[Gone]

A week ago today I was on day one of a 4 day fishing pilgrimage to The Promised Land.

Day One, Beaverhead. We wanted to fish the Big Hole, but it spiked overnight so we hit the upper Beav. It was cold and wet. Some wind, a little snow. Mostly rain. Felt like steelheading. Me and my 3 buddies caught some nice fish. They each caught more than I did, but I scratched out a couple trouts that made me pretty happy. Full report on my blog if interested in that sort of thing. Drove through Dillon but didn't see the Old Man.
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Day Two & Three, Firehole. This is an annual trip and this year did not disappoint. Weather was cold, windy, wet, snowing, less windy and dry. Typical bipolar weather for Yellowstone this time of year. Lots of fish caught. The fish in the Firehole are about 1/3 the size of the fish in the Beaverhead, but they are gamers on a 4 wt. After a snowstorm that blew most folks off the river, a hatch of PMD's came off and lasted for 3 hours. It lasted even longer, but I had a long walk back to the car so I left the rising fish behind.

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Day Four, Madison @ Three Dollar Bridge. The weather finally improved, but the catching did not. This river kicked my butt and the butts of 2 others. Only one guy in our group got it done here and caught around 15 nice fish. But he's an A#$hole so who cares.

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[Flyborg]

Badass man, that's a serious trout trip.

 

[Mumbles]

Drove through Dillon but didn't see the Old Man.

You mean he was not staning on the side of the road by the "Welcome to Dillon MT" sign flipping you the bird?

Kirk, great report and nice looking fish.

 

[Gone]

Mumbles, I half expected to see him doing just that. The weather was kinda crappy though so he was probably inside bitching on the computer

 

[Old Man]

I tend to stay inside now that I'm over 75. The cold, wet weather does nothing for me anymore.

Glad to see you had a good time.

 

[salt dog]

Nice to see you pulled some healthy rainbows out of the Madison Itchy.

 

[Jmills81]

Fishing with Jergens...uhhhh, must have been shitty then!

 

[jeff bandy]

Great report. I don't know about that Madison part. Three skunks and one of you got 15 fish. Did you make him walk home? Cut his line? Poke holes in his waders? What?

 

[mike doughty]

awesome trip itchy!

 

[Guest]

Now that's what a brown is suppose to look like! NICE!

 

[Richard Torres]

Beautiful pics Itchy, especially the panoramas.....

 

[Rob Ast]

Sweet report. Someday I need to do that road trip (mumbles, bitterroot, anybody?)

 

[Gone]

OMJ- You're lucky to live where you do. Cold, wet or a combination of the two, it's beautiful country and there's lotsa fish to be catched.

Salt- All the fish we caught were healthy looking. Last year I caught one sickly bow and saw the carcasses of a couple others with whirling disease. Not sure if the fish are doing better, or if we just happened to not see any sickly ones.

Mills- Yeah, Joe is kind of a hack, sorta. He kept talking about how OMR kicked your butt on the OP this year.

Bandy- the guy who caught the fish always out catches me. To his discredit, it's because I'm just not a very good fisherman. It should be noted that nobody smelled a complete skunk. The other three of us all managed one or 2 fish.

Doughty- it was a great trip, but they sure like to badmouth Utardians up there.

Oldskool- there were a lot of nice browns, but that one in particular was a dandy, though Matney would surely roll his eyes at it

Torres- thanks. The camera is smart and does all the work. :thumb:

Rob- Better hit the Bitterroot early- they're gonna be low on water as summer progresses.

 

[orangeradish]

Nice report, ID. I like posting trip reports. Tell me, how do you get all the big assed fish for the photos? I can't seem to get that sorted out........

 

[Gone]

Nice report, ID. I like posting trip reports. Tell me, how do you get all the big assed fish for the photos? I can't seem to get that sorted out........

Photoshop helps

 

[orangeradish]

Photoshop helps

I was gonna say powerbait, but I s'pose that would do the trick as well.

 

[yuhina]

Great report! Kirk,

The firehole hatch sounds pretty amazing, love the bug photo you took...
I need to join your annual trip... sometimes...

 

[Old Man]

Itchy, you should of let me know what day you were going to fish the Beaverhead. I would of stood along side of the road when you were going past me. I could of flipped you off.

Jim

 

[Gone]

Itchy, you should of let me know what day you were going to fish the Beaverhead. I would of stood along side of the road when you were going past me. I could of flipped you off.

Jim

Jim, I believe you meant to say:

"Itchy, you should HAVE let me know...I would HAVE stood alongside...I could HAVE flipped you off."

That's worth another trip next year. I'll let you know, and will hold you to it.

 

[Old Man]

Man, the rivers here are all going up. The Big Hole is running thru the trees and the Ruby isn't far from it.

I wish it would stop raining and the rivers would all go down. I'm getting a white tan from being in the house.