Posts Tagged ‘Fishing’

Group of wild bison at Hebgen Lake.

It wasn’t just trout and whitefish that I saw yesterday at Hebgen Lake. Here’s a picture of a group of about 15 wild buffalo that we saw while walking back. (Hebgen Lake is behind the trees).

It’s an amazing thing to be walking along a trail and suddenly see a group of buffalo and is good reason to visit Yellowstone National Park since you won’t see this anyplace else in the world. You can’t get into the park until Friday, but if you know where to go around West Yellowstone you’ll have a good chance of seeing some.

As for the fishing, it was a bit slow, but I managed to come up with a Rainbow Trout, and shared a Whitefish that a friend caught. We were using earthworms and pieces of corn that we’d cast out and let sink to the bottom of the lake.

Much of Hebgen Lake is still frozen, but the area around Horse Butte has open water.

I’m experimenting with recipes right now and like how this one turned out. It’s a nice change from frying, which so far for me is always too oily. Here’s how I made the trout pictured below. The recipe is a general guideline – you can experiment with the spices and vegetable mix.

Trout en Papillote

It’s still March, but there’s been enough melt that those of you who want to fish, but don’t like hovering over an ice hole, can find some good spots around West Yellowstone.

Hebgen Lake, around the Horse Butte area, has open water and last week I caught a very nice brown trout casting with an earth worm while standing on the shore.

And, of course, the Madison River downstream of the Hebgen Lake Dam is open and I’ve been seeing many more fishermen there in the last week as the weather has improved.

Above is a video from yesterday in which I walked up the mountain across the highway from the Madison River at the bend just downstream of the dam. I noticed a couple of people fishing way down below and focused in on them, taking new shots as I made my way back to the highway.

This is a beautiful location and worth a drive when visiting West Yellowstone, even if you don’t fish. Just find a place to pull over and start walking. Here’s a Google Map showing where I shot the video, and the route to get there starting from my store location:

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