I've never fished in grizzly country before. The towering peaks of Yellowstone, the seemingly endless streams and rivers, and the bison nonchalantly grazing by the river are all unique experiences in and of themselves. Add in the thrill of chasing the Yellowstone cutthroat, and you're in for one hell of a ride.

Seth and I are in the park, hired to film a documentary for my good friend Chester Moore and his non-profit, the Wild Wishes Program. He takes youth who are going through challenging times on expeditions into iconic wildlife areas to give them hope and to show them that the world really is a wonderful place once you step outside and see all the wildlife and wild places that exist.

While on assignment, it's difficult to find time to fish. It's a "take what you can get" situation, but I wasn’t going to pass on the chance to fish in such an iconic place. I packed the essentials: my custom 5wt, some flotant, forceps, and one small spool of 5x tippet. The rest was a box of homemade flies I'd been teaching myself to tie over the months leading up to the trip.

I researched all the basic trout flies and tried to get about 4 to 5 of each to bring along. There are your Adams dry fly, the parachute Adams, hoppers, elk hair caddis (with elk hair I found on the ground while hiking in the redwoods), copper johns, and a variety of midges. I am a huge proponent of the K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid) method.

As we entered Yellowstone, the breathtaking scenery, the wildlife, and a landscape that makes my native Ohio feel like a Walmart parking lot were enough to make this trip worth the time and effort. But once I saw the water, I started shaking like an alcoholic in the morning. I could see riffles, rapids, and holes at every bridge we crossed, and I knew they all held trout. Unfortunately, when you're working and have a limited window to get a lot done, fishing has to take a back seat. Being responsible is hard, and I rarely do it, but Seth and I only had three days to film essentially the entirety of Yellowstone, so there wasn’t much of a choice.

After two and a half days of nonstop travel from Ohio to Denver, to driving the entire length of Wyoming with an intense filming schedule, there was finally a break in the action. We packed our filming equipment into our rental and unloaded our fly gear. I don’t know how to explain it, but no matter if I have 5 minutes or 5 hours to fish, I always feel like I am rushing when I start putting my rod together. The water pulls at me like I am missing something, like if I take too long to get set up the fish will know and no longer bite. I know that if I were to slow down and patiently put the rod together, the process would go faster and more smoothly, but I can’t help myself.

There were hordes of fly fishermen crowding the rivers. Seth and I decided to stack our rods in the car and keep driving until the herds thinned out. About 20 minutes past the “hot spots,” we found an offshoot of the Lamar River that didn't show any signs of life. It was a rocky flat that allowed us to fish from the banks of the river since we didn’t have room in our bags to pack wading boots and waders. We made our way across the uneven rocks in an attempt to keep from falling and snapping our rods in half.

The first 15 minutes held nothing. The wind was strong down in the valley where we were, and I saw gray grasshoppers all along the bank. I tied on my own half-assed imitation, but I didn't get any strikes. The hardest part about tying flies is knowing the size of what you're attempting to imitate. Grasshoppers here can be big, and in other places they can be small, so I just have to use my best guess and hope I am relatively close. I am still under the impression that size and depth are more important to the fish than the artistic integrity of the fly you are using, but I may be in the minority on that one.

After hammering on some prime trout-looking spots, I decided to add a dropper with a size 18 purple midge. My first trout, a tiny brown caught in the Big Thompson River near Estes Park, Colorado on a similar filming job, was caught on a hopper-dropper rig that was all purple, so whether logically or sentimentally, purple is my go-to color for tying anything trout-related (insert your favorite fishing superstition here). Almost immediately, I landed a small cutthroat, my first time seeing one in person. I had to ride the line of awe and admiration, with getting the fish back to live its life for yet another day. Sometimes I just want to stare at and examine a fish for an inordinate amount of time, but then I realize I am essentially torturing them, and I should probably put them back in the water before they croak.

Seth decided to move upstream, and I walked a few yards further downstream to explore some deeper water. After fifteen minutes of casting, I saw a big flash on my midge. I lifted the rod and felt the spine-jolting feeling of the line going tight. If you fish enough, you know when you have something nice on, and I could feel that this was the biggest trout I had ever had on the end of my fly rod.

I fought it gently because I didn't want to horse it in like the smallmouth and largemouth bass I am used to hammering on back in Ohio. I let it run, keeping minimal tension, hoping against all hope that it wouldn't work itself free. Once I got eyes on the fish, my heart started racing. It was absolutely the largest trout I'd ever had on my line. I didn't have a net, so I set the rod down on the rocks and kept the leader tight in my hand, keeping tension, hand-lining the fish in the rest of the way, a trick I learned from Ryan Johnston, author of “A Reel Job” and “Reelly,” except in his case it was a 160 lb marlin off the coast of California.

It was a gorgeous Yellowstone cutthroat. I was shocked at how beautiful this fish was. I see them all the time on social media, and I knew they were stunning fish, but holding one in your hand is an entirely different experience. I gently pulled it out of the water near the shore, reached in my pocket to grab my phone to take a photo, and as I got the camera ready and pulled it out of the water to snap a brief photo, the slipperiest fish in the world wiggled hard and wriggled free from my hand, off into the cold waters of Yellowstone to live another day.

Fishing isn't all about photos, though. I will never forget that fish. Fishing is one of those things I am simply content with. As a professional videographer and photographer, I enjoy taking photos for my memory and to use in writings like this, but if I don’t get a photo, I also am not heartbroken. It doesn't really matter if anyone believes me or not because the experience in and of itself was worth it. In a world so wrapped up in instant gratification, bragging, and photoshopped lives, it’s a good reminder that you can enjoy things sometimes without anyone knowing about them.

To be able to, in a brief window, thousands of miles from home, tie all your own flies, research how to fish a certain region, and make it happen is an astounding feeling in and of itself. Yellowstone cutthroat are beautiful fish that should be cherished by everyone. Currently, there are "hoot owl" regulations on many rivers in Yellowstone due to excessive heat and low water flows, directly related to climate change. Rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns have led to prolonged periods of heat and drought, causing water temperatures to soar and stream flows to dwindle. Unfortunately, this pattern is becoming more frequent, with higher runoff earlier in the season followed by extended hot and dry periods, which further strain the aquatic ecosystems and the trout, which are a cold-water species.

As an angler and conservationist, I hate to see this happening to such an iconic place and likewise iconic species. We really need to start taking things more seriously if we want to be able to continue to fish for Yellowstone trout or any trout species for that matter. I don’t like being preached at, and I don't like to preach, but this is a very serious issue. As beautiful as Yellowstone is, it was disheartening to see the sky ravaged by wildfire smoke and the rivers being restricted due to human recklessness.

Yellowstone is a wholly unique place not only in America but on planet Earth. It holds an astoundingly diverse array of wildlife, from bison to wild sheep, to grizzlies to wolves. It has the iconic Yellowstone cutthroat, beautiful brook trout, rainbows, and browns. It was created by us, for us, and for the enjoyment of everyone in this amazing country and the world. If you ever get the chance, grab your fly rod, your hiking boots, or your camera and experience it for yourself. Best go sooner than later.