That afternoon we sat off to find a place to camp. Slough creek is already full like I said do it early! We head off for the Western side of the park for Pat a license and a place to rest. Hoping to stay a Canyon village. No go full. Head for Mammoth hoping. Pass a campground called Indian creek! an open spot and close to water! Went to mammoth and got Pat's license, back to Indian creek. Camper up and to the creek we go. Upper Gardner and Indian creek just full of brookies. Caught a bunch of small ones. Pat is happy to be fishing again. Had a coyote walk past us twice and swim the creek once with in ten feet. No fear of people for sure. Got up early to 29 degrees! Whoo hoo it is hot as heck back home. Drove across the park back to the Lamar seeing moose and lots of bison. The pressure is on and today I am Pat's guide. Can't let my bride down. 39 degrees when we head to the water. Different cold, no humidity, real nice but will the bugs be moving on the water? warmed up quick and hoppers started hopping.
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Camper on the road and us fishing. Got Pat into fish right away. We both caught a bunch. No to something fun but scary. We are walking a gravel bar in the middle of the river looking for gravy fish. Not looking ahead much just looking into the water to see what we can sneak up on. We hear this grunt/urp sound close. A big log jam is on this gravel bar. We turn to see this bison bull laying CLOSE beside the log jam! When I mean close I mean close. I could of reached out and counted coup with my eight and a half foot three weight. I say "OH (insert bad word of choice here)" I quietly say to Pat back off into the water slooooowly. The buffalo calms right down and proceeds to chew his cud like a cow. So I tell Pat if he wasn't going to stomp the crud out of us now he isn't going to do it (I hope). Photo op!
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Not nearly as close as the first encounter. But real exciting none the less. We fish the same mile of the river and catch. None as nearly as I caught the day before but it is always that way when you do not have the camera,
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One of my fish
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Pat and one of hers,
Three hours of peaceful bliss and catching we were back at the road for the long walk in waders back to the truck. People stopped to talk about fishing on the road. We have witnessed bison jams, moose jams, bear jams and wolf jams on the road slowing traffic. This was a first us causing a fisherman jam slowing the progress of motorized transport. hahahahah
After this it was back out of the park to Cody and a campground with a shower. No pristine creek bath for us in a public place anyway. hehehehe
Back to the real world and Missouri the next day. Pat cried for several miles that morning. So much for the flatlanders trip out West. Anybody thinking of doing it do so. Life is short and do it while you can. You can do it without a guide but we hope to do one with Tim again We will be saving as soon as we can for the next trip.
God bless you all,
Marty and Pat