Yellowstoned

I took a weekday off from work and left early, to go do a little late
summer fishing
in the Park. Got there early enough to get to the lower end of Slough
Creek at about
7:30 am. Not a soul in sight. We saw fish cruising here and there. But
they weren't
in anyway feeding that early: no dimples, no flashing sides. Mostly
they were sitting
still, sometimes moving but no natural feeding and not much response to
flies.
Tried everything from itty bitty to huge, both wet and dry.

I did get a few nice cutthroats to follow a streamer, but not to bite.
The water was cool enough but low.

So we hiked out and drove up to look at Soda Butte.
Soda Butte was tiny, yet innundated with fishermen. There must
have been 100 parked cars (not all of them fishermen) and at way too
many fishermen along the creek. The water was so low you could see from
the highway the fish would all be crowded into the few deep holes there
are,
and each deep hole had at least one fisherman.

The upper end of the Lamar was one fisherman after another. We didn't
hike
up toward Cache Creek, which might have worked. But the meadow itself
was a disaster. The water was so low there were 3-4" deep riffles a
half a mile
long, with all the fish concentrated into the few deep spots left. And
each deep hole
had two or more fisherman already there. We saw one nice 20" cutthroat
dead
and belly up in shallow water, cartwheeling down a riffle.

When the water is deeper the fish spread out into a variety of holding
spots.
But when it is this shallow and low they're all concentrated in obvious
spots,
that seem to be getting hammered all day long, one fisherman after
another.

I'm not going back. Not during low water conditions like this.
I don't think anybody should.