This is the family's annual trip to Yellowstone National Park and it is definitely the best time to fish in this area of the park. The Calibaetis are coming off in the thousands and then some as you can see on Alex in the bottom left photo. We meet up with the entire family for breakfast in one of the most amazing places on earth Gull Point Drive picnic area. This picnic area provides excellent views of Lake Hotel and entertainment for the kids (they can ski down the sandhills).

We decided to float it from Gull Point Drive picnic area to the bay. It was around 9:30 when breakfast was done and we got all the boats ready for launch. Of course the kids wanted to see us ride them down the hill, but the weight we have gained it wasn't happening. On the float over we had 1 hit and Matt caught the only fish. He caught this 20" Cutthroat Trout (to the right) on a Beadhead Cutthroat Killer!!! When we got closer in the bay we start seeing the Cuts cruising and I raised 3 and had 1 break me off on the strip. It was a bad decision if you ask me, we should have fished it from shore.

We have slowly seen a decline in the Cutthroats in both the Lake and the River. They say it is due to the increased population of the Lake Trout (kill all the Lake Trout). In the 23 years that I have been fishing the Yellowstone Area I have seen a growing number of anglers and feel this is to a big part of the decrease in fish. In the river they have moved to areas like Hayden Valley and Lee Hardy Rapids to avoid the constant preasure of the anglers. I was glad to see less anglers and bigger fish this year, but not to excited about the Cutthroat population.