It was a cool morning on September 1 when we pulled up to the Gardiner entrance of Yellowstone National Park. We swiped our park pass and were on our way up the new twisting turning, rollercoaster of a road that connects mammoth to gardiner after the gardiner river washed out the old road in the floods of the summer of 2022. Having not spent much time inside the park since the powerful floods we were curious to see how things had changed. The plan was to head toward our backcountry access location in the northern section of the park, but since it was only 9:30 and the rest of our party wouldn't be arriving until later we decided to wonder into the valleys and scan for some wildlife while scouting the rivers.
We stumbled upon a medium sized group of cars pulled over with people and cameras milling about. After pulling over it seemed people were not keyed in or focused on any particular animal. I assumed they were simply checking out the bison herd barely 50 yards off the road as tourist often do, but we decided to get out our binos and scan for a few minutes anyway. After about 5 minutes I noticed a light brown spot in the sage brush that stood out and as I focused It came into view as a wolf perched halfway up on a hill looking into the valley. As I watched another appeared and another, now three wolves perched by the sage brush scanning the valley. “You see them?!” I asked excitedly as I gave visual references as to their location in the massive valley. We stood and watched for 5 or ten minutes and every minute or so another wolf would appear seemingly out of nowhere until there was a full pack of 10 wolves. 2 or 3 were midnight black, 2 were tan with more coyote like patterns and the rest were a silvery gray that blended in with the sage bush in the sunlight very well. It was like a scene straight out of planet earth, I was half expecting David Attenborough to walk up behind me and start telling me all about the pack dynamics and wolf facts and about their reintroduction into yellowstone. It was pure nature. The pack moved up the valley towards the bison herd, a few wolves even trotting into the herd to scope it out. One wolf and bison circled each other twice then both decided to go their separate ways. It seemed both parties were not in the mood to be very hostile. I had never had the chance to witness wolf behavior like this before. We moved the car twice and followed them up the valley trying our best to capture the experience with our cell phones cameras and binos and as well as an underpowered camera lens. Finally we had our fill and were ready to hit the trail.
(External video here)
https://cdn.shopify.com/videos/c/o/v/4f8562fe186e4d4393bc11cacc5b7bb9.mp4
We reached the trail head, double checked our gear, loaded our bags up and started the journey. A few miles in, some rain encouraged us to stop for a water break, and put a little doubt in the air as to whether our trip would be worth it, but we finally made it to our site to do some backcountry fishing. Arriving at the river we noticed it was lower than in previous years and this could make the fishing a bit more technical however we were not too worried. After we set up camp and stowed our smellables in the bear box we hit the river. This was one of my personal favorite trout rivers, allowing for sight fishing with tiny dries to big slurping fish or hopper droppering for more aggressive takes, and even stripping streamers in deeper holes. We were able to land a few fish that afternoon, but had nowhere near the production we were used to for that river. The next day was very much the same, we were able to land a fair amount of truly quality fish, but still couldn't dial it in like we were accustomed to.
It was the morning of the third day that we were in for a surprise. One of the group members brought a backcountry special surprise breakfast that he had been talking up, the likes of which I had never encountered before. Hot fresh donuts in the Backcountry. Pillsbury biscuits fried in oil and dusted with cinnamon sugar, by far the best backcountry breakfast I've ever had. After our donuts and coffee we were feeling ready to give the river another shot with a little different approach. Venturing to a different section that had a little more structure we decided to strip streamers since it was pretty gray out and see what we could find and what a decision that turned out to be. The first hole we tried after 3 or 4 casts an 18 inch fish darted out of the depths to inspect my streamer just as it was reaching my feet for a recast. I twitched it and he followed but wouldn't commit. I tried a few different retrievals but couldn't get the fish to commit and decided to move to the next hole, but as I walked a large rocky slope jutted out of the river and as I climbed I could get a better view of the river and the fish in it. I noticed a feeding fish and scrambled down the rocky face to get into a casting position. I plopped a small single hooked barbless wooly booger about 10 ft upstream of him and as soon as it touched the water the fish darted and chomped it and before I could even strip set, my reel was peeling as I watched the gold bar of a fish writhe in panic. It was incredible. After a short fight I managed to get the fish in and released the beautiful creature and called my buddies over to try. As I had been fighting the fish many other fish moved around in the pool excited by the commotion. The next cast strip, strip, boom, another eat and another. We had figured out the secret. The next pool we moved in we caught a fish unhooked it and before I could even get the out of the net, we had another one on the end of the line. “Hurry up and unhook it I want to catch another” my buddy told me as I grabbed a fish out of the net. As we covered water we found fish after fish, all of quality size until we were satisfied and ready to hit the trail and head back home to get a shower and get ready for the coming week.