Fishing Yellowstone's Grand Canyon

By BEN PIERCE, Chronicle Staff Writer

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - Before wildfires raged here in the summer of 1988, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River was a cool place in the summer months. The steep walls of the canyon, carved by water over the eons, were covered with fir, pine and aspens that provided shelter from the hot August sun.

The vegetation also made ideal habitat for wildlife, insects and birds that flourished in the canyon. It was a place alive with the sounds of life. Osprey whirled in the breeze, elk scrambled up the canyonsides and grasshoppers snapped their wings over the water.

And beneath the surface of the river, swimming in the only area untouched by the great fires, an angler's dream, the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, navigated the riffles, drops and pools while the world around them was altered forever.

Today, adventurous fly fishers are drawn to the canyon and the trout that have inhabited its waters since the dawn of time.

Near Tower Falls, the canyon remains a stunning sight. Sulfur vents stain sections of the land yellow and white, and trees that once provided shade lay blackened and crisscrossed on the canyonside.

Time is healing old wounds, however.

In the 17 years since fire gutted this canyon, wildlife has returned and young trees are growing on the canyon walls.

Despite the changes wrought by the fires of '88, the canyon's geology makes it one of the park's most intriguing fishing locales.

"I would describe the area as a true wilderness," said Tim Laubach of New Smyrna Beach, Fla. "It has to be one of the last areas around where you don't see very many people."

Laubach, who was staying with his wife, Elise, at a cabin in the gateway town of Cooke City, has been visiting Montana and the park on fly-fishing excursions since 1998. Though he never fished the canyon before the burn, he marvels at old photographs in Cooke City of the fires and the idea of the canyon's past.

"The plumes of smoke rising in the photos, it must have been something to see," he said. "It is an awe-inspiring place to be."

As for the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, the alterations brought by the forest fires have changed little in the overall scheme of things. Having undoubtedly seen the wrath of wildfire many times though the course of millennia, the species has persevered.

The Yellowstone cutthroat is listed as a species of special concern in Montana's fishing regulations and must be released in all park waters. The introduction of non-native fish including lake, brown and rainbow trout has substantially decreased the Yellowstone cutthroat's historic range.

Not so in the Grand Canyon.

And the fish, living in much the same environment they have for thousands of years, are eager takers of most any dry fly.

Laubach's presentation of Joe's Hoppers, stimulators and assorted attractor patterns all garnered a fair share of success. Surely some of that is due to a lack of fishing pressure in the canyon, but Laubach has a more romantic view of the Yellowstone cutthroat.

"The way they come up and roll on your fly, it's like they are playing," he said. "They don't seem to be used to humans at all."

At the Miner Bar in Cooke City, after the day's fishing was complete, Elise summed up the experience of fishing in Yellowstone.

"The vastness of it all is incredible," she said. "If you don't believe in a higher being, there is something wrong."

Ben Pierce is at bpierce@dailychronicle.com

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