Chasing a Rainbow Over Waterfalls
By Rod Petersen
I am often asked why I keep returning every year to work in Yellowstone National Park. The pay is mediocre at best, the tourists obnoxious, and the season short. Yet all the inconveniences seem minor when added up to a story like this.
It started with me coming off of a two-week shift guiding guests to fish on Yellowstone Lake. As this was my first official day off in over two weeks, and all I cared to think about was sleeping in. Unfortunately, I was rudely woken up by the sound of someone banging on my door at the ripe hour of 7:30 AM. Half falling out of bed, half dragging myself to the door, I open it to find both Connor and Coltin dressed in their fly-fishing gear. Connor is a tall man from Maine. I believe that the old additive “Get tough or Die” is reserved for that state's youth. As Connor is one of the toughest bastards I know. Connor also happens to be one of the best fishermen and guides I have ever had the pleasure to know. I tell all my guests that he sold his soul so that he could hold that title. Because unfortunately for the man, he cannot eat fish or drink beer. Both of which are like oxygen to a fisherman. He has a square face with a thick red beard, and almost always sporting a smile under it. He brings a sense of fun and adventure wherever he goes. He also has a knack at pushing everyone’s buttons. Regardless of if someone wanted him to or not. Connor is so good at causing trouble, he’d make a saint swear like a sailor after thirty minutes on any given river. Coltin on the other hand is shorter than Connor. He is from Indiana and carries himself in a way befitting the cowboys of the Old West. Had I not known it, I could have sworn he was the illegitimate child of Burt Reynolds. As his straw, Resistol Cowboy hat gave him the damn near appearance of Smokey and The Bandit. Here at my door both my friends hatched a plan to poach me so that there was a third member of their small party to down a river. I assume they wanted three as the odds of surviving a bear attack are increased through sheer numbers. After begrudgingly agreeing to go with them, I gathered my rod, kit, and waders and made my way toward the truck with my friends.
The next hour and a half went about as you imagine it would. With conversation commencing on fishing, women, hunting, and the occasional odd-ball topic followed by an agreement of grunts or the occasional, loud disagreeing statement. All-in-all, the ride was too short. The conversations were priceless. Yet vanished from my memory as we pulled into park near the river access. All the focus now turned to the river, and more importantly, the fish that resided within it.
A few important things to note, when approaching a river, one must approach it as if you are approaching fresh tracks on a hunt. One needs to observe for hatches of bugs, weather, sunlight conditions, and the composition of the river bottom. Connor knew this better than Coltin and I. and with this extensive knowledge, within ten minutes Connor had gracefully secured three small Brook Trout. Each with the most amazing displays of green, orange, and the blue and red rondella so well known to identify the Brook Trout species. Not long after Connor’s catches, Coltin had secured two small Brook Trout. With equally impressive coloration as the last few.
As for me, I was so burnt out from the last two weeks of helping guests and their ungrateful kids catch fish all day long, that I didn’t care for fishing in general. A statement that I thought I’d never say myself. Yet I was content just being present watching my friends catch fish and just spending the day by the river. We slowly proceeded to down the winding river. Along the way we fished the different pools and rock formations that the river provided for Brook Trout. Not far from where we initially entered the river and started fishing, Connor began to notice something was up with the way I had been acting and proceeded to question me thoroughly. All the while still pulling Brookie after Brookie from the river. Connor and I had been friends for quite a while, and I knew that his button-pushing this time was coming from a place of genuine concern for me and my fishing abilities. Throughout our conversation, Connor hatched a plan to explore the river in its entirety. His hope for me was that he would reignite the flame of fishing within me, but his personal desire was to find the massive tanks of fish that resided in some mystical pool deep within the river. Where no fisherman had been in over a hundred years. The quintessential dream of every fisherman to have ever roamed a river. So, Connor and I proceeded to walk further and further down the trail that snaked along the riverbank. This time with less fishing and more conversation taking place. As we kept this good footing on the trail along with good conversation, we forgot that we had but all abandoned our dear friend Coltin at our starting section of the river. Coltin had not seen or heard us leave. As a matter of fact, I do not believe even if he had heard us leave that he would have left where he was fishing. As Coltin seemed like a fixed point within the stream. Similar to a downed tree or a boulder one might see in the river. Holding its fixed point and becoming a permanent resident of the river itself.
Connor and I progressed further and further along down the trail until we reached a cliff which housed the distant sound of a waterfall. This piqued our curiosity, as we both discussed how we thought all the waterfalls in the Park were marked and named on maps. We proceeded to cache our fishing gear near a rock outcrop and make our way to the edge of the cliff for further inspection. Upon reaching the cliff’s edge we found a drop of 60 feet down to the water level and a magnificent array of rapids and rock formations. All coming together like an orchestrated symphony to the edge of a waterfall. The falls themselves were no more than a few feet tall but the finding of these unmarked falls was astonishing in of itself to us. Looking beyond the falls we saw a wide slow-moving river. Accompanied by pockets of land in the middle. The river itself shined like stained glass windows in a church on a Sunday afternoon. The colors shifted from blue to green, then purple, and yellow. Here, Connor and I began to discuss and speculate, as well as make wild assumptions as to the area and its inhabitants. After making this discovery it was decided that we were going to find a way to reach the river after the falls. As Connor stated that it was “to good to pass up”. We decided we would wait by the trail for our friend Coltin to catch up to us before we made any further progress bushwacking it to the river. After a short break of a David Allen Coe song and some water, both Connor and I began to wonder where Coltin was. Leaving our belongings at the cache we previously made, and making our way back up the river we discovered that Coltin, just like the downed tree or the boulder, had not budged an inch in his previous spot in the river. After much yelling and handwaving Coltin was brought out of his trance and we as three proceeded down the river again. After a short hike and finding a suitable trail to make our decent into the ravine we approached the river. We found ourselves in a part of the Park that felt like we had traveled back in time. It felt as if we were the only souls within the Park at all. This stretch of river came after the falls and had deep cut canyon walls on either side. There were a pockets and caves one could climb into and look around. These stood above the waterline by about twenty feet or so. The river itself was deep and fast moving, yet almost crystal clear. We proceeded to catch a multitude of small Brook Trout from this section. Each as fun as the last. We must have fished this section of the river for two hours just hootin’ and hollerin’ back in forth at each other after every catch. This alone made the day a successful fishing day.
Yet there was still more river to see, and more fish to be discovered. Connor decided that we should press on. Further down the river, the waters turned quick and deep. Carving its home out of the canyon walls. The only way to proceed down river was to cross a boulder field on the right-hand side of the bank. Here another waterfall was visible just downstream. Out of all of us Connor seemed the most at home. He could be seen almost skipping over the rocks, as I on the other hand, could be seen breathing heavily and crawling over each boulder I passed. At the bottom of the boulder field was another large section of the river. Here there was a mixture of thermal features and thermal runoff. The river composition was slightly different than above the previous falls as there were more brightly colored rocks and a lot more mud included in the bottom of the river than before. At the end of this section of there was yet another waterfall. It was here that Connor wanted to proceed down yet another waterfall in search of some elusive fish that swam through his dreams. It was also here that we noticed a storm approaching, and our small band needed to make a decisive decision. After much persisting from Connor and, then a short deliberation amongst the three of us, we unanimously agreed to proceed down the next waterfall in search of a personal record trout for one of the three of us. As Connor stated to the group, “We had come all this way already”. We thought there would be no harm in crossing a third waterfall. Especially if it meant the chance to catch more fish.
The falls itself looked like a set of six giant stairs. The water rushed over each one and the base of each set created deep pools. This was a magnificent sight. It was even more magnificent to see Connor just calmly walk down each step as if it was nothing more than going down a set of stairs at a hotel. Coltin and I on the other hand took the long way down on a trail following the side of the falls. It was here at the end of the trail that I witnessed something special. Connor waded over to the bank to tell Coltin and me how he planned to proceed fishing the pools that lay in between the falls. Few words were spoken after as with surgical-like precision Connor rapidly proceeded across the falls where he inserted himself at the base of one of the giant pockets. It was here that after just three casts I saw Connor hook into a fish. With a sudden jerk, the fish began to swim violently back and forth on the line for a moment before firmly planting itself in the depth of the pool. The weight of the falls and the fight of the fish kept Connor with his fly-rod in a tight check. Connor flawlessly finessed the fish away from the falls. Here with the skill of some acrobat, Connor proceeded to reach around his back to a fishing net attached to his backpack. All the while still performing an elaborate one-handed dance between the flyrod and the fish. In one fluid motion the dance stopped. As Connor scooped up the fish from the depths of the pool and revealed to us on the bank a beautiful Rainbow Trout. The fish was the largest we had seen all day. Besides its size the Rainbow Trout had an impressive coloration of pink and purple-like coloration. Matched with the classic black spots across the fish’s sides. The Rainbow Trout was a beautiful sight to behold, and to me, Connor, and Coltin it worth all the rock climbing and hiking just to see. After a few pictures Connor quietly released the Rainbow back into the pool from which he came from. There was an awe of silence as we watched the Rainbow Trout disappear into the dark depths of the pool beneath the falls. The only sound that could be heard was the sound of the waterfall crashing over the six sets of stairs down past where we stood and on down the river. That Rainbow Trout will never know how much it changed the day for me. I think Connor may have an idea. Connor’s persistence is proof that there is always something waiting for you on the other side, and that maybe there is not gold waiting, but a Rainbow.
