Winter salvation

A winter storm canceled our plans to travel to the Firehole today. Awoke to 6 inches of snow and counting. A steady 15-20mph wind was blowing sideways and temps were struggling to get into the 20s. We spent the morning tying flies, doing work, and cleaning up around the house. Around 1:00 Paul and I decided to brave the cold and hit the Gallatin. Ben had some work to finish up before joining us. Paul decided to cross in the most unfortunate spot and almost took a chilly dip. We headed up a side channel and started fishing. It was slow to start, but soon picked up. While my new black bugger was stuck on a snag, Paul got into a real nice brown. I netted and, as planned, he got put on the stringer for tonight's dinner. Paul ended up with a few more fish on as well, but lost them. Finally he hooked into a nice whitefish and we added it to the stringer. I pulled one out of the same hole, too and the count for dinner was up to three. Ben had joined us by now and hooked into a beautiful rainbow, just a touch longer than Paul's brown. I decided to head back downstream to a deep hole that had proved frustrating earlier. The flow into this pool was fast, the drop off deep and although it looked fishy, I'd only caught a couple small fish out of it over the two past days we'd fished there. I knew there were bigger fish on the bottom it was just a matter of getting the drift and weight right. I played with my set up for a while - added weight, raised the indicator - and cast to get a drift into the small, swirling seam between the fast water and the eddy. When I finally got everything right, a beautiful rainbow took my fly. It was one of the most satisfying fish I've ever caught. Another rainbow and three big whitefish followed. It felt amazing to have turned this crappy day into a success. The snow blew, the cold seeped into our feet, but we were out there and caught a bunch of beautiful fish - some of the biggest fish yet besides the lunkers that came out of the yellowstone.

Tonight is supposed to get down to -5F. It's our last night in this house. We're cooking up fish, doing wash, and packing. Tomorrow we head north to the Missouri river in Craig, MT. The forecast is for 28-ish, cloudy, and calm. With the increased temps from the tailwater of the Missouri we should get into some fish. While I'm not happy about leaving this house, I'm looking forward to the day.