Montana Trout Odyssey September 2012

[albatross]

A group of four from the board, myself, Bruno, CSoult, and LigoneerA1 (inactive on the board) traveled cross-country in Bruno's wife's van (thanks Nat!) to fish the fabled waters of Montana. While there we were joined by none other than JayL, a former Pennsylvanian who has since defected to Montana.

Our trip out went better than expected and we were able to wade fish the Bighorn on the day of our arrival. We all caught multiple fish that first evening even though our hook-sets were compromised from sleep deprivation. It was a good omen for our guided day the next day and our two other days floating in rented boats on the Horn.

After 3 1/2 days on the Bighorn we traveled to Jellystone park. The trip over on the Bear-tooth highway was one of the highlights of the trip (as was the Red Lodge micro-brewery). Jay met us in the park and we camped in the Paradise valley. Early the next morning we hiked 8+ miles into the back-country of the park where we enjoyed epic fishing for native Jellystone cutthroat trout the next 3 days.

It was a trip of a lifetime, and one I will always cherish. Thanks to my companions for helping to make the trip all I dreamed it would be, and thanks to PaFlyFish for making it possible for me to meet a group of like-minded individuals with whom I could share the trip!

 

[NedZeppelin]

Awesome, having done the trip to Yellowstone, but missed the Slough Creek experience, tell us about the bear precautions for camping.

 

[albatross]

Ned,

I took precautions to hide the name of the park and the stream in the park from search engines without hiding this information from PaFlyFish readers. I'd appreciate if you would try to be more sensitive to this sort of thing when replying in the future.

We kept food away from our sleeping area and suspended high in the air as directed by the park regulations.
http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/backcountrytripplanner.htm

 

[David]

Truly jealous! Can't wait to hear more details of the trip of a lifetime!

 

[turkey]

I'm with David on this...a little jealous. But I'm happy you guys had a great trip. Thanks for posting up some pics Alby.

 

[nimrod]

Awesome. Looks like a great time.

 

[David]

So how did it compare to fishing out east? And how is jay?

 

[beerbyrnes]

The big horn was my first Montana stop this summer...I stayed for three weeks. Jellystone has great opportunities, I was there early August and again last week. I only spent a day where you hiked into and was blown away at the beauty of those fish, cutts make you feel like your out west! If you head back drop down to WY from ft. smith to the dayton area... Glad to see more PA'rs coming here. And the beartooth pass is amazing, with good fishing too!

 

[Maurice]

Awesome guys! I recall a late night convo that put me into he fifth seat. Wish I woulda committed. Still good to see you had fun and caught fish.

I hope you guys fed Jay, he looks like he could use a meal! :-D

 

[ryguyfi]

Just got the word last week I'm headed out to see Jay next July. Can't wait. Heard you guys had fun and did fairly well fishing wise.

Hope to catch up with you guys in November over some steel!

 

[JackM]

I got permission from Alby to make a comment or two about posting hosted pictures on PAFF.

But, first, thanks for sharing and I am sorry I couldn't even attempt to horn in on the trip.

I don't know who else is experiencing issues with this and many other posts, but for a lot of users, when pictures are hosted off-site, and when they are held off-site in large resolution such as these are, using the "image tool" provided in the PAFF software results in the site trying first to render the image full-size, which results in blown margins and trouble reading the text (or scrolling) until all of the photos are "downloaded" to your computer's temporary storage. Extremely fast computers probably experience a slight delay-- others, the delay is substantial.

I think I speak for DaveK that hosting your photos off-site and embedding them as Alby does is prefered, as it takes some "storage pressure" off the site. Still, the inconvenience of waiting for the images to properly resize on slower machines suggests that, when possible, posters should "host" their photos at a more compact size.

The optimal for viewing in the forum context is about 720 pixels in width. If you want to make the image available in its full glory, then there is a technique to cause the attempted re-sizing to occur before building the forum display. This will likely still involve delay, but it will not initially blow the margins on the text.

It is hard to render an example of html code, because the software displaying this post will try to execute the code, rather than display it for you to see. Therefore, in the following example, ignore every "*" that you see. The spaces, however, are crucial. Where you see an "*" remove it, but any space before or after it must be maintained:

Optimal code for displaying pictures that are stored off-site:

*

 

[Chaz]

Slough Creek's a secret? Really? Been written about over and over, and on this board too. This spot burning thing is OUT OF CONTROL. If you don't want to out a stream, them why even post.
Really there aren't a lot of fly fishers that are going to hike 8 miles to fish anywhere So why worry.
Dude you have to make you image sizes smaller.

 

[csoult]

For more pics

Click Here

 

[albatross]

Nice pics Coty! I especially liked this one...

Who's the photographer?

 

[albatross]

Here are my full complement of photos.
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=6047695df3878ad7#cid=6047695DF3878AD7&id=6047695DF3878AD7!1282

 

[David]

Love it, guys... All except... Who had the hunts ketchup?

 

[jjsjigs]

Yeah? Slough? Spotburned? Hardly. Everyone knows about Slough and Soda Butte if your fishing in WYSP. I too just got back from MT. From 6/17 to 6/25. Fished the Lamar, Madison from Raynolds Pass to the Hutchins Bridge... then all the way down through the Beartrap Canyon to Greycliff.

Stellar fishing. Simply Stellar.

 

[ryguyfi]

Alby, I almost forgot to ask....


How many rods did you break on this trip?


:-D

 

[csoult]

Ha! Don't ask.

 

[albatross]

I broke 2 four weights on this trip. The second one, I was so upset taking it apart that my hand slipped, I broke a snake guide, and ran the wire from the snake guide about 3/4 of an inch through my finger.

I'm in the market for a 4 weight. Maybe a Shakespeare Ugly Stik?