Major Snowpack & Yellowstone Bears

April 30 – May 1

Busy, busy, busy as always. Granny and I made a spontaneous decision to head up to Yellowstone yesterday afternoon to do our annual early season trip to check out the wildlife before the hoards of people show up. It’s one of our favorite jaunts of the year even though we don’t get to fish because the Yellowstone fishing season is closed. Early May is the best time of the year for bear viewing and that is our primary reason for this early season outing.

The decision really was spur-of-the-moment. We had intentions of raking and getting things done around the house but the weather still stinks. Granny was as at the laundry mat and I realized with an inch of snow on the ground raking was not in the cards. Also, we turn off our heat April 1st and in the house we are hovering around an uncomfy 54º. Driving around in warm car looking for animals seemed like a great solution.

We left Victor, Idaho about 2 PM. That put through the West Yellowstone, Montana gate to Yellowstone by 4:30. Our snowpack is averaging 50% above normal no matter where you go in the Yellowstone region and quite frankly there is so much snow the landscape looks like February. Because of the snow cover over the Madison River valley we saw fewer than normal numbers of elk and bison. Fewer than normal animal numbers continued all the way to Mammoth when finally the herds of elk and bison appeared. This part of the park is in the so called “banana belt” and has little or no snow on the ground. In turn, the animals congregate here for easier times. From Mammoth to Cooke City, Montana is where our bear watching becomes most serious. We worked in this part of the park in 1986 and know where to find them. From 6 PM till dark we putted along in the Explorer scanning every bear likely area. However, even through our most reliable areas we couldn’t even find a black bear.

Last sunlight was at about 8:30 and we were as far as the Pebble Creek Campground (10 miles shy of Cooke City where we like to camp and eat). From here up to Cooke City increases in elevation and the landscape was beginning to look like winter again with as much as 10 foot high snow banks. It didn’t seem as likely that we’d see that last light bear so we opted to turn around for another lap through Lamar Valley, the bear and wolf capital of the park. Sure enough, right where Soda Creek dumps into the Lamar River we found our first grizzly bear. According to some other bear viewers, this large male was on a mission to return to a kill he’d been feeding on for the last several days. Sure enough just shy of the road by a giant cottonwood tree he and a tailgating wolf that antagonized him every chance he could, stopped in a thicket of willows to feed. It was light enough that we could see fairly well, but it was too dark for a good photo. You need to look real hard to see the bear and wolf.

We watched the grizzly feed and fend off the wolf for about 15 minutes or so before it was too dark to see. Then we packed it up. Just as we started to leave another griz crossed the road ten feet in front of our car. The carcass was about to be a busy dangerous place!

Once to Cooke City we settled in the Miner Bar for dinner but they were not serving food. Bummer! We were absolutely starved. Unfortunately for us, the night turned to chips and beer for dinner followed by a very cold night of camping on the outskirts of town in the back of the truck. Which by the way, we had to be careful camping because evidently there’s a grizzly cruising town every night. Luckily he didn’t come visit us.

It was dark when we rolled into Cooke City last night so we couldn’t see the town’s snow pack. But when we actually woke up this morning and looked around - we were shocked! They might have snow piled up till the 4th of July! It is really amazing. After a few pictures of the winter wonderland, we grabbed coffees and cruised back to Lamar Valley.

We saw three more grizzlies and a few wolves. All animals were separate and one of the highlights was a pack of wolves that killed what looked to be an elk. They were a long ways away even with the binos. They were feeding hard and chasing the ravens and coyotes away constantly. It was a blood bath and this time I don’t have photos because the action was too far away.

However, our next stop, by the Yellowstone River Bridge near Tower Falls, things were different. We found a grizzly feeding only a 100 yards off the road. Our camera has a mediocre zoom and it doesn’t show how close we were, but we were close enough and this was by far our best grizzly sighting in years. This was a massive grizzly bear just gnawing on a freshly killed carcass. Even though we were close, it was hard to tell what the carcass was because there was hardly anything left. I’ll go with an elk. Anyhow, this bear was huge, scarred, blood covered and as ugly a bear we’ve ever seen. He must have eaten the entire animal himself as he was so fat it was unreal. We watched until he couldn't eat anymore and wallowed back into some trees. Boy, I feel sorry if a hiker stumbles into that bear.

We were home by 2 PM today just in time for an afternoon of baseball and raking (Yes the snow has melted again). It was a great 24 hours. How lucky we are to have such a great backyard!

Some friends and I are heading to a private spring creek on Tuesday and Wednesday. Expect me to get past the “one” trout this year mark!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website

First Trout of the Year

April 29

Last night was a big night in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I was the guest speaker at Jimmy Gabettas’s All Seasons Angler Fly Shop. It was the businesses 25th year anniversary and Simms was a sponsor for the event providing raffle items, clinics and food and drink. Well known fly tier and author Kelly Galloup did a tying seminar from 4 till 7 and then I presented “Fly Fishing through Midlife Heaven” as the grand finally of the evening. This has been my bread and butter presentation this year with stories and photos of all the fun I’ve had traveling and fishing since I left the fly shop. I spiced it up a little for tonight by adding in the “Miracle Mackerel” I caught a few weeks ago in Madagascar.

Today I fished a secret place. This will sound crazy, but this was my first fishing day in freshwater of the year after already nearly 30 days in saltwater. A weird stat for a guy from Victor, Idaho but I’m not complaining!

I fished with Jon Yusko. Jon is the Simms Representative for Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Jon and I go back many years because I bought plenty of Simms products when I managed the fly shop. Jon trailered down his jet boat from his home in Bozeman, Montana just so we could pull off this sneaky little fishing day during a time of year when any quality fishing is difficult to find due to high water from snow melt.

It was a late night at the All Seasons Angler so we didn’t get started till about 9 AM. When we went to bed it was dumping snow – not a pretty sight anymore as we approach May (2011 will go down as one of the wintriest springs in recent memory). It’s been flat out cold, snowy or at least wet day after day. Remarkably the sun was out this morning so after we unloaded snow from the boat we hit the river in high spirits. The weather stayed nice until about noon when the first snow flurry of the day began just as last nights snow was almost melted away of the trees. Despite the flurry, today’s the first day where the birds of spring were really noticeable with the recently arrived song birds singing up a storm. I also enjoyed watching a gnarly fight between two sandhill cranes and even heard the first humming bird of the year and the distant chorus of spring peeper frogs. This all means that this horrible wintery weather is going to stop soon – we hope!

This fishing place is unique in many ways. There were no other anglers. It’s a spring creek like environment yet there are so many beaver dams there’s more small lakes and ponds then creek. And today it was the ponds that held all the fish.

We saw quite a few cutthroats. Most were what I refer to as “gone doggy”, that is they were not feeding or moving. Perhaps this cold spring is getting to them too. You’d see them elevated a few inches of the bottom like a log and no matter what fly you cast their way they would not budge. I’d keep sneaking my casts closer until finally either my leader would touch the trout or my fly got too close and they’d spook and blast out of there not to be seen again.

Although the hatches were far from prolific, we did experience a trickle of mayflies. We saw a few tiny black stoneflies, blue wing olives, March browns and to my disbelief, a few huge size 14 PMD’s. But with the exception of a few fish that noticed, the bugs drifted on happily ever after to continue the life cycle of their species.

Jon and I each managed to scrape up one fish. Both were cutthroats. And because mine was my first trout of the year, both the trout and the day will be memorable. I caught this guy on a tattered parachute Adams while standing on a beaver dam. He was one of few trout I saw cruising on the hunt for bugs that flickered on the water. I knew all I had to do was get my fly the fifty feet out to the area he was patrolling. The problem I had is that I was balancing on a beaver dam. If I slipped off one side it was a 7 ft drop to a shallow rapid where the pond was squeezing through the dam. If I fell the other way I’d be in 10 ft deep of weedy mucky pond water. Along with that, the 8,000 twigs, sticks, logs and debris making up the dam consumed my fly line. Every time I went to shoot my line it was tangled up. That’s why once I caught this one fish, I crawled off this dam back to shore and found a new area to fish.

Today ended with the jet boat ride back down river to the boat ramp. We boated into the teeth of a strong icy cold wind with snow pellets beating our face. Once that boat was on the trailer I revved up the Explorer and cranked the heat. It was like getting off the river after a full day in December. It’s crazy that we love this stuff!

Granny and I are off to Yellowstone tomorrow for a very short excursion to see bears. You may remember last year’s blog and the bear search. We always manage to find a few. I just hope the weather doesn’t close the roads. It’s snowing again. That’s it for the first of many days of trout fishing in 2011.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website

Home

April 20

Madagascar – Day 21

It was a grunt to put it lightly. First was our rainy pirogue ride from Isle Aux Nattes to Isle Saint Marie (15 Minutes). Then a taxi ride to the airport (10 minutes). We were soaked. Then we flew to Antananarivo (1 hour). We stayed overnight there (15 hours). Then we waited for our late flight to Johannesburg (6 hours) Next we flew to Nosy Be, Madagascar (1 hour) Emigration (2 hours). The flight from Nose Be to Johannesburg (4 hours). In and out of South Africa (1 hour). Flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta (17 hours) Layover in Atlanta (2 hours) Flight Atlanta to Salt Lake City (4 hours) Layover (4 hours) Flight Salt Lake City to Jackson, WY ( 1 hour) Drive from Jackson to Victor, Idaho (1 hour).

And what did we do when we got home? We went to the Wildlife Brewery for pizza and beer! You got to be tough!

The trip to Madagascar was fantastic! Here are a few more photos from the trip!

In May you can expect some trout fishing, bears in Yellowstone than back to Baja.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website

Still Heading Home

April 19

Madagascar – Day 20

Madagascar Air has been unimpressive so far this trip. I won’t knock them too bad because they run typical to several other remote region airlines we’ve flown throughout the world. That is, the planes are usually a little rough like our first flight where the air blowers were broken. Then our second flight ran two hours late. And today, our 8 AM International flight (We were checked in at 6 AM) to Johannesburg didn’t leave until 11 AM. The five hour delay wasn’t too bad but after an hour of flying we stopped in Nosy Be, Madagascar and completely disembarked the 767, collected our luggage and then emigrated from Madagascar. This took another two hours because they took our bags off the plane one by one and the logistics of emigration were as primitive as I’ve experienced in a long time. It was perhaps the all time worst, ridiculous and stupid system I’ve ever seen! That’s more than 40 countries worth of emigrating!

When you consider the poor nights sleep, up at 4 AM and the Madagascar heat it was a slightly more challenging day then we even expected. But that’s travel. We finally arrived in Johannesburg tonight nearly 7 hours late and we had to immigrate into South Africa to collect and recheck our bags only to emigrate out ten minutes later. Sounds stupid but Madagascar Air could not sort how to check our luggage all the way to the States. By luck, Granny and I had an eight hour layover before catching our Delta flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta. After all of today’s nonsense our 8 hour layover saved our butts and we had just enough time to do all this customs stuff, properly say goodbye to our South African family and make our flight. Not easy, but done.

As I type right now, we are two hours out of Johannesburg about to exit Namibia airspace and start up the Atlantic Ocean. This is a long flight folks - nearly 17 hours! When you throw in our five hours of flying from Madagascar earlier and our airport time etc, this is a long day. And the flying will continue tomorrow.

Okay man, time for one more movie and a glass of red wine hopefully followed by some sleep.

Oh, once home I will post about a dozen of the pics you have not seen yet from the trip. Expect a lot more cool chameleons!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website

Heading Home

April 18

Madagascar – Day 19

Being at La Petite Traversee of Isle Aux Nattes is about as far from Victor, Idaho as one can get and today is the dreaded day Granny and I head back. Days like today are when we all wish we could tap our flip flops, close our eyes and be home. But what fun would that be when instead we could fly for three days? And boy is “fun” a good way to describe the start of today.

At 6 AM there was a massive downpour, the exact time Granny and I and the South Africans had to cross the channel from Isle Aux Nattes to Isle Saint Marie by pirogue with Florio and Herman. And I mean it was a serious tropical rain. It was one of those that comes out of the sky in buckets. Where rain jackets are useless and attempts to keep luggage dry is a joke. But we wore our raingear anyhow and Florio and Herman did their best to cover our gear in plastic, but indeed it was a laughing cause.

Once our soggy butts got across the channel there were two tattered taxis waiting for us on the beach for the short drive to the Isle Saint Marie airport. By now it was pouring so hard that Florio and Herman could have kept going to the landing strip in their pirogues! Half our group got in one taxi and took off. Granny, René and I got in the other. But before our taxi went 8ft it ran out of gas. Bla, bla, bla went the driver and something about petrol as if he was framed by a friend. In a sick way it was hilarious. We had plenty of time so I just smiled and with water dripping off the bill of my hat I looked over my shoulder at the girls. We weren’t going anywhere until another taxi came. Naturally another decrepit taxi did show because the others sent one when we didn’t arrive. But our luggage - our luggage needed to be rung out after all the fun.

Our flight from Saint Marie back to Antananarivo went perfect. We were on time, the weather was gorgeous and a staff member of the IC Hotel, where Granny and I have made sort of a home base you might say, was waiting for us. Our adopted family of South Africans is staying elsewhere so we introduced their hotel driver to ours so we could arrange to meet in the city later and get some lunch.

When Granny and I got to the IC we could have slept like rocks. Instead, while Granny did sleep, I hung our soaking wet luggage in the sun and monitored it while I loaded the April 4 blog and then managed my three Fantasy Baseball Teams – yes I’m a fanatic of more than just fishing.

We have had so much fun with our South African family the last few days that it seems we’ve been a family for years. It’s really amazing. Anyhow, with time running out with our adopted family, we met for lunch near the Queens Palace literally on the top of Antananarivo at the Le Grill du Rova restaurant. This is known as one of the finest restaurants in the city yet the meals run less than $10 US. It was a killer lunch and we celebrated the trip and our new found friendship with several and final Three Horse Beers of Madagascar (I can’t wait for that Point It! Pale Ale from the Wildlife Brewing Company in Victor, Idaho!)

After a great time we said a temporary goodbye (coincidentally we are all on the same flight tomorrow morning for Johannesburg) and Granny and I took off to the local market. We have some sort of cool souvenir from most the places we have been throughout the world. Today Granny bought some . . . wooden-lemur-carved-ancient looking . . . thing that is cool as heck. It looks like it should be worth hundreds of dollars but she haggled it down to less than $20. The only problem is that it weighs at least 15lbs. We’ll see if it makes it home.

That’s all for today. It’s time to battle the mosquitoes and roaches and try to catch a few hours before the journey home continues.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website

The Last Day

April 17

Madagascar – Day 18

The South African girls let out a loud scream last night just as we all settled to our rooms. They had a gigantic spider in their room. You may remember, I wrote of one we had in our room in Tanzania last November. I even posted a picture for you too see. This one was different however the bottom line is this is one heck of a big scary looking spider. The girls, with plenty of spider experience from living in Africa, were trying to push him out of their room, and like large antagonized spiders often do, he attacked. Supposedly these spiders (looks like the huntsman of Australia) rarely bite but when provoked enough they can easily take a chunk out of you. Luckily girls survived and they finally got him out. I just pray he doesn’t head our way. Although, he just might help with the mosquito problem we have every time we use our toilet!

It was absolutely pouring this morning. It rains a little every night and then just before sunrise, but today was the first time it carried on. For a guy nicknamed “Monsoon Currier”, we’ve been very fortunate and experienced superb weather. In fact, not a single day has been hampered with rain until today. The rain didn’t matter much however because today was truly designed to be our absolute “do nothing day”. What that means is fish, sleep, eat and perhaps a cold drink or two. And that’s exactly what we did. The only pressure I had was – catch a fish to keep the perfect record going! With that in mind, I pretty much fished every free minute I had today. Granny even joined in a few times and we really pumbled the waters around the island. Unfortunately we didn’t catch anything great. Just several of what appear to be baby grunts of some kind, and I do mean babies, Along with these I caught one of the common blackspot emperor fish. I made my last cast of the trip just before dark.

That’s about the size of today. It never stopped raining for more than 30 minutes or so but we relaxed and enjoyed the last day immensely. It has been a great trip right up to the end. Tomorrow at 5 AM we begin the long journey home. We will start with a mornings travel from Isle Aux Nattes to Isle Saint Marie and then a short flight to Antananarivo where we will spend the day before our flight to Johannesburg. I’ll keep you posted.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website

A Cranky Crab

April 16

Madagascar – Day 17

Granny thought we had another rat in our room last night (We had one last week – forgot to mention that). She awoke me to some scratching noise. I recognized the sound immediately. It was a crab. And I don’t mean some small ocean crab; it was a monster land crab. I heard his legs scratching our cement floor and it sounded as if his huge shell-head was stuck. It was. He was lodged between the wall and a piece of furniture in our room. I whipped on my headlamp and grabbed a plastic coat hanger. My plan was escort him out of our room.

I was suspicious of the clamoring from behind the furniture a couple times this week. Now was my chance to eliminate the noise altogether. The first thing I needed to do was get the crab unstuck. I’m sure he could have got out of his predicament but it was easier for me to just pull out the furniture. When I did, the crab ran for our bed with both claws clapping to threaten us. I steered him from the bed with my coat hanger and he then ran to the bathroom where I cornered him under our sink. I was laughing quite hard while Granny cranked out the photo. Finally he attacked the hanger hard enough that I was able to drag him to our door and he ran out with his friends. It’s been a good vacation for room guests and I must say I love it.

I snuck out to the nearby point at 6 AM and nailed my fish for the day. It was a monster (ha ha) 12” pickhandle barracuda. The pressure was off to catch my fish a day for the day early. After breakfast Granny and I and our South African family did a full day of snorkeling with the guys I fished with the other afternoon, Florio and Herman. We took two pirogues and they poled us to a nice snorkeling place. We snorkeled around for about an hour here. It was ok. We saw more fish than I expected including a few neat ones such as trumpet fish and pipe fish. After our snorkel we headed around Isle Aux Nattes to a cool lunch spot Florio and Herman knew about. The entire way I sat up front of Herman’s boat and chucked my 8-weight Ross with a Chili Pepper, a favorite Christmas Island bonefish fly. All I did was roll a few baby needlefish.

The lunch spot was basically another beach hotel on our island. The menu looked great but no one was real hungry so we just had some fries and beers. This Three Horse Beer, the most popular of Madagascar, is starting to taste boring. One of the first things I plan to do when I get home is relish in some of the Victor, Idaho home brews. From there we continued around our island and stopped at one more snorkeling spot. It was really shallow so Granny loved it. I did too as my snorkel is busted and I constantly have to adjust. Here we could just stand up. And despite being shallow, there were a few nice fish to see. Of note I found a gorgeous boxfish hiding in a coral cave and chased a unique looking triggerfish. I’d really like to find some triggers tailing on the reef but its way too dangerous for them to do that here with all the local fishers that will net anything they see.

After our second snorkel I casted all the way home and finally got a fish. It was a very tiny and finely speckled grouper that I will have too look up. He might be the one our guide George caught two weeks back while we were in Nosy Be. A pretty little guy nonetheless. That about sizes up our day. We just finished up another great dinner and now at only 9 PM Granny and I can hardly keep our eyes open.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website

Barely Caught the Fish of the Day

April 15

Madagascar – Day 16

Even though yesterday led me to believe the fishing here isn’t too good I began the day by chucking some Crazy Charlie shrimp patterns in front of our room. I’ve managed to catch a fish every single day of this trip that I’ve been near water. It’s important I keep that going, but morning gave me no luck.

After breakfast, Granny and I joined our South African family (the father, Peter, his wife Renee, and their two daughters Ané and Monique) for a tour of Isle Saint Marie. There are a couple things we wanted to check out, the village on Isle Saint Marie and the world’s only pirate cemetery.

Florio and Herman (the guys I fished with yesterday) poled us all across the channel to Isle Saint Marie. Me and Peter started by enjoying a few early beers during the short pirogue ride. What the heck, its vacation right?

The way this tour worked, La Petite Traversée helped us hire a four wheel drive vehicle with a driver and guide. The truck was supposed to have room for all six of us. It didn’t. Granny and I huddled in the back as if we were on an African minivan bus, something we are all too familiar with. We made it work though despite the fact that I ruined my shorts by sitting in oil and it was excruciatingly hot.

Anyhow, we saw the village. That was nothing to write home about. The pirate cemetery was cool, but if the fishing was decent yesterday I could have easily skipped this. The highlight at the cemetery was seeing the first tarantula of the trip. We also checked out a waterfall. That was nice and I wanted to hike above it and fish wherever the water was coming from but our driver would have no part of the idea. The tours highlight was eating a great lunch of monster prawns on a remote beach at the north part of the island. All the food has been great this trip and the prawns were scrumptious. To top the tour off, I sucked a few extra beers and watched Granny and the South Africans explore several of the locally made rums. Everyone was feeling good.

Tonight I ran straight to the channel near our room to try and get that one fish for the day. First cast I had a small barracuda chase but he never returned. Twenty minutes later I was about to give up when as I was

stripping as fast as I can while backing up the beach to add more speed and I nailed another baby bluefin trevally. Yes! The perfect record keeps going!

Other than having a blast with our new found family, the tour was a bore. However, it was a heck of an eating day. We had those delicious prawns for lunch and tonight La Petite fed us whole crabs. I like this anniversary!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing Website