In Search of Special Fish

While in Montana last week,  I picked up a book for fishing the West Yellowstone area and I was doing some searching and research for something totally out of the ordinary to try while on my fishing vacation.  I wanted to fish somewhere I had never heard of and do some exploring.  While perusing this book, I stumbled upon an area that was reported to have grayling. This immediately piqued my interest as I had caught grayling in Alaska, but there are very few places in the lower 48 that have grayling.  This became my quest for the week.

Asking around at the local shops and talking to other anglers really did not yield much intel or affirmation on what I had read was actually true.  While at a 4th of July party, one of the people I met actually said the state was trying to remove all the cutthroat from this area and there were swarms of anglers up there keeping a limit of 20 fish a day since the book was written, so I was immediately discouraged.  While at the Slide Inn, I asked Kelly about the reports in the book, "Oh, sure there are grayling in that water.  Last time I was up that way I landed a 19 incher and a few other smaller ones." Not really sure if this was factual, because Kelly has a tendency to take a really wide berth of literary exaggeration in telling of his piscatorial pursuits. One of the true charms of this man, but you have to sometimes sort through some of the story to get to the facts.  His tone and twinkle in his eye had me convinced and so I sold my fishing partners on the idea to make this trek and go check out some new water in search of grayling.  

We arrived to the stream and the low willows and remoteness of the scene simply seemed really "beary" and wild.  I was super pumped to try something well outside of my fishing comfort level.  The plan was to split up, try different sections of the stream and then all convene back at the drop off point around noon.  Ken and I started in the same direction up the fisherman's path and then we came to an old bridge where there was a mud pit that was covered in fresh bear tracks.  Senses heighten, and you realize that you are not apex predator at that moment, but you become more aware, adjust and move on.  He headed downstream and I hiked upstream.  

The stream was small, and pretty easy to read, definitely looked fishy and I worked my way slowly upstream fishing cautiously and trying to get a handle on what to present as a fly.  Starting out with a smallish attractor pattern fooled some brook trout and juvenile cutty's.  I was having fun working a new stream and observing.  It was so nice to be in a place so foreign yet, felt like some of the creek or smaller rivers I fish in Michigan. The fish were really sensitive to movement on the banks and I flushed a couple of really nice fish out of an undercut bank while moving too heavily on my feet.  Slowing my approach, I saw a rising fish. I switched over to a PMD pattern and hooked the rising fish on my first cast.  It caught me completely off guard and I hooked the fish long enough to realize that it wasn't a trout.  Oh man, had I just blown shot at a grayling, or was it just my mind playing tricks on me?  I then thought I caught the odor or a bear, so I started making some more noise and singing a few verses of a song that was stuck in my head.  This poor excuse for singing was certain to keep the critters away.