San Marcos — I made my first trip to Yellowstone National Park when I was 11 years old. I can still remember standing on fishing bridge where the lake joins the Yellowstone River and watching Dad catch a three-pound cutthroat trout.

The next day we took a guided trip on Yellowstone Lake and I caught my first cutthroat.

I also remember black bears being in the campground and “bear jams” as vehicles stacked up watching bears amble down the highway.

All of this is still a vivid memory and I wanted my granddaughters to experience the same events. So it was with keen anticipation that my wife Beth and our two granddaughters, Trinity, age 11, and Demaris, age 9, entered the hallowed grounds of America’s first and greatest national park.

Some things have changed since I first visited the park. The black bears have been removed. Only an occasional bear is seen. But grizzly bears still roam the park. These nasty-tempered bruins usually inhabit the more remote areas of Yellowstone.

The girls really wanted to see a bear. And they got their wish fulfilled the first afternoon. We headed toward the northeast corner of the park, hoping to see a wolf in the Lamar River Valley. But in the high country on the way we looked down a mountainside and spotted a grizzly. It was a big sow with two cubs.

We parked and walked back to watch her along with dozens of other visitors. Cameras were clicking constantly. My video camera recorded her and the cubs ambling along the side of the mountain.

Then she began to move up the hill toward the highway. She planned on crossing, but suddenly, tourists began to run and jump into their vehicles as she came right through the sightseers and on up the mountain.

A few minutes later we talked to a park ranger who was trying to get to the “bear scene” and set a corridor with two trucks for her to cross the highway.

“You’re too late,” I said. “She formed her own corridor real well.”

The girls were delighted to be able to see a grizzly, especially with cubs, at such close range. We saw lots of other wildlife, like herds of bison, bull elk in “velvet horns”, mule deer, antelope, and Canada geese. But the sow bear was what they considered the highlight.

We camped at Bay Bridge Campground so it didn’t take but a couple of minutes the next morning to be at the marina for our guided fishing trip on the biggest, coldest mountain lake in America.

A Florida fisherman named Tommy was our captain and guide on the 22-foot Grady White cabin boat. The previous day he had experienced over six-foot waves with his fishing party.

“In my seven years of guiding on Yellowstone Lake that was the most dangerous water I have been in,” he lamented.

But the wind had laid during the night and we had only a gentle breeze.

Most trout on Yellowstone trips are caught trolling. I hate to troll.

“I want these girls to catch trout, whatever it takes, but I hope we can do it without trolling,” I instructed.

After a long run across the lake, Tommy slowed the Grady to a slow crawl.

“We’ll troll one rod and ya’ll can cast spoons toward the shoreline,” he said.

Trolling was Tommy’s backup. I didn’t think he believed that my girls could really cast and catch fish. He quickly learned different.

After just a few casts with a yellow spoon, Trinity hooked a good lake trout. Demaris quickly followed suit with a nice colorful cutthroat. Soon after, Beth landed a trophy cutthroat that tipped the scales at near five pounds.

By the time we started back across the lake to the marina we had boated about 10 trout and lost several more. I caught my first lake trout.

Lake trout are considered an invasive species and must be retained. All our cutthroat were released to live and fight again.

When we packed the camper and departed out the South Gate two days later, everything that we had hoped to happen had taken place.

It will be a trip remembered by the granddaughters all their lives. Maybe they will take their grandchildren some day to Yellowstone.



Jim Darnell is an ordained minister and host/producer of the syndicated outdoors show, God’s Great Outdoors. His column appears every Thursday in the Daily Record.