ESP Day 3 - Miller Ck & Upper Shoshone 19Jul19

I slept VERY well last night after the day of a thousand casts. All I could muster for dinner though was a can of chili last night. Today I headed to the east entrance of Yellowstone to buy a fishing license for the NP and to fish Miller Ck, a tributary of the N Fk Shoshone. At the entrance to YSNP they had the licenses but couldn't sell me one as they said they didn't have enough staff - they suggested I drive 40 miles to Fisherman's Bridge - hmmm; I did not. Given the backcountry nature of the outing, I donned my Counter-Assault anti-grizz pepper spray. Fishing was meh on Miller but I caught a nice bow on near the confluence of Miller and Shoshone. I lunched across from a ski resort of sorts, refitted with zip lines. It was a good day - I didn't need to use the pepper spray and the wind only howled mostly. Looking forward to cooking a meal and tasting an ale.

ESP Day 2 - North Fork Shoshone Float 18Jul19

The guided float of the lower section of the North Fork was awesome. Despite some 25mph winds creating issues, it was a great day in a gorgeous river canyon and I caught many largish fish. The guide mentioned the wind is some of the worst he'd experienced and was glad I could cast. Tyson was a good and cool guide - he sure earned his tip rowing hard and long. This is a large freestone river and I fished for 8 hours on the section leading in to the Buffalo Bill Reservoir and caught 2-3 dozen fish including a couple browns and a couple whitefish. Tyson mentioned this was pretty atypical as it is considered a cutthroat, rainbow and cutbow fishery. Here it was all about the stoneflies and I was double rigged with big heavy prince nymphs - one tan and one purple. Nothing subtile here as those big flies were tied to 3X tippet. Most of my cutbows were 16”-18” but I did get a couple of 20”ers. Many of them are very chrome-colored which might come from spending time in the lake. It seems like a very productive fishery if I did this well on a reasonably tough day with high flows.

ESP Day 1 - The Drive & Camp 17Jul19

I passed Delaney Buttes Lakes on the way north to WYO - probably 1 hour and 45 minutes north of Silverthorne - we should do it maybe in conjunction with the Yampa and its tributaries. The drive was actually decent on mostly 2 lane blacktop at 75mph or so - but it was long. I arrived in Cody and hit North Fork Anglers fly shop for a read out and found the rivers are mostly raging still here too. I decided it best to take a guided float and booked it for tomorrow on the North Fork of the Shoshone with Tyson. My campsite in Wapiti (Indian word for elk) is awesome - it is surrounded by cottonwoods and pines which sheds me from the incessant wind and its right on the N Fk - I’d hoped I could fish right from camp and I still may but much care must be taken at ~2Kcfs. See the camper through the trees.