Month: June 2024

Alas, no one seems to know why there are no bug hatches this year. Is the water too warm, the temperatures outside too hot, the flows not right??? The DuVals find it a bit disappointing and their declining physical abilities make it a challenge in wading and also walking the trail to fishing spots. Therefore they fish for short periods and are not successful. We do enjoy nice dinners together..

We attempt to fish the Firehole in the park and encounter very windy days. The Gibbons is better as Ron catches a nice fish, as do I. On the Madison, I have a few hook ups, land a nice one and fight a big one that gets away. It is not as productive as past years and dry fly fishing is pretty much nonexistent.

We leave Livingston and make a stop just north of Bozeman to visit a former POST colleague, Megan Derhammer who has relocated to Montana with her family. They show us their “Mobil cabins” which are custom log cabins that they ship out to buyers. We visit with their pigs, goats and neighbor alpacas before attempting to fish their local fishing hole.

We reach Slide Inn in the afternoon and meet up with the DuVals, who we will be fishing with this week. They are staying in a cabin at Slide Inn. We hope the fishing is good this year!

After driving for 3 days, we arrived in Livingston , Montana where we will be for several days, fishing the Depuys River and Slough Creek at the north end of the park. Unfortunately the fly shops say that there are no bugs hatching and that it is too early to fish at Slough Creek. We will try anyway as Ray is determined. Armed with bear spray, we drive an hour and hike to the lower creek. There is not a fish to be seen and no apparent action. The only saving grace is that the valley is beautiful and the hike is quite lively. We decided not to attempt the upper creek trail. As an alternative, we fished the Gibbons inside Yellowstone where I caught several baby fish.

We had a 2 day reservation on the Depuys River. The grass was waist high and seeding so the pollen levels did mischief on Ray’s allergies. I had a few takes but did not land any fish. Ray dis fairly well but again, we saw very little evidence of bug hatches and rising fish. The scenery was picture perfect as it had snowed a few days ago with freezing night temperatures so snow was still on the higher elevations. We weren’t sure about returning next year as it appeared we were on the river too early. By the time we decided, all the spots were filled.