I started out another beautiful Sunday at the East Gallatin Recreation Area on the north end of Bozeman. Its a pretty large area with a good sized pond and an extensive trail system that go around the pond and to plenty of spots on the East Gallatin.
I arrived around 10am and started out to the East Gallatin from the pond area. I walked to the southern most part of the trail and worked my way through the brush to the river. The first spot I came to the river was still very high, murky and fast so I continued my search. As I continued along the river I quickly realized most of the trails along the river were flooded and the river was probably too high to fish. Thus being very similar to my previous experience at the Gallatin Forks access.
Besides that this a popular area for homeless to camp out so I had to walk through their camps to get anywhere and they were littered with trash. It was quite disgusting and upsetting to see the messes they made. There was a couple spots i wanted to fish but they were occupied by homeless people at the time. So between the river being too high and the homeless I ended up only fishing one spot towards the end of the trail.
After fishing there for 15 minutes I said to farewell to the river and checked out the pond. I found a nice little spot between the brush on the pond which was close to the parking area on the southeast side. Probably fished there for about a half hour with no action. Then packed it up to meet with a friend at the Bozeman Hot Springs.
Around 4pm later in the day I made it up to Hyalite Canyon where I just fished the creek right at the entrance. Its where there is a a parking lot and little visitors area. Theres a trail where you can cross the creek by crawling across a tree that fell across it. There is a nice fishing hole on that side of the creek where I’ve had luck before. Well this time was no different as I bagged two brookies not long after starting fishing. One was good size about a foot long and the other was smaller about 8 inches. Probably fished there for a hour then packed it up finally feeling good about catching something. So thats it a good solid day of fishing and exploring. Be sure to checkout the highlight reel on instagram and tiktok at reeltmtfish and full length video on youtube at tmtfish. Thanks for reading!
Travis