12/29/2023 0 Comments Quake lake idaho![]() For the alert… fly fisherman, the surface is not a mirror but a window.” A look into the window is something Staples and Jacklin offer in Fly Fishing West Yellowstone. ![]() At best the lakes and streams are mirrors reflecting the surrounding scenery. In Mountain Time noted historian Paul Schullery claimed, “The average visitor driving through Yellowstone sees no farther than the surface of the water. Plus, I was hooked by the locale, the bird life, and the scenery and knew I would be returning again and again but with an eye toward something deeper than just catching fish. ![]() As an introduction to the vast fishing possibilities of the area, that excursion was a game changer and worth every cent beyond what I paid for a decent a day of fishing. That summer, when I was making my first educational angling studies of the area by walking and wading, I was able to splurge on one guided float trip on the Madison River arranged through Jacklin’s fly shop. Years ago, after reading Howard Back’s book, Charles Brooks’ Fishing Yellowstone Waters (1984), Paul Schullery’s Yellowstone memoir, Mountain Time (1984), Craig Mathews’ and John Juracek’s Fly Patterns of Yellowstone (1987), I was drawn by the allure of West Yellowstone eventually started an annual trek to the area in 1989. Fly fishing impresarios Staples and Jacklin, acclaimed anglers, authors, and decorated fly tiers (both have won the Fly Fishers International’s prestigious Buzz Buszeck Memorial Fly Tying Award), claim at the outset of their book, “What other town can boast such an array of superb fly-fishing waters combined with nationally recognized and renowned homegrown fly-fishing personalities?” Their book answers that question in a readable and lively way. The funky, quasi-frontier town of West Yellowstone, located at the western gate of Yellowstone National Park, with its half dozen or so active full service fly shops (Jacklin’s, founded in 1974, among them), is a convenient landing spot for anglers who arrive there from every corner of the globe to try the region’s fabled, watery riches. I speak from experience, having plied those waters every summer for the past three-plus decades during which time I have never done more than make a feeble scratch on the area’s extensive slate of possibilities. There is so much great water, in fact, that it can never be fully sampled, much less mastered, in a lifetime. They claim the town “is sited in the midst of our country’s most extensive and best remaining inland salmonid habitat.” Co-authors Bruce Staples and Bob Jacklin (since 2004, a Fly Fishing Hall of Famer) certainly think so. I’d wager that there is more fishable public trout water within a hundred miles of its main streets than any similar place in the United States. Frequenters of Vail, Jackson, Missoula, and Ennis might disagree, but the town of West Yellowstone (as it became officially known on 7 January 1920) is arguably still the epicenter of Rocky Mountain troutdom. ![]() Climate change, global warming, invasive species, pernicious viruses, increased angling pressure-the list of alarming reversals, mishaps, and tragedies goes on. The cultural, environmental, and tactical landscape of Western American fly fishing has modified a great deal in the decades since Howard Back published his charming Baedecker to the West Yellowstone region’s fisheries. Fishing is its very life and livelihood it is the language which everyone understands, the foremost topic of conversation.” ~ Howard Back, The Waters of Yellowstone with Rod and Fly (1938) “West Yellowstone is as friendly a little hamlet as you will find anywhere.
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