First it was crowds in the thousands for Labor Day, then the power company called for increased stream flows in the Henry’s Fork, all of which led to pretty weak fishing in the river for the last month or two. But temperatures have cooled off, the crowds have gone home, the stream flows are about back to what you’d expect for this time of year and the fishing is really getting good.
And it’s not just the river that’s hot right now. It seems like the fish in the Henry’s Lake are sensing that there’s about to be several feet of ice form, and they’re eating everything you throw at them. That’s especially true for the brookies over by the hatchery, but it’s still good over on the south side by the cliffs as well. Actually, Henry’s is hot no matter where you fish.
Island Park Reservoir is also good right now. Down by Trudes (and the rest of the West end, for that matter) have been really good for both trolling and bait. There have been some lunkers coming out of Island Park Reservoir in the last few weeks so don’t put that boat away just yet.
If you like fishing, this is the time to fish Island Park. No crowds, no overcrowded boat ramps and parking lots, no fly fishermen elbow to elbow in the river. This is the time. So get your gear back out and get up here. Winter’s on the way — no question about that. We’re having snow almost every day. But there’s still plenty of time to catch some late season fish. See you out there!
We haven’t done a Makin’ The Loop spot for awhile, so I thougt it was about time. Today’s loop is from Island Park to Ennis, from Ennis to Bozeman, from Bozeman to West Yellowstone, and from West back to Island Park. This is an easy day loop with plenty to see and do.
You know, a lot of people would say this year’s gardening efforts were wasted. I know of many people who got little to no produce from their gardens. But there is more than food that comes from the attempt to grow a garden and this year may have been an especially good teacher.
It seems our neighbors to the north are about fed up with the noise, pollution, road degradation and danger of big trucks and are actively pursuing an ordinance preventing them from driving on their roads. Residents of the Madison River Valley from West Yellowstone to Ennis (and from Henry’s Lake to Ennis) have asked the Montana Governor, Attorney General, and Department of Transportation to consider legislation banning the trucks from highway 87 and 287.
Well, I suppose it had to happend sometime. We have a couple of inches of snow and the die-hards are already trying out their new sleds. While we’ve only had about three inches here at Macks Inn, up on Black Canyon they have nearly a foot. 
With this week’s snow storms and colder temperatures (highs in the 30′s) cattlemen are calling it a summer. It’s common now and will be for the next couple of weeks to see cowboys on horseback scouring the mountain valleys and high meadows for their cattle. After finding them, they bunch them up and drive them down a road to the loading chutes.
If you haven’t been in Harriman in the fall, you haven’t been to Harriman. The park is beautiful as the colors start to change and the elk start to bugle. It’s like stepping back in time about 3,000 years. The sounds are prehistoric.
As hunters take to the field, bears are near the top of their safety concerns — and for good reason. The number of grizzly bears has increased dramatically over the last 20 or so years, and bear encounters in the wild are occurring more and more frequently.
If you’ve always wanted to take a great bike ride in Yellowstone but were intimidated by the traffic, now is your chance to join a large group of cyclists riding from West to Old Faithful and back. There is no restrictions on what kind of bike you can use (except it can’t have a motor,) and you don’t have to be a certain age.
Yellowstone National Park had a banner year this year with over 2.3 million visitors. With the price of gas being down and people travelling closer to home, the park enjoyed a daily influx of roughly 26,000 people. If you propose an average of 3 people per vehicle, that’s about 8,600 cars per day (which didn’t have near the apparent impact on animals and the environment that 300 snowmobiles would.) Multiply that by $25 per car, and we’re talking over $200,000 per day in park entry fee revenues. That would be the reason they don’t dare limit the number of cars each day like they do snowmobiles.
