August 19, Yellowstone

I took Sammie and Doug for a half day float today. Sammie is nine, but he has the fishing bug. I started him out with a nymph, but after catching a handful of whitties, he was ready for a hopper. His casting was great and he started to understand the drift and reading water. If he sticks with it, he could be a fabulous fisherman.

Doug did great as well. He caught some nice fish. One rainbow in particular was in a neat spot in a side braid below carters. He put his hopper dropper rig in a foot wide spill and found a nice Rainbow. I got a shot of the fish with Sammie's camera, but have yet to see the pic.

August 18, Yellowstone

Connie was back up from Lander for another stab at the Yellowstone. At first it seemed like we might have one of those days. the Fish were eating, but we could not get the hook to stick. Just before lunch our luck started changing. Connie landed a few cutts and then beat up a few fish in a side channel before we ate.

After lunch was a different story. They started to eat the hopper better and PMD's started trickling off. There is a certain bank I love to fish just below Point of Rocks and today it was stellar. As we neared the top part of this slowish grassy bank I spotted a riser tight to the bank in the shallows. After working the puzzle and finding a good bug, a size 16 extended body split wing, we hooked the cut. As it fought its way off the bank, I looked down to see if any one else was rising: There were risers as far as the eye could see. I like the bank, not only because it has consistent risers, but because the fish sit in challenging spots.

One fish in particular, the big brown pictured up top, was sitting in very skinny water and when he rose to our fly as it trickled tight to a group of rocks in less than a foot of water, we were pleasantly surprised with it's size. It fought very well and took a while to bring to the net. I don't know how many fish we caught in the afternoon, but we landed at least a dozen on that bank alone.

August 16, Yellowstone

You never know what you might pick up at a fly shop. Sweetwater Fly shop owner Dan Vermillion was lucky enough to take President Obama fishing on Friday. In fact he bought his license at Sweetwater. After their few hours of fishing Obama signed this rod. I guess they caught a few fish... long distance release. Dan said the Prez was interested in learning about the sport and was a good student and a great guy.

I was just as happy taking out Don, his daughter Courtney and her friend McKenzie. The girls fished for about a half an hour catching three fish, but were more interested in standing in the hot springs. We dropped them off with their Aunt as we passed by the riverside cabin in which they live.

Don caught a bunch of nice trout on a chubby Chernobyl, although he left his lucky fly in a fishes mouth.

August 14, Yellowstone

Today I had a special misson on the river. It has been said that if you take the dried piece of belly button from your baby and throw it into the river, your child will never drown. Old myth... Maybe. But Zori is going to spend a lot of time on the river, So I'm not taking any chances.
I also thought I would take my father in law, Ghuri for a day on the water. Nate came along as well.George caught this nice brown on a prince.

It was blustery and we got dumped on a few times, but the fishing was good.

Nate looks overwhelmed by this monster.

I even got a chance to dip a fly for the first time in months. I caught a few...but alas, no one takes pics of my fish.

Nice rainbow in a rainstorm. Ate a hopper.

A serious fisherman.

Brown waiting for a release.

Nate with a nice fish.

August 11, The B

Today I spent a fun filled day with Martine and Ian on the B. The water has been getting low and with all of the irrigation ditches open, the lower river gets very small and we had to walk the boat 4 or 5 times. The morning was slow for the B and I wondered if I needed to be higher on the river, but the afternoon turned around and we stuck fish after fish on dries. Big goldens to be exact. Martine was a joy to get to know and fished very well. We caught many Rainbows and browns between 10 and 15 inches, but no big ones. This is typical B. I Don't expect to see a big fish. But , we were four bends away from the Yellowstone when Martine caught this hog. It was 20 inches and beautiful. Although Ian was a bit jealous, he was happy having caught at least 30 fish.

What a happy camper
Nice Bow!

August 10, Yellowstone River

It was great to fish with my old friends Mike and his son Shane. I decided to take us to the upper Yellowstone for dry fly fishing and it did not disappoint. We did not catch any huge fish, but we caught a lot of them. Shane sat up front for the day and we started calling him Hoover. If there was a fish who wanted to eat a dry, Hoover stuck him. He had caught a Brown, Rainbow and Cutthroat within sight of the truck. Easy Slam!

For Shane the bug of the day was a black stimulator. He fished it from ramp to ramp. Mike had a good day. But compared to Shane, Mike's meager 20 fish was a paltry hull. Mike was very quick on his hook set, and with the bright sun and the big cutthroat he was a bit too fast. Fishing the Yellowstone will make you a better hook setter. You become a rise analyst. As the fish comes up, you assess if it is a cutthroat or not. If you deem it a cutthroat you make yourself wait a full one-Mississippi before you set the hook. Mike missed some big fish , but caught some nice ones, and the comradely was great.

August 9, Yellowstone River

My first day back after having the baby and I was a little rough around the edges. Luckily, I had the company of two veryamiable fisherpeople, Will and Robyn. We were down below Big Timber and with all the cold weather and the rain we had a slow start. The two Brooklynites were new to fly fishing, but after some casting practice and a tutorial in how to play a fish we were off. The bite was slow in the morning and we switched to big Rubber legged nymphs.

We had a bunch of chances early on, but the hook set was a little late. Finally, Robyn drew first blood with a little Rainbow. Robyn is a writer and has a foodie blog called NewYorkGrapevine. She is also working on a book about farmer's markets. I can't wait to read it.

Will started catching fish in the afternoon and although he broke off some nice fish he caught this great 18 incher in a mid river riffle. He heeded the lessons he learned from loosing earlier big fish and kept his rod tip high and had constant pressure on the fish and we landed it after a great fight.

I think he is hooked.

August 2, Livingston Hospital

So this explains why I have not blogged in a while.

Staying up all day and night with our new daughter Zori has taken away my writing time. Zori means "sunrise" in Romanian, and we have seen every sunrise since she was born.

I was on the river on Thursday July 30 and had a great day on the lower Boulder, but I did find a replacement guide for Wednesday since the trip was out of cell phone range, and Friday, since I was sure the baby was near. Raluca was a trooper, and I did as much as I could do, which was not much. Raluca gave an all-natural birth.

I'll be back on the river on Sunday and have a light schedule for the next few weeks. I do have one funny story to share.

I noticed the day after Zori was born that my teeth were hurting. I thought I had started to grind my teeth with the stress of a new dependant. The pain grew more acute as time went on and on the second night we had Zori home the pain started to hit me. Zori was colicky and and Raluca was frustrated with breastfeeding. At one point the baby was screaming, Raluca was crying and I was in such pain that I was moaning loudly and pulling my hair so that my tooth might not hurt so bad. At that point, Raluca looked up at me and started laughing and said,"What a shit show. "

I called the emergency room and they told me to put an aspirin on my tooth to dissolve. THIS WAS THE WORST ADVICE I'VE EVER HAD. The aspirin burned all the skin off on my cheek and on my gum line. I was waiting on the doorstep when Dr. J, my dentist, pulled up the next morning. Dr. J pumped me full of Novocaine and called the Hospital irate with the aspirin thing. By the afternoon I was in Bozeman getting an emergency Root Canal.