Yellowstone National Park 2021 Final Weekend

It has come: the first week of November marks the end of Yellowstone National Park waterbodies fishing season. Practically, to me at least, this is just about time to wrap up the full-day guide trips and fishing days. Also the fact that the summer time ends contributes to this thought.

I was thinking of going to the “regular” destination, especially to cast and swing my newly acquired Trout Spey gears. But I was not up for “making a line” and I had a hunch that tourism traffic would still be busy over there. And over all I’ve done this many times.

So I decided to go the deserted part of the Park with a slight hope of hatch and rise….. I was actually surprised that there were fair numbers of traffic even on this side of the Park. But I spotted only one fisher during the entire day.

I did what I would never suggest to my fishing clients: flock shoot dry-flies when nothing hatching or rising, i.e., casting for casting’s sake - this never works. I hanged around a bit but nothing seemed to happen so I decided to move on.

Oh……”buffalo jam” even on this final weekend……….

More weird things: a couple of known accesses on “G” were closed for some reasons. But I found a legit pullout and I didn’t believe fishing was closed (if so, rangers and travelers would easily spot me and tackle me). Now I only wanted to try a newer method among all the recent new ones: Single-handed Spey casting. I didn’t even carry a regular fly line or dry-flies.

Then I saw bunch of rising fish🤣. I could have run back to my truck but I figured (kinda hoped, you know what I mean) that by the time I would come back to the spot, rig, and cast, there would be only 5-10 minutes left…… So I moved onto the swing waters. I finally felt the first solid tug for the day😀

I moved onto the next and last spot for this short stretch. Definitely suitable for the single-handed Spey and swing. A typical action!: swing followed by solid tug and leaping trout!!

Well I didn’t come across any huge trout or fall-run browns this season. But it was very nice to get out and wrap up the YNP season.

I might visit through winter months for cross country skiing, snowshoeing, animal spotting, etc. But for fishing and rivers, I can’t wait for the next season🥺. It’s just one winter away, isn’t it😉.