It’s with a mixture of sadness and bittersweet relief that we’re announcing today the closure of the Best Fly Fishing Yellowstone (and surrounding Montana territory) website.
We are deeply humbled by and appreciative of the 400 or so readers that have been stopping by every day this spring. We suspect you’ve been watching the greater Yellowstone and southwest Montana snow pack with great interest like the rest of us, and waiting for the opening days of the Park season. Amazingly the Park fishing season opener is only 5 weeks away.
We’ve been in the Park this weekend and it’s gorgeous as usual, even with fairly brisk traffic of the motorized kind on the roads again. There is an impressive amount of snow down yet, and with this weekend’s storm (it was 10 degrees and snowing hard when I took my wife out for an early breakfast in Bozeman this morning) we wouldn’t be surprised if road travel is impacted for a day or two – temps in Bozeman are due to hover near freezing for highs for a few days, and roadways are bound to be a bit tricky heading to West Yellowstone and into the Park. Yellowstone is in for what should be a delightful spring and a much better water year given this season’s snow pack levels and the cool spring weather.
Yellowstoner over at Fly Fishing Yellowstone has a post up about the opening of the Park, and we fully agree that for us the magic of fishing much of the Park lies in its less trafficked waters. We didn’t write much about that last season as we didn’t want to push a lot of traffic onto the smaller waters of the Park, though there are many that offer extraordinary outings if you’re willing to work up a sweat and burn some shoe leather, and many of these smaller waters fish well even in the summer heat and low flows that have been the norm the last decade or so. More on this topic below.
We’re shuttering our site for a couple of reasons that are for us very appropriate and healthy. Several of the crew running this site are also principals in a real estate data company (Redfish Emerging Markets) that monitors the real estate market health of close to 280 communities around the country. We’ve run our database privately for several years, and have just in the past few weeks announced our company and its very unique information to the public, and the response has been nothing short of overwhelming. We have a very nifty data product that will be in particular demand given the woes and eventual recovery in the housing (both single and multifamily) market upcoming, and are working very hard to expand gracefully and expeditiously given the response we’ve experienced thus far.
Given the demands of this opportunity, we’ve simply decided that we’d rather fish that write about fishing every day.
When the Park fishing season is in full swing, to provide the updates that the site provided last year takes several hours per day, and given the time demands of our other venture, it simply doesn’t work for our team at this point. The team we’ve assembled to work on our database project came together with the premise and promise that each and every one on the team is expected to recreate every day – there really is something to that concept that a healthy body and spirit well supports a healthy mind. With the lower Madison and Gallatin very fishable within a 20 minute drive or so, and the Park’s waters about an hour away (the Upper Gallatin and other waters in the Park’s NW corner), we really can make the concept work. It was not intended to be so, but most of our team are avid fishermen (fisherwomen too), though the gang also hikes, backpacks, climbs, kayaks, rafts, mountain bikes, skis, snowshoes, and bow hunts among other outdoor pursuits.
The second reason we’re shuttering the website is that we’ve been asked to join an “adventure film” team that will focus mainly on fly fishing, but will also cover some other pursuits as well (climbing, kayaking and river running, and fair chase elk bow hunting projects are in the works). This group has the experience and professional level equipment (cameras, audio and video software, etc.) to produce a very nice video / film, and we’re thrilled about being invited to use this medium to create and record the outdoor world of Yellowstone, Montana, and the West. We have some projects already in the works that should be outrageously fun to produce and view.
Three parting words of encouragement –
The fishing so far this spring (and even through the winter for us) has been the best we’ve seen in a decade or more, particularly this spring. The water year will be immeasurably better than the last few, though who knows what the summer will bring. Jake just got back from an outrageous weekend on the Boulder, and we’ve fished the Lower and Upper Madison, the Gallatin, and the Yellowstone with wonderful success in the past few weeks. We really haven’t even had what most would consider to be spring arrive yet (truly it’s been a genuine high country spring season thus far), and though there will be a full fledged runoff this year; the classic tailwaters should be great even then. Expect a great fishing year in the neighborhood.
We’re increasingly convinced that the heavily fished waters, while often very productive from a catching standpoint during the peak season, are not as aesthetically enjoyable at times. The past seasons we’ve been spending more and more time off the beaten track, catching more and perhaps smaller fish (not always). There are still places in Yellowstone and southwestern Montana where you can cast to fish that might see 5 fisherman a season (if that) instead of 5 boats in the past 20 minutes. Get in shape, hike a bit, see some astoundingly rugged and inspiring country, and reacquaint yourself with small stream fishing again. You’ll really feel like a fly fisherman again.
Finally, there’s quite a bit of hoopla being bandied about by certain groups who would seem to suggest that the very debated and contested status of the area’s bison and wolf populations deserve your boycotting Yellowstone, Wyoming, and Idaho this season. There are many different pressing issues facing the nation and world today, economic pressures for many are very real, and the facts appear to suggest we’re at or very close to a recession. A lot of you (like us) need a real break from the workday / everyday pressures you face. We’d certainly encourage you to not alter any plans you might be considering to come enjoy this neck of the woods and the majesty of Yellowstone, Montana, and the other neighboring states. The protestors will always be protesting something, and the hand wringers will always be hand wringing. (Most of our team opines that there are more pressing issues that humanity and the nation currently face that need to be addressed at this time.) The mountain West, and this corner of it in particular, is a magical place with the power to help put some of those everyday, very real stresses, back into perspective. Don’t let the complainers distract you or deter your plans.
Life’s simply too short – get out there and go fishing. We again offer our heartfelt thanks for your interest in our humble offerings here – The Best Fly Fishing Yellowstone Team.
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