072214

Back to the Yellowstone today to throw streamers in search of El Grande. No El Grande today, lots of follows, eats, strikes, and enough fish to make it a good day. Me thinks that the sun kept the big browns from chasing streamers like they did yesterday as this was more of a rainbow festival. I like Rainbows, but when you are throwing streamers all day looking for one big fish…they are kind of like whitefish. Even caught a smallmouth on a gonga today, it was slightly larger than the gonga.
There was big plug of mud coming through today and it looked like the river was still pretty dirty in town from 1-90 around 4:30, plus it was raining up in the valley at the time. It might be shot for a couple days, maybe not. Got some fish to come up and eat hoppers in the riffles today, think you could find a big fish on a dry if you put the work into wading all the skinny stuff. I had crocs on today and found the river to be very slippery, wish I would have had my flip flops…much grippier.
Also, saw a guide at the end of the day without his shirt on and swimming at the takeout while his clients broke down all their stuff. Looked good to me, but I'm way to white above the waist…and fat too. The smallmouth was signifiant to me as I've never got one on the Yellowstone, but I know they are there. I think that bobber fishing would have been very good as the rainbows were on the feed good today. River is dropping fast, very fast. My stash of tan gongas is almost depleted.