This post was written for an old website I built about flyfishing on small streams. I’ve only updated misspellings and some grammar to make it more readable. I’ve tried to leave it intact as a lookback at who I was then.

never really was into fly-fishing, let alone in Oregon. Maybe twice a year my dad and I would make a trip up to a lake that we like, with our $30 air raft, and catch some small brookies. Things changed a few years ago.

My dad and I went on a cross country trip to see my grandma back in Memphis. We were really just traveling across the country on the way back, stopping at random places or heading to random places. Then My dad decided he wanted to go to Yellowstone. I was excited, I had seen shows before showing Yellowstone and I knew there was more than what those shows had shown. Luckly I had brought my fly rod along, not for trout, but for the pan fish in the south.

It’s a St. Croix Legend 9’ 4-weight. My dad got it for me for my birthday a year or so before this trip. Perfect for Yellowstone! We arrived at the front gate to YNP and for some reason I was really antsy, I had the bug, I NEEDED to fish. We got some brochures and they said you needed a YNP fishing licences to fish with in the park. So my dad and I headed to the general store to get a licence. I got one, but my dad didn’t (mine was free, I was only 12 or 13 at the time) figuring we would only be there for a few days to see the sites, plus he didn’t bring his rod.

Along with the licence I got a book too. Fly-Fishing Yellowstone By Clay something I forgot the authors names, I’m sure you know what book im talking about. Great book! While my dad was driving down the road from attraction to attraction I would look in the book for any streams on the way. We finally stopped at a little creek just outside Hayden valley, I think I can trust you guys enough to share the name, Blacktail Deer Creek. We stopped there, I pulled out my rod, and walked to the creek. I had never fished moving water before, so I didn’t really know what to do. The last few feet to the creek I dramaticaly walk/hunched/crawled to the edge, not wanting to scare the trout.

My dad crouched down next to me and told me to flip the adams over across to the other bank. This not being hard, the creek was 5 feet wide at most, I did it. The adams slowly drifted into the slow water, then disappeared. What just happened I thought, then I realized I better set the hook. I was amazed at how beautiful the brooky was, very very very vivid colors. I released him back into the stream feeling satisfied.

Over the next few days I caught numerous other brookies on other smaller than average streams. Then I returned to Oregon. I still had the fishing bug (and probably always will). Ever since then I have been fishing Oregon’s small streams, which are very different from those in YNP. Old growth forest, with a cascade style stream as oppose to a nice meandering meadow stream. I love both and will never get tired of a nice little unknown small stream.