Wolf Creek, Montana

 John caught many, many large trout in the Missouri River at Wolf Creek. There's a small campground by the launching ramp so it was easy for him to just wade fish nearby. Of course many other people had the same idea! After seeing so many people going out on float trips I wanted to do one, too, so we booked one for Monday, after the weekend crowds. Oh boy, was it ever crowded at the ramp and on the river this weekend. The weather was the usual high 90s with mostly sunny skies so everyone was happy to be on the water where it's a little bit cooler.

 This picture is out of order, don't know why, but here I am with a nice big rainbow first thing in the morning. You can tell it's first thing because I still have a shirt on over my lightweight shirt. It's a tremendous thrill to fly fish!!

 This picture shows why the fish are so fat and plentiful in the Missouri River! Caddis flies by the millions emerged from the water and mated, then laid eggs in the water every day. They got in any and every orifice but they just tickled, didn't bite. They covered the camper at times and came in every time you opened the door. I'll be vacuuming up their carcasses someday! One time I even swallowed one as did many other people.

John caught this nice brown trout on a hopper fly. He also caught several rainbows. So, even though we had excessive heat, excessive crowds and excessive bugs we managed to have a good time!

With Friends

 We had an excellent visit with Connie and Steve in Montana! Connie makes incredible quilts and is a fantastic cook.

Steve is involved with the local gun club and has many hobbies to keep him busy. We're already looking forward to visiting again in two years!

The First Month of Our Journey

 Our trip started out with a float trip on the North Plattte River out of Alcova, Wyoming. We caught many big rainbow trout. John caught many more trout wadefishing near the dam. It was hard to acclimate to 99 degree days filled with smoke from wildfires, so after four days we moved on to -

 fishing the Green River out of Dutch John, Utah. We'd never been there but Hoppy told us all about it and we added it to our itinerary. The brown trout are big and fat and tons of fun to catch. John had great success wade-fishing but we had only an okay catch on our float trip. Once again the weather was 99 degrees with smoky air. BUT, here's where we accidentally met up with Mary and Hoppy! Quite the miracle.

 Then it was on to Grand Teton National Park. It's a spectacularly scenic park.

 It's a great place to see moose and bison. We saw a cow and calf moose while we were walking! We backed away, took pictures, and left them alone.

 This scenic hike to Taggart Lake is one of my favorites! There are lakes, mountains, rivers, creeks, waterfalls, woods, and meadows.

 Next we traveled only a couple of hours away to Yellowstone National Park. It's been a favorite of mine because I love the geysers, geological features and wildlife. Unfortunately it's almost impossibly crowded in July and August. We were able to see most of the geyser basins, however. John fished (successfully) at camp (Slough Creek), near camp and in another river a few miles away. We experienced another miracle when we arrived at the first-come-first-served campground at 9:45 AM and got the last site! Sometimes it fills up by 8:00 AM! We love the primitive campground on the river, 2.5 miles from the road. Amazingly there was a cell phone signal!

 Black and grizzly bears are plentiful in the park. We saw eight during our six days there! This is a brown-colored black bear that we saw from the truck. We saw elk a couple of times, lots of mule deer, lots of antelope, a fox with a prairie dog in its mouth, some coyotes, Western tanagers, and of course

about 3,000 bison. This big guy was crossing the road into camp at the same time we were driving down it! One day John couldn't fish the river because there were so many bison in the area. The days are still quite hot (as is most of the USA we hear) but the nights cool off nicely.

Now we're enjoying a few days with Connie and Steve at their home in the country in Montana. It's always a pleasure to reconnect with longtime friends!