Fishing Nez Perce Creek in YNP

So this Saturday seemed like the time to make the most of July 4 weekend by cruising down to Yellowstone and hiking up Nez Perce Creek several miles to flyfish for some YNP trout in the midst of some awesome backcountry. Joined by Ghetto-C, the much anticipated dayhike adventure was underway.

We left the Bozone around 6:30am and headed down to the Park. Once there we rigged up at the Mary Mountain trailhead and headed upstream. When you see steam coming up from the ground, you know you're in YNP yo!

The first 1.5-2 miles of the trail goes around an area of thermal features called the Culex Basin. Due to the water from these features, the fishing here is non-existant. Once above the Basin however, the water cools and the fishing improves greatly. If there was a trout-stream designer, this is what he would dream about:

The trail passes by many small backcountry thermal features. Don't fall in Ghetto!

Eventually we hike up a few more miles and look for a place to begin fishing. There was so much snow this winter (200% of normal) and rain in June that water is everywhere. Eventually we find a nice meadow where we can make it out to the stream's edge. Ghetto-C gives it a go and starts hooking up on small 8" browns on a Prince Nymph.

The trout are mostly small (6-10") but beautiful, and on a light 3-wt flyrod plenty of fun. I have some good success on the surface with a #16 PMD Sparkle Dun, which is surprising considering how bright it is out.

Eventually we are reminded we are not alone by a couple of bison passing through:

Better than a bear, I say! Considering that they don't even open this trail until June 15 due to grizzly activity and the fact we could easily find claw marks on the trees.  And, of course, bones:

We passed  through several more lage meadows, with similar fishing throughout. We missed alot of strikes, but landed a few small browns before it was time to hike the 3-4 miles back to the car.

Not epic catching, but epic fishing!

Early June Canoe Trip to Cliff Lake

Late as always, here is the tale of an awesome 3 day canoe trip to Cliff Lake with Poochie and Ghetto-C!

We took off on a Friday morning with the car loaded up and everything ready to go. Our plan was to spend 3 days (2 nights) camping out on an island at the back of Cliff Lake. On Sat we were going to try hiking over to Hidden Lake, about a 4 mile round trip on a trail from the back of the lake. It was quite cool and there was the threat of thunderstorms, but we figured what the heck. After all, with the canoe it was possible to take a cooler of beer.

Spring was almost in the air as we pulled off 287 and through the old homestead on the way to Cliff Lake:

Once at the lake we loaded up the canoe and set out on our awesome adventure. Many trout would fall this weekend.

We paddled the length of the lake and set up a quick camp on the island so we could set about to fishing.

We had an afternoon of good fishing, with several good rainbows caught, mostly on wooly buggers with a sinking line or in Chris' case (gasp) a spinner. Most of the fish were about 12-13", but we did get a few 15-16" fish too.  After the fishing it was time to retire to camp for some dinner and some fine beer:

The next morning we decided to try to find the trail to Hidden Lake at the back of Cliff Lake and give it a go. There was about a 50% chance of thunderstorms so we weren't sure what would happen. Poochie guides us to our destination:

We found the trail, but the weather was very on again/off again so rather than try an ambitious 3-4 hour adventure into the woods, we stuck with the canoe. We managed to paddle all the way to the back of that arm of the lake and saw many kinds of crazy birds and even some moose and bear tracks in the mud. Eventually we set about to more fishing, letting the breeze gently push the canoe down the shoreline back towards camp. More woolly bugger success produced several nice rainbow trout, and some fine single malt scotch sealed the deal.

He we are almost back to camp for lunch. You can see the cone-shaped island on the right side, and barely make out our tents at the bottom on the left side of the island. Note the crazy color of the Cliff Lake waters:

After lunch we decided to hike up to the top of our cone-shaped island to take in the view. It was worth it!  Here you can see 2 of the arms in the back of the lake, the SE arm and the Antelope Prong:

That evening we had some smashing success fishing out there at the mouth of the Antelope Prong when the wind was dead calm and the sky cloudy. Nice fat rainbows were crushing #14 Parachute Adams on the surface, with some single malt to boot. Good times!

That evening we chilled at camp and managed to escape the worst possible weather, although we did get rained on a couple times. Noble Poochie at camp, a more handsome dog you will not find:

The next day was blustery, with intermittent rain. It was time to bundle up and head back to the car. Here I am in full raingear mode:

Of course, just because it was raining didn't mean we couldn't fish! Ghetto-C hooks up on another nice rainbow on the way back:

And so it went. We pretty much drifted the shoreline all the way back to the car and caught several more nice trout. All in all good times and a pretty awesome canoe trip!