Return Of The Faithful

WATERS COOLING

Too Warm For Our Taste

but . . . if you got'ta

WORLD FAMOUS CELEBRITY AND TIGHT LOOP

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.. Contrary to our best sensibilities we ventured into the visitor morass of Yellowstone National Park over the weekend. Shame on us!
.. But we did catch some fish and, we got to sport our new gift of a peach-colored, tropical weight, fishing shirt with enough pockets and gussets, and dangles, and bangles to disguise us from the neighbors who were taking pictures of the chaos.
.. The weekend rains caused a spike in runoff and a slight drop in temperature of the recently re-opened rivers. Not much really, but enough for the powers-that-be to allow visitors to play in the water.

MADISON MAULERS - SIMPLE & EFFECTIVE

.. You shan't be bored here with the lurid descriptions of traffic tangles, buffalo petting, bear baiting, moose ogling, or centerline parking. You just need to imagine Manhattan, NY with no taxi's and every driver an impaired teenager, (OR - all taxi's with impaired drivers!)
.. Fish were caught. Fish were played to exhaustion. Brand new waders got baptized. Beginners flailed the waters to a froth. Experts waded through dark holes like an adolescent at the beach. It was a sight to behold - indeed.
.. There were noses in every stretch of likely water; even at mid-day. The midges started erupting as the fog lifted at 9:30 AM. The little yellow grasshoppers of the Madison River meadows hopped well into the evening. There were mayflies in the mists of morning along the Firehole River - and not a fisher to be seen. Probably digesting a "Western Breakfast" and the ensuing quart of coffee.
.. By late afternoon we had discovered the dedicated flymph fishers of the Gibbon River canyon. A little later we discovered a professional guide beating the shit out of the Brook Trout in the meadows above Virginia Cascade.
.. We drove home in the parade of mobile condominiums that exits the park at dark. We chuckled at the traffic snarls at the synchronized stop light in West Yellowstone: perhaps the most poorly controlled major traffic intersection in all of North America.
.. Yes, the waters of the Madison River drainage are open to fishing after a very early and long closure. Yes, the faithful have returned to the elbow-bumping joys of standing where the fish were. Yes, Labor Day was crowded. Yes it's still crowded.

Is it October yet?

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FISH DIMPLES, SAILBOATS, AND HOPPER SPLASHES -- MY-MY