Fishing on the Gallatin

Here's some photo's of our fishing trip this past Friday and Saturday, up on the Gallatin river in the Bozeman area. Click here to jump to the bottom and then scroll up to see the day unfold in photos...

Parting shot, looking back towards the Beartooths as we head home into Billings on Saturday evening. Pretty fine scenery, pretty fine vacation.

Malachi on the other hand, insists he is not tired at all.

Who? What? Us? We weren't doing anything at all. Honest. (Yeah, right...)

What's that saying, "Boys will be boys"? Here's Micah and Jake in the back seat on the way home.

Grandpa and Micah at the bottom end of the same hole. From here on out, we pretty much scurried to get to the take-out spot.

Uncle Jake, working a big hole. By this time of the afternoon, it's just blazing hot and we've been on the river for almost 8 hours.

Nice shot of an old water tower along side the river...

Coming down to pick us up...

Nice shot of Grandpa in the afternoon.

Here's the mighty fisherman, smiling with his catch...

Well whaddya know - even Malachi managed to catch a fish - this one a nice fat brown. In all fairness, Malachi was true to his fly fishing roots until the day was almost over - then he finally borrowed Rebekah's spinner rig for a few casts. Nobody caught anything on flies this day...

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. This is how you cook fish out in the wild - build a nice bed of coals, lay them right on. The skin gets charred something fierce, but you just peel that off and viola! Beautifully cooked fish beneath. Add a touch of salt, a slice of sourdough bread and a wedge of sharp cheddar, and you've got everything you need to enjoy a great meal on the river.

Micah with his two fish, cleaned and ready to eat.

Micah with his two fish, and Rebekah with hers - a nice little 9" brown.

Closeup of that same fish. This guy had a huge gash on his other side - evidently where an Osprey or Eagle attempted to catch him just a few days before.

Hey, look at that, here's Micah with another fish - this one a 16" brown trout! Way to go son!

Grandpa and Rebekah, doing a "float-by". Those are the Bridger Mountains in the background.

Grandpa Mike, getting in a few casts...

Cool view of a barn and an old homestead, just south of the river.

Now this is very cool (sorry if it's a bit hard to see) - it's a mink! These guys are fairly rare, in the sense that you hardly ever see them. In this case however, we watched him on and off for over half an hour, as he worked down the opposite river bank, diving into the water, looking for fish, them climbing out on the rocks and shaking himself off like a dog. Very cool.

Running a little bit of whitewater...

Looking back up the river...

What I like about this photo is that you can actually see the surface structure of the water - the tension, the ripples, the valleys and peaks. It also helps convey the sense of motion.

And more water over rocks. I love the way the sun plays on the surface.

A cool shot of water flowing over rocks

Here's a nice shot of some beautiful holes on the Gallatin

Jake working to revive the fish in order to release him. Unfortunately, he didn't make it. So we ate him.

Here's a closeup of that fish...

Micah with his expert guide Jake.

Hey, look who's the hero this time! Micah singlehandledly lands a whopper 18" cutthroat / rainbow mix. Now THAT's a dandy!

Me, Rebekah, and Grandpa Mike in the second canoe

Malachi, Micah and Jake in the lead canoe

Master Aegidius, testing the waters...

Micah, looking for Uncle Jake's canoe (psst... it's right there behind you buddy! It's just hard to see because of that really swell camo job)

Rebekah & Grandpa, preparing the boat

And here's Rebekah looking to repeat her success from the previous night.

And speaking of Saturday morning, now we get to the second fishing trip - this time we are going to float a 6 mile stretch of the Gallatin river. Grandpa Mike came up from Billings to join us, and Micah came along as well. Here we have Malachi and Micah fishing at the put-in while we wait for Grandpa and Jake to get back from dropping off the car at the take-out.

Now speaking of breakfast, the main course the next morning was sourdough flapjacks, and as everyone knows, "sourdough flapjack" is Jack's middle name. Here we find him keenly watching every bite that Uncle Jake takes.

Here's another shot of that fish, back at the house (Yes, that is Uncle Jake there in the background. No, he is not related. Really. Honest. Or at least I never admit it any more than I have to.) The consensus was "That trout sure will taste good for breakfast!" And it did...

Hey, whaddya know? This girl knows how to fish! She was the only one who caught anything... a nice fat 16" rainbow! Way to go Rebekah!!!

A beautiful shot of Rebekah fishing...

Another shot of the sunset...

Looking back down the river as the light fades...

Here's Malachi working a nice slow spot in the river - the fish were rising fairly regularly, taking very, very small mayflies (which we didn't really have in our flyboxes).

So we rounded out our vacation by making it back to Bozeman for Friday and Saturday. And the kids decided that the best way to spend this time was to go FISHING!!!! So on Friday evening, we started by running out for a few hours just before it got dark - me, Uncle Jake, Malachi (of course), and Rebekah. Here's Rebekah and Jake on the Gallatin River, just a couple of miles from Jake's house.

Scroll on up to see the rest of the day (and most of the next) unfold in digital glory...