Yellowstone: A Day in the Park

Yellowstone:

A Day in the Park

My 530-alarm went off echoing throughout the rain fly of my tent, like the thunder that rattled the park overnight. Despite my restless sleep from Yellowstone’s choir of storms, coffee was poured, fly rods were set up, and the odometer on the car was set. The goal was simple: to fish every major body of water in Yellowstone National Park in a single day. Following six rivers, one creek, and one massive lake. To fish and document the journey during a 16-hour day was a challenge I had not foreseen any other angler attempt. But with the six o’clock departure from my campsite at Indian Creek Campground, heading south to the Gibbon River along the Grand Loop Road, was sure to be an adventure, nonetheless.

By SEAN JANSEN Photos by SEAN JANSEN and ISTOCK

Fog boasted the morning sunrise. Inhibiting the views of anything beyond a quarter mile. Though there was an orange glow to the fog, the earth darkened in color bringing out the most vivid in colors from the greens of the grasses, the browns of the tree trunks, and the wild and vivid shades of the wildflowers in full bloom. The distraction of colors and the solitude of the road led me to believe in the reasoning for the screeching stop to witness a bison cross the first river of casts on the Gibbon. The only catch however, was a photo taken of the bison doing what its been doing for most of its life, disturbed only by the swarms of tourists.

The fog clears

The fog began to clear with the rising of the sun and the arrival of further people in route to Madison Junction. Here, the Madison River is formed via the Gibbon and the Firehole Rivers: The Gibbon, which I had just followed down to create the Madison, and the Firehole River, which I would be following, shortly, after a few casts into the reed thickened and elk bugled Madison. The caddis pupa got the rise on the first fish of the trip with a beautifully stunned brown trout, hiding in a deep pocket behind the riffles. A quick release into the cooled river and the odometer kept clocking as I made my way over to the Firehole River. I then began making my way up and over the Continental Divide and into the caldera of the Yellowstone super volcano.

The fish bent my 5-weight to the handle and the line screamed out of the reel

The traffic led me to believe why I didn’t make it to Yellowstone Lake until 1, but the mother grizzly bear and cub right off the side of the road created a traffic jam making the freeways of Los Angeles look like a breeze to get through. But with a cracked open beer and a sandwich, I sat on the lakeshore and just listened and watched the waves slap the shore, keeping me company on this special day.

Another inspiration for the trip was my 31st birthday. I always try and do something outrageous for each trip around the sun, and figured a trip around Yellowstone was just the fit. But with any birthday, you always hope that something spectacular happens, and this day was sure to surprise with the next few casts.

Yellowstone Lake

Finishing up my lunch, my eyes wandered beyond the last bite of my sandwich to see a very large tail, cruising its way near the lakeshore like a bonefish on a salt flat. I stopped chewing and watched the 20-inch cutthroat trout continue searching the shallows in the crystal clear, sand bottomed Yellowstone Lake. I tied on a tan and red streamer and made my casts in a fan-like motion from the lakeshore. Cast out, count to ten, then slowly strip in.

I lost sight of that tailing trout but knew there had to be more in the area. My hopes were beginning to diminish with what I thought was to be another fishless body of water for the day. Time was winding down and I had three more rivers to hit to finish out the day and a couple hours of driving as well. I made one more cast and let the fly sink for 15 seconds this time.

Once 15 struck, I made two strips when the lightning bolt hit. The fish bent my 5-weight to the handle and the line screamed out of the reel as if a marlin fell for a cedar plug. The body torquing, head shaking of the large cutthroat came to a close and the gorgeously spotted fish came to hand for a few brief seconds before its release.

Yellowstone Lake is the headwaters of the most genetically pure Yellowstone cutthroat trout. With fish numbers once at unfathomable levels, the species are now threatened. In the 90’s, a fisherman discovered an introduced specie in the lake; a lake trout. At first, they didn’t possess any threat to the native species, but after a little time, it was apparent that the lake trout were not only a direct threat to the cutthroat but were also predating on them.

Yellowstone’s cutthroat trout are considered a keystone specie. Meaning that all life in the park depends on them for their own survival. So, while the park service has declared that all cutthroat trout are to be released after being landed (and all lake trout are to be killed), any encounter with these incredible, endemic fish should be cherished and handled appropriately.

The Yellowstone River

With a newly inspired agenda, I made my way to the park’s namesake river, the Yellowstone. I had mapped out a section I wanted to hit where the Lamar and Yellowstone Rivers meet, but not after watching the river continue its life out of the Lake and slowly meandering its way through the slow non-fishable sections through to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the falls.

It was a bit of a hike and a good striking distance away from the last river I wanted to hit for the day.

I arrived at the spot, opened my car door, took three steps towards the back of my Subaru when, smack! Right into the back of my neck, a large salmonfly had made its landing. Before long, I had salmonflies crawling all over my car and eventually a pattern had made it onto the end of my 3X tippet.

The fishing on the Yellowstone didn’t start off great with a slip on a rock that led to an embarrassing face plant. An hour or so of casts into the roaring Yellowstone River without a single rise to the large salmonfly and elk hair caddis dropper, I needed to, once again, abandon the scene like the Gibbon and move onto the next river in order to at least achieve the goal of fishing the bodies of water intended for the day.

The Lamar River

With what many anglers consider to be the crown jewel of the park, the Lamar River and its valley reminds me of something out of Jurassic Park. This wide valley is littered with Bison and just a few large cottonwoods lining the river in certain spots make most of this river appear seemingly untouched.

The bison control the river much like trying to cross the demilitarized zone separating the republics of Korea. You can walk to its riverbanks, only if the 2500-pound bison will allow. Meaning, the fishing is superb and the trout healthy.

With the sun finally beginning to lower on the horizon, peaking itself in and out of a looming thunderhead, I daintily tippy toed my way through the maze of bison to my own bend of the Lamar and began making casts with the grey drake and caddis dropper combo.

The fish count took the cake for the day so far with a rise nearly every ten casts or so. Some of the takes were frustrating with the sippable notient of a fine wine, while others were an explosive gesture more like taking a whiskey shot on your birthday. Each one well over the ruler stick and safely released back into the slightly mudded Lamar River.

Wrapping things up

With the sun setting and clouds turning their colors, a final cracked beer warmed the stomach on what seemed like an impossible day on paper. Fly rod in one hand and beer the other, I made my way dodging bison patties the size of trash can lids, and let the grasses brush up against my waders with the stunned grasshoppers jumping out of the way onto

other blades of grass. The goal was to hit Soda Butte Creek and the Gardner River back near camp where the night previous I had hooked into dozens of small brook trout, but the fact that; in a single day I had fished the Gibbon, Madison, Firehole, Yellowstone, and Lamar Rivers - with the incredible gift of the large cutthroat from Yellowstone Lake - is a mention on the checklist well deserved marking off.

I began making casts with the grey drake and caddis dropper combo

Leaning up against my car, watching the sun set and the darkness creep in, the orange glow on the horizon and large outlines of the bison grunting and foraging their way through the valley polished off the incredible birthday of mine driving 172.1 miles and fishing five rivers and one lake in Yellowstone National Park.

A rainbow trout, brown trout, and Yellowstone cutthroat trout; grizzly bear and cub, osprey, eagle, bison, elk, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, and black bear all joined me on this incredible day in the park.

The World’s First National Park

On March 1, 1872, Yellowstone became the first national park for all to enjoy the unique hydrothermal and geologic features. Within Yellowstone’s 2.2 million acres, visitors have unparalleled opportunities to observe wildlife in an intact ecosystem, explore geothermal areas that contain about half the world’s active geysers, and view geologic wonders like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.Signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant, America’s first national park was set aside to preserve and protect the scenery, cultural heritage, wildlife, geologic and ecological systems and processes in their natural condition for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations.

Yellowstone serves as the core of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one

of the last and largest natural ecosystems on the planet. Yellowstone has the most active, diverse, and intact collections of combined geothermal features with over 10,000 hydrothermal sites and half the world’s active geysers. The park is also rich in cultural and historical resources with 25 sites, landmarks, and districts on the National Register of Historic Places.

Based on the park’s location at the convergence of the Great Plains, Great Basin, and Columbia Plateau, 27 Native American Tribes have historic and modern connections to the land and its resources. For over 10,000 years before Yellowstone became a national park, it was a place where Native Americans lived, hunted, fished, gathered plants, quarried obsidian, and used thermal waters for religious and medicinal purposes.

Park managers have learned many lessons during Yellowstone’s 150 years. In the early 1900s, the government killed nearly all predators in the park, and the bison population was hunted to less than two dozen.

Later that century, the fires of 1988 burned more than one-third of the park, and the introduction of nonnative lake trout decimated native Yellowstone cutthroat populations. Through modern resource management efforts involving bison, grizzly bears, native fish, gray wolves, wildland fire, and others, Yellowstone’s ecosystem is the healthiest it has been in over a century.

Native vs. Nonnative Fishes in Yellowstone

Yellowstone has 11 fish native to its lakes and streams. Native sport fish include three subspecies of cutthroat trout, fluvial arctic grayling, and mountain whitefish. Non-native fish species that were introduced to the park in the late 19th and early 20th centuries include rainbow trout, brown trout, brook trout, and lake trout. Although non-native trout are also important to the angler experience in Yellowstone, they have contributed to a decline in the park’s native cutthroat trout and fluvial arctic grayling. The ranges and densities of the park’s native fish species have been substantially altered during the past century due to angling harvest, introduction of nonnative and exotic species, and natural factors. Despite changes in species composition and distribution, large-scale habitat degradation—such as water diversions or water pollution—has not occurred in the park.

Maintaining Cutthroat Trout Genetics

Native cutthroat trout are the most ecologically important fish of the park and the most highly regarded by visiting anglers. Nonnative rainbow trout compete with the native cutthroat trout for food and habitat resources, and, even worse, interbreed with the cutthroat trout, producing hybrids. Once this occurs, the cutthroat population is forever damaged, and cannot be restored without immense expense and a complete removal of the entire fish community from the stream. To reduce the level of hybridization in the park’s cutthroat trout waters, anglers are encouraged to harvest rainbow trout. By working together, we can help to ensure that genetically pure cutthroat trout will persist for future generations to enjoy!

Ecological Integrity

In Yellowstone, bald eagles, ospreys, pelicans, otters, grizzly bears, and other wildlife take precedence over humans in utilizing fish as food. Fishing regulations reflect this priority and that of maintaining fish populations that have sufficient number of spawning adults to maintain natural reproduction and genetic diversity. Because of the increasing number of anglers in the park, more restrictive regulations have been adopted in Yellowstone. These restrictions include season opening and closing dates, no use of bait, catch-andrelease only for native fish, and (in some waters) mandatory harvest of nonnative species. Some waters are closed to fishing to protect threatened and endangered wildlife or sensitive nesting birds, and to provide viewing areas for visitors seeking undisturbed vistas. The activities necessary to preserve and restore native fish varies by species and drainages across the park. In order to promote the preservation of native fish in Yellowstone, the park has designated the Native Trout Conservation Area for special management.

Within that area, fishing regulations are structured so that recreational anglers help selectively remove nonnative species from the area without damaging the native fishery. In some areas, anglers’ harvests will help to save the native fish and the natural ecosystems they support.

Fishing in Yellowstone National Park

About 50,000 of the park’s four million visitors fish each year. Fishing has been a popular recreation activity in the park for more than 100 years, and many people come to Yellowstone just to fish. Though angling is an anomaly in a park where the primary purpose is to preserve natural environments and native species in ways that maintain natural conditions, fishing in Yellowstone helps support preservation of native species.

Anglers contribute to the fisheries database by filling out a Volunteer Angler Report card that is issued with each fishing license. This information helps monitor the status of fisheries throughout the park.

Since 1979, anglers have been to keep records on fishing trips - stream or lake visited, time spent fishing, fish species caught, lengths of fish - to help park managers understand fisheries status and track changes in specific populations. Decisions about how best to achieve native fish preservations and recovery goals must be based in sound sceintific research and consistent with the mission of the National Park Service. Fishing regulations in Yellowstone National Park are structured to strongly support native fish conservation goals. Cutthroat trout are the sole, native trout of the park and were the dominant fish species here prior to Euroamerican settlement. Cutthroat trout, Arctic grayling, mountain whitefish, and other native fishes are important to the ecology of Yellowstone.

• The season begins the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend (usually the last weekend in May) and extends through October 31.

• Exceptions are noted in each of the regional regulations.

• Hours are daily from sunrise to sunset. Fishing with an artificial light is prohibited.

• Some areas are closed to human entry, have trail or seasonal closures, off-trail travel and daylight hour limitations, or party size recommendations.

• Streams may be temporarily closed due to low water levels and high water temperatures to protect fish populations.

• Fishing permits are available to purchase online via www.Recreation.gov.

For more info, please visit Yellowstone National Park’s website: https://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm