Barns Hole Number Two

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Barns Hole Number Two is a famous fly fishing location on the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park.

Coming in from West Yellowstone, six-tenths of a mile into the Park, a road turns left, running narrowly and inconsequentially through the lodgepoles, around a curve, dropping down a little hill, across the flat to the river. Here begins three miles of truly excellent wet fly and nymph water. The first stretch, at the parking area across from a rocky bluff, is locally called Hole Number One, and the entire stretch is called "the Barns Holes," due to the fact that stagecoaches, horses and, later, busses, were kept here for trundling people into the Park. All are gone now, but the name remains.

To the left, downstream three-eighths of a mile, is Hole Number Two, a parking area and end of the road. Still another three-eighths of a mile by foot is Hole Number

Three, the last of the locally named or numbered holes, which in fact are deep, fast runs. There are actually seven or eight of these from Cable Car Run just above Hole Number One, to the Beaver Meadows about three miles downstream. But only the first three are named by locals because, in the 1920s when the limit was twenty-five fish, it wasn't necessary to go beyond Hole Number Three to fill your limit.