Fly Fishing the Firehole River and Lamar Valley

The river was dark and cold while the sun laid masked behind thick early morning fog. Only gray silhouettes of pine trees were visibly beyond the river banks, the fall season in Yellowstone brought with it a little more solitude. A seam of water marked the boundary between some shallow ripples and a deeper run, trout could tuck into this channel and sip on insects that tumbled helplessly by. I shifted and balanced the fly rod in my numbing hand and watched the current in front of me. Under the surface the trout gave away no hints they were there. 

After checking the flies that were tied on, I delivered them into the seam and allowed them to drift down river. A few casts later there was a slight twitch in the line, setting the hook I felt a direct connection with the fish and it soon bulged through the surface. The reel buzzed as the trout dashed and tossed, I stumbled after it and quickly found my footing amongst the stones and boulders. Before long it was netted, the hook removed and the trout released. The fog had cleared and nearby on a footbridge a couple were waving their hands in celebration, so I raised and pumped my arm a few times in the air, I had caught my first fish in Yellowstone.

For anyone that fly fishes, the Firehole River and Lamar Valley are iconic destinations. However, until that adventure I had only personally known Yellowstone as the camping and sightseeing vacation my family took when I was young. Coming back to Yellowstone, all these years later, and experiencing it solely from a fly fishers perspective opened the park up to me in a beautiful new dimension. Many of the days spent in Yellowstone were only along a few hundred feet of river, but the element of exploration was stunningly rich. I became acquainted with small sections of the Firehole and Lamar that I now turn back to and happily reflect on with vivid detail. The bubbling and steaming mudpots along the Firehole, the bison lapping water from the Lamar River, and the Yellowstone cutthroat trout that had my heart rushing are parts of those memorable details.