I went up to Montana and Wyoming ( Yellowstone+Grand Teton National Parks) for a fishing vacation with the family this june.
The scenery was great, the fishing was excellent despite early june being the worst time to fish the montana streams due to spring runoff (meltwater flooding). The catching was so-so but whatever i caught, it was good! I caught and released all of my fish...
I caught a few brown trouts ( 21",18"), rainbow trout (17"), westslope cutthroat trout ( a whopping 24") and lake trout (16").
We even hiked and got chased by a grizzly mama bear crossing a trout stream with her cub.
Montana is great. Everyone fly-fishes, including the old lady at the motel check-inn...she wouldn't even tell me about her fishing spots coz they were so darn good
My bed sheets adorned rainbow trout, the headboard had trout reliefs , even the airport had a trout trophies on display!
Here's the whole picture story:
Mastercard Moment- Fly 15000 odd miles to Bozeman, Montana, US: a ZILLION dollars! Check into the Royal7 Motel: $50. Wake up next morning to early june snowfall...priceless!!
DePuys Spring Creek, Livingston, Montana. A private ranch property with daily rod limits for insanely technical fly fishing with visible super-vary brown,rainbow('bow) and cutthroat trouts. The scenery is just mindblowing.
Culverts flowing into deep pools at DePuys. Big fish streamer fishing.
Grinnel Point looming over swiftcurrent lake, Many Glacier, Montana. You will see them rise in the evening like a "boil" on midges everywhere..trying to land one is another story.
We hiked a half day to Grinnel Lake, only to find this cold glacial stream (right before being chased by the grizzlies). There's trout in these cold waters...the bears got damn pissed when we tried getting to them trout!
Grinnel Lake. Native Cutthroat Trout, Kokanee Salmon,Whitefish, arctic grayling.
Family fishing day on Lake Yellowstone
Fly Fisherman Paradise : Gibbon and Firehole rivers in the Yellowstone Park. Hatches through the day. Some predictable, some not...the fish rising and sometimes jumping.the trout bums,they fish, come hail,rain or snow...
24" Westslope Cutthroat Trout being landed
Trying to dehook without harming the fish. It's illegal to kill cutthroats in the yellowstone lake. However, its MANDATORY to kill Lake Trout, irrespective of their sizes. There are stories floating about a 60" lake trout somewhere in the middle of this lake.
Size Check
16" Lake Trout from the Yellowstone Lake. I released this guy even though he was a keeper but i thought he was a rainbow!! I realized it was a lake(mackinaw) only yesterday on studying the pictures closely!! Anyway...i caught all the 4 trout species in the area so i came back happy.
Sunrise over Yellowstone Lake
Fishing in Lake Jackson, Grand Tetons...in our own little rented motorboat with a bottle of wine and rising fish all around.
Standing on a driftboat casting a 5 weight flyline into the swollen upper madison river. caught my first fish within the first 15 minutes of drifting. You can see the delight of disbelief right here.
they bend like that only when its a nice fish.
thats a nice fish : a 21" brown trout
2 necessities of life
Perspective...they even have trouts on their beer bottle caps in Montana!
Flies, Montana Style.
The one that got away...from my bumbling,fumbling hands!
18" Brown Trout
17" Rainbow Trout caught on a muddler
Panorama Shot after pulling the drift boat off the river. A good productive 8 hour fishing day!!
That's about it for now. We clicked over a 1000 pictures!! I think i'll be still sorting through these for a month. I'll post more later im sure.
Cheers!!!