fixing to leave for the airport for the Oh-dark-30 flt to Denver and then Billings. going up with my law school roommate and hunting and fishing partner for almost forty years, to stay and fish with a friend of ours in Red Lodge, and go down to visit Yellowstone for a day.

I see its 30 degrees cooler there, which justifies the trip on its own.....but hope to get in lots of trout, scenery and cigars...and a little deer scouting for October.

Should be able to post from his house...meantime, keep the faith, bros.

Have a great trip Steve. Hoping to get out to Wyoming for some preseason scouting myself if I can arrange it!

Have a good trip, Steve. Hope the fish are bitin'.

Have a good trip! Gonna be in Yellowstone myself mid-week for a few days with the family.

If you're still up there, the Winchester Collector show is going on in Cody on Friday/Sat/Sun.

Enjoy Steve!

Wish I was going and you had a feather up your butt. We'd both be tickled.

Steve,I imagine you'll be going from Red Lodge up and over Beartooth Pass ( see recent thread...). That alone is worth the trip. I think you may also encounter trout in your travels, Ive heard theres a few in that country....

Steve

Montana should clear the nasal passages of NO air, and free up the brain cells for a great time.

Enjoy, and please post the stories.

Steve

I hope you have a great visit and enjoy sweet fellowship with your friend Steve. I envy you in the best sort of way... Our AC just went out !

I love Red Lodge and the surrounding area. The trout are always biting over there. Enjoy.

Bob

y'all be safe now, ya heah?

Be careful out there, Steve. I've been to Montana. Sometimes it gets pretty drunk out there.

You do know that them folks up there talk funny, don't you?

sounds like a great time. Need to visit Montana myself, someday.

What do you mean by that? Just because we drive our outfits,eat pasties,camp up a coulee, hunt prairie maggots,fish for lochs,and plug in our trucks in the winter....

Me too

Have a great trip Steve!

Safe travels, amigo. Text me some pics.

Have a great trip! My son and I will be in Montana starting on Thursday as well.


ddj

Have a great time!

Leave a few trout behind, willya? Pugs and I are going up thattaway in a few weeks to meet up with ingwe. We have to catch at least one trout so we can each pose holding it and claim we actually went fishing.

Check out the fish that Rocky and Pugs caught! And look at that minnow that Ingwe's showing off!

I was just there but I left plenty of Montana for you, Steve.

Um....Montana was fished out in 1978 or so. By me. Really.

But you can sure flail the water if you want.

Have a grand time, stay cool, smoke lots.

we talk funny??

I fergot my Snoose in the jockey-box of my rig and since it is spendy, and i am all ready high-centered, my driving would be all cadywompus i didn't want to drive all the way to kwik-way, and buy a new can.
So since i was sixes and sevens, I just sat down in a coulee and watched a slew of speed goats graze down by the crick.

To the OP, WELCOME to Montana!

Enjoy, hombre!

I hope you have a great time, Steve. Sounds like a well balanced plan.

Ed

Ive got one on ice...just in case...

Greetings from God's country...got into Billings before noon yesterday, made a quick hit on Cabelas and made it into Red Lodge mid afternoon...in time for a to try the west fork of Rock Creek. it's been raining every day so the rivers are high and fast but I managed to pick up a rainbow and two little browns on dry hoppers.

Montana is beautiful as always and really green from all the rain. this is my buddy's house outside Red Lodge



this is the old root cellar of the original homestead
which they've turned into a seating area with a gas firepit...he killed a deer out of it last year, whitetails are thick in his little patch of woods



this is the old barn



ran up the West Rosebud to Emerald Lake today...beautiful drive

my two partners in crime..both old cronies of more than 30 years standing



fish weren't very cooperative today for me..got two nice rainbows though. one of the other guys got eight...but the high water is killing us

here I am pounding on them....the scenery makes up for slow fishing



fishing the Stillwater in a boat tomorrow...they did real well up there today so hopefully the body count will improve, but this is really a guy's getaway so that is sort of secondary.

Will post more tomorrow night.

Smiling.

Enjoy your stay..

JC stop pussyfootin' around already; you can go a lot further than ankle deep y'know!

Good stuff mon. I've yet to make it to MT, but going to fix that soon. What a gorgeous country we have.

Thanks for sharing, and enjoy!

Hey Steve,
If you get a chance, make a run of about 20 miles up hwy 78 (toward Columbus) to Roscoe. They have a place called "The Grizzly Bar & Grill". Famous for their steaks and the bar. You won't be sorry. I'll be in Columbus with Shortactionsmoker in October and I'm sure we will go to Roscoe.

we went through Roscoe today on the way up to the Rosebud....saw the Grizzly..looked like a cool place. wish we'd had time to find the battlefield..saw a sign for the marker.

The current is blowing out of the river into the lake there....you couldn't stand up if you stepped off into the waist deep water, or I would have been creeping up on them

Take a gander at Jeremiah Johnson's little cabin there in Red Lodge. He was town marshal there in the late 1800s. Neat little town. By the way, I hope you have good luck fishing.

Didn't know Jeremiah Johnson ever lived in a house.

I look for it when we go downtown tonight to eat.

Nice, ENJOY, Steve.

Gunner

Looks like you're having a FINE time!

Time to be learning the "controlled skidder".

Prof. McManus has a tutorial out...

It's a little cabin sitting on the right just before the downtown area. I'm sure your friend who lives there knows where. And, yes, you will really like Beartooth pass into Wyoming if you go to the Park that way.

Absolutely beautiful area!

we will look for it tonight when we go to town

I did make it by the Grizzly in Roscoe today

Very cool pics my friend! Happy that you are getting some R&R.

If you get a chance run over to Cody for the Buffalo Bill Museum. Pretty cool.

fished the Stillwater today, ended up with about twenty rainbows and browns...all pretty small. this one is typical:



had a nice twelve mile float, stopped to wade half a dozen times. guide had a little lunch fixed....kind of fancy.
I'm used to wiping the speck slime off my hand on my shirt and grabbing a sandwich while casting with the other hand but these guys do it up right:



pretty country the river rolls through



the day was hot and the wind blew pretty good at times but all in all a really great way to spend a day...sure beats working

Did you get a cap that say's "where the hell is Roscoe"? Really looks like you guys are having a great time and great weather to have it in. The Stillwater is a beautiful river is it not? Let the good times keep rolling......

I'm envious but glad that you are getting a chance to get away. I have to say that I absolutely love the way your friend fixed up the cellar/firepit/deer bushwack area. I'd be found there regularly if I had one like that. Very cool.

I got the t-shirt.

Looks like a fine trip, I'm envious

And I have to think that town had very little crime, when they had a marshall named Jeremiah "liver eatin'" Johnson

leaving in a minute to drive down through Beartooth Pass to Yellowstone, fish Slough Creek, then back to Billings.

flying back down to the tropics at 0600 tomorrow.

we leave the keys in the truck and don't lock the doors

the usual suspects are conspicuous by their absence

Blizzards ain't all bad. ;-{>8

Great stuff, SNO. Hope you boys torture a bunch more of those pretty little fish before heading out. Post more pics, and safe trip back.

That is pretty customary here, especially in the back country. Wouldnt do it in YNP though!

Watch for griz in Slough Creek, you'll often see them on the surrounding hills in both the Lower and Upper Meadows...

So we hang our heads and change from the excited "Woo-Hooo...leaving for Montana" to the sad, sad "Boo-Hooo...Leaving Montana."

You already live out there! Now maybe you should take some time off work.....I'll swing by when I'm out there....there's got to be a cold, frosty beverage waiting for us somewhere!

A couple of ice cold Moose Drools to go along with the evening Scotch & cigar sounds pretty good!

Only if you're wearing Tenner shoes!

Hey Steve,
See anything exciting today? Time for a report.

I missed Steve by a day, but took a photo anyway.

Denny and Steve.

Lookin' kinda like Soda Butte....

just back from the park and heading out to Billings for dinner and hotel tonight.

the drive from Red Lodge to Yellowstone was as spectacular as advertised....really breathtaking. The park was nice...saw a bunch of bison and mule deer. Did not see any bears or sign.

lots of aggressive small fish on Slough Creek....no other fishermen where we were, which surprised me, although there were lots lower down.

Will download some pics tonight if I have the energy. Hate to go back to NO....they had flash floods today and will be stinking hot tomorrow.

My favorite creek in the park. Love the sections above and below the upper parking lot.

Good to hear about lots of aggressive small fish, hopefully the population dynamic is getting updated, it used to be sight hunting for a very few select big fish...

I generally like to go to Montana for trout fishing after memorial day. Nobody around for the most part, off season prices. Being the cheap bastard that I am. Its like fish one week and get the next week free kind of thing. Looks like you have a blast never the less Steve!

do I look fat?

that's where we were...worked upstream from the campground a half mile or so. we only had two hours to fish it because we got a late start out of Red Lodge, stopped a bunch to take pictures, and then hit a construction stop on the road for 45 minutes. the place is so pretty I would have kept fishing till dark if we hadn't needed to get back to Billings. I thought it was kind of weird that they make you kill everything but cutthroats, regardless of size.....we gave ours to campers so they didn't get wasted. The first bunch we ran into were from Louisiana....a hippie couple who live a few blocks from me and the girl's mama from Grand Isle. Small world.

Sitting in the Billings airport at 0500 typing this waiting on flight to Denver.

Glad you had a good trip Steve! Next it'll be Pugs and Rocky's turn!

OK, I've kept my trap shut long enuff!! Steve, you TURBOSUCK!!!! So there!!!

Glad you had a good trip Steve!

Was down in that part of MT/WY on the 4th of July and enjoyed it too. I never get tired of being in this part of the world.

Glad you had a good trip, Steve. The memories last forever. I have enjoyed that country again vicariously through you. Thanks!

WHAT??? Are you saying that you don't leave keys in the car and doors unlocked in New Orleans?

not hardly

It is White Dome Geyser.

Not at all. http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&am...e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_12qye4w8lu_e

All good things must come to an end...and that trip looked pretty good...

Hope you had a great time and left a fish or two for us locals. Saw where 2 people drowned in the Stillwater River today in separate incidents. Sad and unusual.

Woo-hooo.....leaving for Montana

Gonna be a dental floss tycoon? (Zappa, Zappa.)

neither of the guys I was with knew that song when I sang a chorus up there.....I guess I was the only one who listened to Zappa in college

Zappa as in Frank Zappa? If so, SteveNO that dates you back a long time.