Post 1 of 6: SecretWeapon’s, Peddler’s and LLN’s Excellent Adventure

[landlockednow]

Before we get started, this trip, as it went down, would never have happened without this forum as a means to introduce and unite fly fishing guys who otherwise may not have ever met each other.  We are all very appreciative of that.

Planning that began back in February at a booth in a Charlotte restaurant culminated Saturday morning, August 13th as the boys headed to Montana.

SecretWeapon strode up full of confidence, Guests can't see images. Please login or login


while Peddler was so excited he left his beloved Winstons, sitting in the road!
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The first highlight of the trip was SecretWeapon’s designation as a “random selectee” who could not check his bags curbside.

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Things went downhill fast as SecretWeapon received the extra special search at the airport.

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We were not permitted to photo the cavity search, but Secret Weapon smiled all the way to Bozeman.

Once in Bozeman, a balmy 50 degrees, we took the obligatory pictures by the bear and the fisherman.

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(Yes, Peddler, it is a Winston) and then we headed out. 

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Secret Weapon’s negotiating abilities again came in to play as he talked up an upgrade, to a van…and we needed the room!

After a quick stop by a fly shop (no surprise there) the boys hit a creek just south of Bozeman. Our thanks to both Plumbob and Maniac on that one.

Peddler scored first, followed by Secret Weapon, and even LLN, after being put on fish by SECRETWEAPON, got to ring the bell.  A number of times.

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We were on the ground less in Montana less than two hours and we all had fish on the line.  While the water looks great, and it was, in the interest of full disclosure (and in saving time on our trip) we were literally fishing beside a parking lot!

Though it was hard to leave, we spent the next couple of hours, driving down the Gallatin River to West Yellowstone.   On the way down, around every turn one of us would whoop out a “look at that water” or “Can you believe that?”  To say we were fired up would be an understatement.

We arrived at our hotel on the Grayling Arm of Hebgen Lake and met Chris Harris at the saloon across the street.  Here is the vista from our second floor room.

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That night Chris took us to West Yellowstone for an OUTSTANDING meal. We returned to the hotel and while SECRETWEAPON and LLN hooked up their CPAP machines, Peddler stepped outside to “burn one.”


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[riverguide]

wow these are great pictures. Absolutely hilarioius pics!!

[troutjedi]

That's funny....  I bet I fished that spot on Hyalite creek about a thousand times.  Did y'all go any higher up the canyon?  Great fishing higher up....

[landlockednow]

We rode up the canyon, saw great spots, but there were people at most of the reasonable access points.

We were under time pressure to get on down the road and we decided we would rather fish a bit there and then go to the Gallatin than make that spot the afternoon agenda.  However, we had so much fun pulling fish out of that stretch, and stayed there longer than we meant tothat we did not have time to fish the Gallatin at all....probably my biggest and really only regret of the trip.

[BRFFF]

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[BRFFF]

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