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Fly Fishing Scenes, August in Montana
From the Bighorn to Glacier and backI started the month down on the Crow Reservation, on the Bighorn river below Yellowtail dam. Cottonwood camp was the base for the first few nights, then I moved to the Bighorn access point downstream. A nasty thunderstorm blew in and threatened the huge tree I was parked under, so I beat feet up to…
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Scouting the Gardner River from the North Gate of Yellowstone
I wrote last summer about my visit to my old favorite honey hole on the Gardner river in Montana, and this year I decided to hike into the park from the North Gate in the Town of Gardiner. The old road through the park from Gardiner to Mammoth Village was destroyed by the flood of…
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A Green River Homestead
A Wyoming tie hack's property, 50 miles from nowhereIn the Pandemic Year of 2020, I was working in Colorado but had a couple of breaks where I was able to sneak out to visit some of my favorite places. In August I went to Jackson Hole and stopped on the way to fish the Green River, up above Warren Bridge to the headwaters…
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Bugs of Fly Fishing Seasons Past
One of the things that draws me to fly fishing is the consistently interesting topic of, “what are the fish eating today?” Sure, some people like bugs more than others, and maybe go a little too far down the rabbit hole. Some little boys that play with bugs grow up to be scientists, some grow…
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Abandoned Dreams on Ruby Creek
A Montana homesteader's dashed hopesOne of the things I like about my nomadic lifestyle is the ability to frequently explore new grounds, and I enjoy poking around old historic ruins when I find them. In 2021, I was fishing the Madison River in Montana, and I was based for a few days out of the Ruby Creek BLM campsite,…
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Wintering in the Desert
October, 2018: It got pretty cold in West Yellowstone and I finally had to face up to the end of my Montana adventure for the year. I started south towards warmer weather, but lingered on the Teton river in Idaho for a final week, and twice had pipes freeze in my motorhome. It had been…
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African Adventure Epilogue
Our last night in Africa happened to coincide with a supermoon. The hosts at Bologonja Under Canvas had lit a campfire, and the full moon rose up out of the Serengeti, past a very old tree that may or may not have sheltered a family of leopards. In South Africa, they had referred to sitting…
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5 Years Ago: Serengeti Part II
The name Serengeti is said to have been derived from the Maasai word for “endless plains”. There is something wonderful about being in a place that is essentially unchanged for thousands of years, apart from the modes of transportation we use to cross it. I can only imagine what Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas would be…
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5 Years Ago: Bologonja, Serengeti National Park
Serengeti National Park was the final stop on our 2016 African adventure. Our guide Rick, who had been with us since we arrived in Tanzania, drove the Land Cruiser from Ngorongoro while we flew from the Lake Manyara airport to the Lobo airstrip. The drive from Lobo to the Bologonja tent camp was a safari…
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5 Years Ago: Ngorongoro Crater
Two million years ago, give or take, a giant volcano exploded and collapsed into itself. Ngorongoro is the resulting caldera, the walls of which rise up 2,000 feet from the crater floor. It is claimed to be the largest intact, unfilled caldera on earth. Having spent the last summer around Yellowstone, which is also a…