hours of fishing.
July 6th: We hiked back into the same area. Only 4 of this time. Same result.
July 7th: Fished Nez Perze(sp) Creek. I ended up landing around 30 small browns. Most of which took an adams irresistable fish right next to undercut banks. The fish were small, but they were not stupid. I watched several inspect my fly before turning away from it. Watch out for the thermal activity here. A little hot water down your boot helps you watch your step.
July 8th: I hiked and explored the upper reaches of another creek in the park. I ended up catching lots of little Bows in the 8"-10" class with four that pushed 12". I also ended up picking up two 11"-12" inch cuts and one small grayling that oddly ended up in the area of the creek I was fishing. Later on that day I slipped much further down the creek and ended up catching a bunch of brookies.
July 9th: Mostly this ended up being a day of rest but Kristy and I did manage to make it out for an hour to fish Yellowstone lake. We fished around the Lakes area off a point (maybe Gull?). The wind was brutal, but we picked up three, fishing nymphs under indicators.
July 10th: Back to the same spot for lakers with similar results.
The biggest bummer though came on the 9th when I went to check my digital camera to see how much disc space I had left. I ended up, by some freak of accidentiality, reformatting my entire memory card with all the pics from the first 6 days of the trip. 85 in all, plus a cool video of thermal activity on the Nez Perze. So the pics are limited.
IRA..