Opening Day… in Yellowstone National Park
By Tom Chandler on May 28, 2007 in Underground Entertainment
With the Upper Sacramento River open to fly fishing all year long, “opening day” no longer carries much weight among the largely catch & release fly fishing crowd.
I admit to missing the week-before-opening-day reconnaissance trips and the rising anxiety about Saturday morning’s flows, but I’d happily trade it for the ability to fish the winter hatches of my favorite mayfly — the BWOs.
Still, there will always be an opening day somewhere, and today was the opener for Yellowstone.
Naturally, if it’s fin related and it’s near Yellowstone, Fly Fishing in Yellowstone is probably covering it:
.. Every place that looked fishy had a fisher. There were lawn chairs, exotic license plates, waders galore; and the deep hazing efforts by the Montana Department of Livestock had put bison back in all the meadows.
Our pick for Quote of the Week?:
The Summer has started about three weeks early this year. The fish are looking up - directly into the eyes of record numbers of fly fishers.
As a certified, card-carrying Pain in the Ass when it comes to crowds, those words send a chill up and down my spine.
Still, it’s an interesting read if you’re after actually fly fishing information, including facts that — like here — everything’s coming a little early this year.
Memorial Day
To a cranky guy, Memorial Day means a lot of other people are populating my river, but let’s spare a thoughts for the friends and families who have lost someone in Afghanistan or Iraq, and hope the remaining servicemen come home safely.
One More…
We’ll also spare a thought for one serviceman who road-rashed his backside in a big way, and is headed for Hawaii to get better.
Take it from an experienced cyclist: the best cure for road rash is to rub a bikini (with a body in it) against the affected area.
You still hurt, but for a time, it doesn’t matter.
See you in Paradise, Tom Chandler
Kentucky Jim | May 29, 2007 | Reply
Thanks. Because of the crowds, I didn’t go to the river. I went to a ceremony in the West L.A. Veteran’s cemetary, and then to lunch with some guys from my Vietnam Vets chapter. It was a good day. You could also spare a thought for the 58,000 names on the wall in D.C., or for the Korean guys who never came back, or the WWII guys. Just my .02 worth.
Kevin | May 29, 2007 | Reply
Tom, another reason why farmed/genetically engineered salmon could be a bad thing:
http://www.threadless.com/product/840/GE_Salmon
Sully | May 29, 2007 | Reply
A Yellowstone Park recollection from less crowded times.
Back in the early-70’s various friends and I used to drive up from Boulder to fish the geothermally-early PMD and caddis hatches on the Firehole. We’d concentrate our efforts from Midway Geyser Basin down to Ojo Caliente.
Fly fishermen were enough of a curiosity then that an African tourist walked across the flat from Midway to ask, “How much are those poles for fishing?” At the time I was fishing my Leonard 38H Baby Catskill and didn’t have the heart to tell him.
kbarton10 | May 29, 2007 | Reply
I am scratching my sloping forehead in puzzlement, TC is averse to crowds, yet WE are the crowd..
I envision a tortured Brando-esque scene, “should I educate them and bring them to heel, or must I cleanse my beloved watershed with a belt-fed M60?”
It’s the advertising angle that is causing this unbearable dichotomy. The assumption is a dead vacationer is incapable of a “page hit.”
Go for it, Hoss!
Tom Chandler | May 29, 2007 | Reply
kbarton: I’m willing to be responsible for my crowd pathology by wandering away from humanity’s huddled fly fishing masses whenever possible, and by realizing that it’s not them, it’s me (well, it really is them, but you know).
I know that under this administration, it’s rare to see anyone actually taking responsibility for their own neurosis, but there it is. Once again, we lead the world…