Yellowstone Park, September 2011

The trip finally came off as planned and the only "bad" news was that the weather was too pretty and warm the first 3 days I was there. I enjoyed the drive, a long stretch the first day and arrived early enough on Saturday to fish that afternoon. As usual, I spent the first 4 nights in Mammoth in the cabins. The word was that the hatches weren't really on yet, most people were fishing terrestrials. Soda Butte was packed as usual so I waited until 4 or so before hitting the river proper. Most of the rising fish I found were in the glides . . . and luckily I had read that small brown spinners were working. My first evening I landed 3 typical fall Cuts/Cutbows and missed several in the low light. The confluence pool of the Lamar & SB was not as deep as in years past, but I my second morning I took a couple by running a Green Drake emerger through some faster pools on the Lamar.
I made a point of hitting the smaller streams in the area where parking was plentiful and the pools were open. I always make a trip to Blacktail Deer Creek to play with the Brookies. A parachute Adams/Cinnamon Ant was

Good for all the Brookies, as long as I could see it. I also fished Slough Creek for the first time in years and once again found them in the slower glides. When I timed the rise, a brown spinner (Mahogany Brown dubbing, moose mane tail and white/grey zelon wings) worked again. There was one nice (16-17") rainbow that refused the spinner and after positioning, fighting the wind and timing, took with a #16 cinnamon foam ant. Very satisfying and I had to tie up some more spinners in my cabin at night to replace some lost flies. I had fun on Lava Creek & Tower Creek was great. On my last evening on SB, I saw some BWO hatching along with a couple of Drakes. Sure enough, the reports after I returned showed the hatches were coming off. Funny, everyone was talking hoppers, but I only had a couple of flashed on them. I'm sure the Drake hatch will change things a bit, but those SB Cutts are much warier than the fish I chased in the 90's. Next time: White Millers SH & the Firehole.