Yellowstone National Park : Day 1

Mount Rushmore

A few buddies and I set out for Yellowstone National Park last week, and after a 30 hour - two day drive we arrived. We stopped at Mount Rushmore on the way out, but were eager to get into the park because no one had ever been there before. We planned most of our trip off of what Matt had done on his visit a few years ago and it did not disappoint. We stayed at the Madison Campground near the West Entrance because it was a central location for everything that we wanted to see.

Gibbon River

When we arrived and setup camp, we had a few hours to kill with nothing really planned because we had gotten to the park earlier than expected. Luckily I was able to take advantage of the added time by fishing both the Gibbon and Madison Rivers. We fished the Gibbon River both above and below the Gibbon Falls and both areas produced a few hits. We used attractor patterns and kept moving up and down the stream to find a few small brookies taking our flies. In the evening we went back to camp and after dinner Ben and I walked over to the Madison River and fished for the last few hours of daylight. I quickly hooked into a 12 inch Brown underneath and the evening produced several rising trout to caddis flies. Ben and I both missed a fair share of fish and believe that most of the risers were pretty small. Unfortunately we were not able to get back to the Madison any of the other evenings to explore some more.

Madison River

Bison Fight