Yellowstone National Park is one of those places that has always had a special place in my heart. It was there that the love of fly fishing really took hold. One of my earlier memories of fly fishing is on the banks of the Yellowstone below the Lake with my family. I can’t remember if we caught anything (looking back, I highly doubt it), but I vividly remember flailing away with an old Cortland rod that was probably three times my size and a Pflueger Medalist. Over the next couple of decades, Dad and I have spent a good many drizzly and cold fall days on the Firehole, and I will always love that river for that.
Living in Bozeman makes getting to the Park pretty damn easy. But in the past years I have lived here, car troubles or busy schedules made it virtually impossible to get down there. Even all of last year with a more reliable car and the fishing in the Park reportedly great, I never could find the time to get down there. It’s a great shame, and a mistake I won’t be making again.
For my birthday present this year, Fire Girl Jess (my sister, for those of you who don’t know) got me a very thoughtful and useful gift: a National Park pass. I’ve been itching to use it, and for Valentine’s Day my girlfriend Kaitlyn and I decided to put it to good use. You know you’ve got a good one when your girl wants to go to YNP for Valentine’s instead of some stuffy and overly pricey restaurant. And you know you’ve got a really good one when you’re blathering on about such and such river you’re driving by and she agrees to fish them all with you this summer.
Not much of the Park is open in the winter, but it is pretty nice to be able to walk around Mammoth and drive down the Lamar without the normal summer crowds. There were a few more people than I would have thought down there, but I forgot it was a free weekend with President’s Day. We had a wonderful drive and saw the usual diverse wildlife including bighorn sheep, bison, elk, and several wolves. Yellowstone really is an amazing place, even in the middle of winter.
There will be many, many more trips to YNP this year. There is more water in it’s boundaries than you could fish in a lifetime. Better get on it.
