Bear on the Gardiner, Obsidian Creek Brook Trout, How to Tie an Adams

Thursday September 3, 2015     Day 37    Yellowstone N.P.     Mammoth Campground, site 46, 8^th day

Today is our last day at Mammoth.  Tomorrow we will go over to Baker’s Hole again for the Labor Day Weekend.  I want to fish the Madison again. 

Because it’s my last day at Mammoth for the trip, it is my last chance to fish the Gardiner and I was looking forward to it.  After breakfast I went down the “secret” service road behind the employees only entrance to their housing area.  A lot of fly fisherman know about this, but the regular tourists don’t.  The rangers don’t mind because it’s only a handful of people that go down there. 

So I got all dressed and ready to hit the trail down into the valley and I saw in the grass next to the path a sign on a tripod that had been blown down and was partially hidden in the grass.   It said “Trail closed due to bear activity in the area.  Do not proceed”.  So I didn’t.  A few days before was a sign that said to proceed with caution because grizzly bear was sighted below High Bridge with a dead elk.  High Bridge is a couple of miles upstream where the Mammoth-Tower road crossed the Gardiner and a few miles away from where I fish.

So now I had to go to plan B.  I went to Obsidian Creek near Indian Creek Campground.  It was howling and blowing but I did my best to catch small brook trout.  They weren’t very big, but eager to hit a fly.  In this case a size 16 Adams parachute.  My goto fly.  Fished for about an hour, but it’s not much fun after a while to keep catching little bitty fish. 

Obsidian Creek looking upstream from Indian Creek Campground.

Obsidian Creek looking downstream towards Indian Creek Campground.

 

Electric Peak.  Tallest mountain in Yellowstone National Park. 
Took this photo on the way back from Obsidian Creek along
The Norris-Mammoth Road.

You hear me talk about using a parachute Adams quite a bit.  It is one of my favorite flies and other fly angler’s favorite also.  It was invented in Mayfield, MI south of Traverse City and the Adams fly is the most famous trout fly in the world.   A parachute fly is a version of a fly where the hackle is tied horizontally around a center post instead of vertically forward of the thorax and wings.  It allows the fly to float lower in the surface film and the hackles out to the sides represent legs.  The fly is tied with white calf tail hairs as the post with grizzly and brown rooster hackle for the tail.  The body is gray rabbit fur or synthetic.  Those are the standard colors that make it an Adams.  The traditional Adams does not have the calf tail post, but grizzly hackle wings instead, with the hackle wound vertically behind and in front of the wings.  So if you need to tie one, you know how.  Ask any fly angler if he knows what an Adams is and I’m sure he will.  It imitates so many different aquatic insects that it is a very general pattern that works well when there is no specific hatch going on.

Adams parachute, tied by Ed

 

All you non-fly anglers, please disregard the above.  I should have given you a warning before I wrote it like the “Fill in the Blank for Dummies” books do when they have a technical section.

Came back to the campsite for the cocktail hour when Tom & Beth from Vermont came by and asked about my fishing.  He, too, is a fly angler and got wind from his neighbor that I was too.  We drank beer and chatted for about an hour of our adventures, travels, retirement, work history, and politics.  Before tonight, we had never met them.  You meet a lot of people in these campgrounds.  Especially in the National Parks.  Most everyone is friendly and willing to chat.  This time of year it’s pretty much all retirees on summer trips like us, or full timers. 

It wasn’t until 21:00 that we had some homemade canned turkey rice soup for dinner.