ESP Day 7 - Yellowstone River @ 7 Mile Hole 23Jul19

Wilks and I found joint truth today and hiked down “The Goat Trail” to 7 Mile Hole on the Yellowstone River deep in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It’s called 7 Mile as the spot is 7 miles downstream from the YS Falls. It was a gorgeous spot with painted canyon walls, geothermal streams and fumerolls along the way, and a rollicking river with an awesome salmon-fly hatch making it also a phenomenal fishery. It also required a long and brutal hike of 10.5 miles and 2K ft elevation - worse as I came out during heat of the day. Still, I caught ~10 good pure Yellowstone cuts like these in a couple hours on a massive Chubby Chernobyl in electric yellow. I think one rainbow or cutbow made a remote escape, which suited me as I’d have been legally required to kill it. The river is still raging but the “Hole” had a 1/4 mile of frontage with accessible slackwater I could fish. It was awesome and delighted the several backcountry campers looking on, as well as me. The action slowed a bit when a ~20”er broke off with my best bug. I did see other big ones in there but didn’t close on them. GR8 day on the Yellowstone.

Later we learned from Ranger Matt Brantley, who stopped by to pick up some goodies I muled up here from his parents, and to regale us with stories, that our campground is referred to as the ghetto by the rangers. We had a nice rainbow in the ghetto tonight.