There’s No Crying in Fly Fishing!

 

This morning six new friends parted ways. Some headed to the airport in Denver, some to do a little more fishing, one for a hike with a local resident ( You go dude. ) and one – me – to a lay-over type night at the West Yellowstone KOA. Did we cry and hug each other? Have you seen Chris Hunt? Umm..no. Although Sanders is a dead ringer for Kevin Costner in just the right light.

We shook hands, piled into rentals and personal vehicles in front of the cabins we’d called home for three nights – and my battery was dead. click-click-click-click…...nothing. Fortunately, several guys were still there and Romeo ( AKA Travis from TheTailout ) came over to give me a jump. Hopefully, it was just a fluke thing and I make it home without further trouble. ( There’s a monkey joke in there, but maybe some other time….)

So, I’m at the KOA and I’ve rearranged stuff in the Trout Truck for the 5th time on this epic trip. I’ve got nothing left to do and nowhere to go. Tomorrow I make the trip back through YNP for the last time and I’m sure I’ll get a few more photos ( like 4,456 isn’t enough already?!) as I head back to Cody, WY. From there it’s about 8-10 hours of driving each day until I’m home on or around August 1st.

It’s been a wild, exciting, frustrating (biting insects, which I detest), amazing time. The time I spent on my own was great, although I was a little less successful fishing-wise than I’d hoped….I couldn’t have asked for better weather or more wildlife. About the only major animal I didn’t see was the wolf. And hey, there’s still tomorrow right?

I want to once again thank all the TU guys ( Tom Jones included – hey, don’t blame me – I just asked what your last name was and someone blurted out Jones. Seeing as how that’s such a cool last name and all that, I just took them at their word, Mr. Reed. ) for being such great hosts and answering all our questions. Oh and for taking us to the **** River that last day where everyone got into some really nice fish in a small stream setting. For Mike and myself, it was like fishing a Southeastern stream only with fewer trees ( read: no trees) and bigger fish ( read: 5 times the size of our mountain trout!)

Thank you also once again to Rebecca and Joe from OBN for working with the TU Blogger Tour and offering up this oppurtunity of a lifetime. My “Dream Trip” is almost over, and I can’t thank you guys enough.

Finally, I want to thank my Mom, my wife, my fishing and blogging friends, the companies that helped get us here – Coleman, Sage, Redington and Terra-Cycle. Not everything worked out like we planned, but we sure do appreciate the support!

And now, ……

PS – A special thanks to Chris Hunt from TU for linking TU’s blog to a couple of the posts here! And thanks for giving me all the best runs and pools the other day even though you really wanted a grayling of your own! Thanks for everything, Gary. errr. Chris.

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