TTFFT Week 2: The Gallatin

After spending a week presenting my thesis, defending my thesis, and attending a lab safety class at Montana State University in Bozeman, I had a week off to fish.  With it's close proximity to Bozeman, a good place to start was the Gallatin.  I met a classmate from Wisconsin the previous week who shared my passion for fly fishing--Randall Berndt, Randall was knowledgeable about the area and agreed to show me the ropes on the Gallatin.  The river below Taylor Fork was still high and stained, but we did not let this deter us.  On Sunday, we left Bozeman and traveled south through Gallatin Gateway on 191 toward West Yellowstone.  Our first stop was  the Swan Creek confluence pull off.  As we assembled our rods and donned our waders, two large Mule Deer bucks still in velvet jumped out of the woods and stood a mere twenty feet away from us.  They stared for a few moments and then disappeared.  "This is a good omen," Randall said.  I had to agree.
I had a little experience with high water fishing on the Spring River in Arkansas, but not to the degree Randall was about to introduce me to.  This is not finesse fishing by any stretch of the imagination.  0X-2X leaders with large, heavy flies and lots of BB shot.  We were on the cusp of the Salmonfly and Golden Stone hatches, so we fished tandem rigs with girdle bugs (rubber legs) and large nymphs.  Since the heavy flows were not conducive to wading, we spent the day jumping from rock-to-rock, keying on the rip-rap placed on the river's edge after construction of the highway.  The trout were close to the bank and the current swift so casting was not at a premium.  With the large, weighted rigs, the casts were more lobs than casts you'd see on a Lefty Kreh video.
Despite the difficulties, we caught fish.  Randy, of course, caught more than I did as he was clearly the superior angler in these conditions.  He has only fly fished for four years but is a heck of a caster and angler.  He is also just as crazy as I am and will not back down in his persistence to find trout water. 
As for me, I felt like a novice.  But, despite missing a lot of fish early on, I finally got used to the hardware, the cast, the drift and got into a groove.

We spent the next six hours moving from point to point on the river, moving south and finally ended up at Durnam Meadow, a gorgeous stretch of the Gallatin that was much more wade-friendly despite the high flows. 
At the end of the day we had brought twenty fish to net.  Mostly big-shouldered rainbows and a couple browns to boot.  Randy landed a nice whitie as well.  This was pretty good total considering the obstacles we faced that day.