Carbella Access....

..At about 20 miles north of Gardner - considered 'the North Entrance to Yellowstone National Park' - this public fishing-access is the first one most drift-boats can take downriver directly below "Yankee Jim Canyon" (the famed Class IV whitewater section of the Yellowstone).

I've now done this particular float from Carbella down a few times too, but thought we might try it again this past weekend; and I invited two guys along I've grown familiar fishing with as things have worked out just fine so far...


Here's Tom rigging-up before the float...


Chuck doing the same, as I almost always take 'firsts at the oars'; though am still not sure quite why I offer..?



Chuck sticks the first fish and its a huge whitey...



But he recovers quickly and lands a nice rainbow as well...


Tom lands a few cuttys to even the score..


Though I never asked Chuck, I'm beginning to think that must be 'a lucky shirt, hat, and shorts,' he's wearing as he's got the same damned thing on even though we've floated now down the Stone at least four times already - (only just noticed after reviewing my own pics)?


Not that I'd ever say anything anyway since the dude's a stick when it comes to fly fishing (and landing big fish), though still needs improvement when it comes to a strong headwind and rowing us home sometimes'.








No huge fish on this trip but numbers wise we did excellent and boated 30 easy, and nearly all on pink hoppers again.





It was afterall another super long float, now that flows have dropped even more to 2,200cfs, and though we started at 11AM becuase of this we didnt get off till about 8PM.

We started the season floating the Yelloowstone as some might recall, when it was at 9,000cfs and a little nutty I might add, but what a difference this river has changed in the past few months/ "..and this year" if you ask a fulltime guide that is...

It seems both myself and guides who have seen this river day-after-day for the past few are all experiencing the change together as this seasons' epic snow fall and runoff that caused equally epic flows litterally changed the river enitirely as far as what was once a shelf is now a pool and vise versa.

I like hearing this as it puts me at an even playing field with some of the younger guides out there (and they're almost all younger than me) as to how to now fish the Stone.

I still need work on several fronts though, and one important is 'timing my departures at access-points with my arrivals at others it seems'. Thankfully once again the fullmoon shown bright and combined with a fella in front of us who left his tail-lights on at the ramp (thank God); we managed to find 'the takeout' and were on our way back to Bozeman in no time.


Moe