West '05 Trip - Day 21

Posted: 2006-04-27
By: Randy Cochran

Tossing and turning all night listening to two teenage boys not shutting up about "I'd do her", or "I could beat him" was honestly not on my agenda, but somehow it happened all the same. Their van couldn't leave camp early enough for me, alas it didn't happen until this morning after the damage had been done.

So all day I was shaky, out of it, off of my game. I missed more fish than I can count, and lost as many after I hooked them, including a few very sizeable ones that would have made last night's punishment palatable, if only by a slight fraction.

Still, I did somehow happen to catch quite a few of all different kinds of trout. A real mixed bag.

Hubbard's Lodge is nearby the Yellowstone where I fished it today, and I had previously talked with Eben Schaefer about visiting and catching up. See, Eben runs their school for guides, one that I attended in 2004. Since he's a good guy (as are all the other Hubbard's cats), I figured I'd stop in and say hey.

Eben turned out to be off on an errand when I arrived, but Chris - one of the Hubbard's guides - and I chatted for a bit before I went to fish till Eben came back.

Tom Miner Creek is a small one, and access is fairly locked down on private land, with almost no public road crossings to jump in at. Still, there is one small public section that is accessible in the most unlikely of places. It is at this location that I spooked and missed every fish I came upon, and was summarily skunked. So I will quit talking about that.

Back at the lodge, I met up with Eben, had a beer, bought a YNP license, some flies, a replacement hat (long story), and generally hung out for a bit. Eben was not free to fish any time soon after that, so I bid adieu and got on my way, off to the Yellowstone in Yankee Jim Canyon.

Lots of action on stimmies. Several nice foot-long cutts and bows, then finished up with a beauty of a 'bow near 16", with shoulders like a linebacker and the energy of a crackhead.

Camp was made among the car-sized boulders at Canyon Campground, where I enjoyed the absence of mouthy teens in vans.