25 miles north of West Yellowstone, the Gallatin River turns to accompany Highway 191, growing in width and strength as it rushes north. It’s character changes in places, where beaver dams divert the river into slow meanders, but in the main it speeds on it’s way over stones and riffles and is easily waded from bank to bank.

I kept within the boundaries of the Park, plenty of pull offs allowing easy access to the river, where wading was an easy option and I worked my way up river casting to likely fish holding areas. Fish were rising to small black flies in the tail of a pool on the first section I tried and set up with a floating ant and size 16 pheasant tail nymph as a dropper. About three feet deep with a strong flow, short casts were needed to stay in contact with the fly, the first fish taking the nymph aggressively, the rod bending into the fish on the take. The trout was invisible despite the gin clear water, staying deep, then running downstream, where a flash of pink told me it was a rainbow. Not a large trout, about 12 inches, I was soon guiding it tumbling on the shallows to my net, only for it to bounce against the rim and come off. Not a good start, but splashes indicated trout were still rising and after a few misses was into my next fish, this time on the ant, the smaller brown putting up a brief fight before I lifted it into the net.

More takes followed as I worked up the pool, some to the nymph and some to the ant, the trout weren’t fussy, they were small, but scrapped hard in the rapid waters, mostly spinning off the hook before I could lift them out. I covered about three hundred yards in an hour, searching out the deeper pools and runs hoping for better fish, but none came and returned to the car to continue the tourist trail down through Gallatin Canyon and a drive up to the Big Sky resort on Lone Mountain, where a beaver was building a dam at 10,000 feet.

 Later in the day, returning along 191, I pulled the car over just inside the park and made my way up river to fish the inside of a big bend, where deep water was pushing hard against the far bank, large rocks creating swirling eddies, that looked like they held fish, while the inside  held slack water. This time there were no rising fish and the ant, nymph combo resulted in one missed pull to the nymph, when worked upstream, the ant soon drowned in the rough water. With grass hoppers scattering at every footfall, it was time to reach into the fly box for one of the monster foam hoppers bought at the fly shop, at least it would act as an indicator to the nymph. I continued to work my way upstream, but had no offers, so turned and drifted the hopper downstream, feeding line as I went. A swirl in the choppy water caught me by surprise, as a trout rose to the hopper and I failed to make contact. The next one shook my rod with a bang. Another miss. I raised the rod and put a bow in the line. This was the answer, as I drifted the part submerged hopper across the slower inside bend, the line sprang taught and I was into a rod bender, that used the full force of the river to attempt an escape. When I finally brought the brown trout to the net, I thought someone had switched fish, as it was much smaller than it had first seemed.

This proved the winning method and I worked my way back downstream, casting across, drifting down and swinging across the flow into slower water, some fish missing the hopper, me missing reel singing takes, the size 14 barbless hook releasing more fish than it held, but I was fishing for sport, enjoying every moment of anticipation. The trout were all browns around 10 to 12 inches, I’d hoped for a few cutthroat and rainbows, but I was happy to be able to adapt to a new way of fishing and get results.