page_title: Angling in Yellowstone National Park
section_title: Outfitters and writers
hierarchical_section_title: Angling in Yellowstone National Park / History / Outfitters and writers
caption_attribution_description: Bud Lilly's Trout Shop, West Yellowstone, MT (2007)
context_page_description: Angling in Yellowstone National Park is a major reason many visitors come to the park each year and since it was created in 1872, the park has drawn anglers from around the world to fish its waters. In 2006, over 50,000 park fishing permits were issued to visitors. The park contains hundreds of miles of accessible, high-quality trout rivers containing wild trout populations—over 200 creeks, streams and rivers are fishable. There are 45 fishable lakes and several large lakes are easily accessible to visitors. Additionally, the park's remote sections provide anglers ample opportunity to visit rivers, streams, creeks and lakes that receive little angling pressure. With the exception of one specially designated drainage, all the park's waters are restricted to artificial lures and fly fishing. The Madison, Firehole and a section of the Gibbon rivers are restricted to fly fishing only.
  Anglers visiting the park to fish will encounter westslope cutthroat, Yellowstone cutthroat, rainbow, brown, brook and lake trout, mountain whitefish and Arctic grayling. The park's fishing season runs from the Saturday in May associated with Memorial Day to the first Sunday in November each year.
context_section_description: Yellowstone National Park and its rivers and lakes have always been a mecca for serious fishermen, especially fly fishermen.  The literature and popular press of the sport has extensive references to fishing adventures in park waters.  Many of the serious writers in the sport used park waters to test, prove and write about new techniques, equipment and fly patterns. The great angling in the park spawned outfitters in the towns outside the park such as West Yellowstone, Livingston, Gardiner and Jackson.
  In 1936 and 1937, a British businessman and fly fisherman who emigrated to New York in 1930 by the name of Howard Back visited the park and compiled the first real assessment of the various waters and what the fly fisherman could expect from them.  In his The Waters of the Yellowstone with Rod and Fly (1938), Back described his fishing experiences on what he called the Four Rivers which include the Madison, Firehole and Gibbon rivers, as well as the Yellowstone River.  Prior to Back's work, the only available serious reference for anglers was a 1921 Bureau of Fisheries publication entitled The Fishes of the Yellowstone National Park—With Description of Park Waters and Notes on Fishing, a publication that Back encouraged all prospective anglers visiting Yellowstone to read,
  In 1938, at the same time Back was publishing his work, Dan Bailey, another eastern angler was opening Dan Bailey's fly shop in Livingston, Montana 55 miles (89 km) north of the Gardiner park entrance.  Although Dan Bailey guided and serviced fly fisherman throughout South Central Montana, much of his business was guiding and outfitting fishermen in Yellowstone National Park.  Dan Bailey's Fly Shop is still in business today servicing anglers visiting Yellowstone.
  Although West Yellowstone had become the major tourist entrance to the park since the Oregon Short Line began operations in 1907, the establishment of serious fly fishing outfitters in West Yellowstone didn't occur until the mid-1930s when Don Martinez, the fly tier who popularized the Woolly Worm, opened a seasonal, one-room fly shop. In 1947, a fly fisherman and tier who worked for Martinez, Pat Barnes, opened a full-time fly shop, which today is Bob Jacklin's Fly Shop on the corner of Yellowstone and Canyon streets. The real landmark came in 1952 when a young man from Manhattan, Montana by the name of Bud Lilly opened Bud Lilly's Trout Shop on the corner of Madison and Canyon Streets (formerly Don Martinez's Tackle Shop).  Lilly guided anglers, taught fly casting and outfitted anglers in Yellowstone for 35 years and did more than anyone else in the 1950–70s to promote fly fishing and fisheries conservation in Yellowstone throughout North America.  Many of the great post-WWII era anglers first came to Yellowstone and the West because of Bud Lilly's Trout Shop and his writings.
  Gardiner, Montana, although not the size or draw of West Yellowstone, got its own local fly fishing shop in 1953 when Merton J. Parks opened Parks' Fly Shop.  Still operating today and run by his son, Richard Parks, Parks' Fly Shop and its guides have contributed significantly to the angling history of the park with the publication of Fishing Yellowstone National Park—An Angler's Complete Guide to More than 100 streams, rivers and lakes (1998).
  Many well-known angling authors have written about their experiences in Yellowstone National Park.  Howard Back was the first, but many influential anglers used Yellowstone as a backdrop for their angling stories, adventures and technical work.
  Ray Bergman, the angling editor of Outdoor Life magazine, was a fan of the Firehole River and gave it many pages of coverage in his work Trout (1938, 1952). Here's a typical passage describing his fishing experiences in the Midway Geyser Basin section of the Firehole:
  ...Then came an experience that was new to me.  By this time I had reached within casting distance of a sizable boiling spring and could see its waters mingling with those of the stream. Close to the wrinkle caused by the meeting of the hot spring and the cold water I saw a t
caption: Bud Lilly's Trout Shop, West Yellowstone, Montana (2007)
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