montana trout fishing Archives - Unaccomplished Angler

This week’s Drivel® is intentionally out of sequence. By that I mean that what I’m writing about here, now, happened after what I will write about next week. It’s a trick I learned from George Lucas, who created the Star Wars series and released movies that were not in a chronological order. It worked for George, why not for the Unaccomplished Angler?

We departed West Yellowstone on Monday around 7 AM under cloudy, cold skies that were still spitting snow that had begun 24 hours earlier and hadn’t really let up much. Suffice it to say Sunday had been a bit miserable, and we hoped that down lower in the Madison Valley things would be warmer and drier. We didn’t hold out much hope for the latter, but it was certain to be warmer. After stopping in at Blue Ribbon Flies for our Montana fishing licenses and some intel, we bade fairwell to the Ho Hum and Yellowstone for another year. A few miles down the road we passed by a heard of Tatonkas and their calves, who had to be thinking that recent life in the womb was way better than this.

The westbound drive along Hebgen Lake was made all the more beautiful by the strange phenomenon of parting clouds that revealed blue sky. We rejoiced in the splendor and began to get our hopes up.

Further west, as we dropped into the Quake Lake basin, our hopes were dashed as it began to snow again.

The skies continued to darken as we passed by the Earthquake Slide area, which looked a lot different the previous year.

But as we descended further and the valley began to unfold before us, the skies cleared once again, and the rejoicing resumed.

We turned left and headed down the dirt road toward Three Dollar Bridge. As we rounded a bend what should we see but an empty parking lot! Being that it was Memorial Day, we expected at least a few other rigs. We chalked up the solitude to the bad weather from the day before that was forecast to persist on this day. Insert continued rejoicement here.

The wind saw to it that there was bite in the air, but the weather was much better than anticipated as we geared up. It was dry. It’s always a nice thing when you can gear up without getting rained or snowed upon. After a team photo, we set off upstream to watch Marck catch fish.

UA, Marck, Nash, Jimmy and Stan the Goosemeister

And it didn’t take long before he’d hooked his first. Per standard operating procedure I set down my rod and sprinted to ~~his aid to help him land a nice 17 inch rainbow and~~ snap a photo. History has a way of repeating itself, but I vowed to stop there.

Hooray, Hooray- it's Marck's first fish of the day!

I quickly moved farther upstream away from him. Out of sight and out of earshot. I was not here to photograph Marck’s fish. I was here to catch my own. But not before I had the privilege of photographing Nash’s first Madison fish. Nice fish. Congrats! Damn you, Nash. I retreated further.

Nash pops his Madison River cherry. Note the jacket properly worn on outside of waders.

There can be no greater beauty than fishing within spitting distance of majestic mountains on a day when the sun is temporarily winning it’s battle against the clouds. I reminded myself that there is more to fishing than catching fish as I basked in the glory of Montana.

Very quickly, however, it became clear that things were not going my way as I had not had a bump all morning. The only time my indicator went down was when my fly snagged on something in some fairly deep, fairly fast water. There seemed no sane way to retrieve the snagged fly, so I gave a gentle tug. Then another not so gentle tug. Finally the leader snapped, leaving my indicator and both flies to rest in a watery grave. Great. Salt in the wound. I sat down to ~~sulk~~ splice my tippet and added a new Thingamabobber and two flies. I drifted my new setup through the same seam three times. There had to be a fish there. It looked too good. And then it happened- the indicator went down! I set the hook and was immediately met with total, unyielding resistance. It was either Roderick Hawg Brown, or…the same snag I’d just lost my tackle to 5 minutes earlier. It was no brown trout. The emotional wound was gaping at this point, and copious amounts of salt poured in. However, I refused to lose it all this time around so I set my rod down on the bank and gingerly waded a few feet toward the source of the snagged tackle. I was willing to risk a dunking as a matter of saving what little pride I had left, and as I firmly but gently pulled on the leader, something began to give under the force of the river’s current. Gradually the end of a heavy, water-logged stick began to show itself. I pulled ever so steadily until the stick emerged and I was able to grab it. To my delight I was able to retrieve two Thingamabobbers, two Pat’s Stones and two San Juan Worms.

It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless and I celebrated by heading downstream toward the parking lot for lunch. Along the way I ran into Jimmy, Nash, and Marck. They had all caught at least a couple fish already. A short distance down the trail we encountered Stan The Goosemeister, who wore the unmistakable look of Madison River frustroution. He vowed to remain where he was to finish working some nice water while the rest of us returned to the car for lunch, where we ate under sunny skies and moderate temps. It felt good to be dry and warm. A few minutes later we were joined by Stan who wore a fish eating grin. His dedication had paid off as he’d just landed a nice brown. That left only yours truly without the smell of trout on his hands.

After lunch Marck and I crossed the bridge and headed upstream. We leap-frogged each other along the way, which means that I fished below Marck, who would catch a fish. Then I would pass him en route to the next hole and not catch a fish. Then he would pass me and catch a fish. And repeat.

Oh, hey look- Marck has another fish on!

Meanwhile, Nash, Jimmy and Stan fished elsewhere and caught some fish.

One of Jimmy's fish.

Stan's 20 inch fish.

After 2.5 more hours of fishing, the unmistakable smell of skunk began to permeate my Gore-tex® outer barrier. The pressure was too much. I decided to withdraw from the one-sided competition and told Marck I was going to start fishing my way back downstream. His plan was to continue moving upstream, catching several more fish for another hour before heading to the rig. As I worked my way back through water that had just been covered effectively by Marck, I acknowledged that it was all in vain—it was astronomically unlikely that I’d catch a fish. The Madison had not been kind to me the previous two years, but I had at least managed one fish on each visit. My chances of equaling that modest goal this year were slim. And then came the first of the two trees.

Exhibit A: The First Tree

If one had a dollar for every tree that lines the banks of the Madison River in this area, one would have about three dollars. In other words the banks of the Madison near Three Dollar Bridge are not heavily laden with trees. While there is considerable brushy cover for snagging flies on a bad back cast, the number of actual trees can be counted on one hand. When I came to one of those trees I drifted my fly on the outside edge of a partially submerged log (Exhibit A). Instantly my indicator went down, and instantly I thought the worst. However, this time whatever had snagged my fly actually moved when I set the hook. The result was a 16 inch brown that took the worm. I ~~relieved some pressure~~ breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I had upheld my fishing honor by equaling my previous catch rate. The Unaccomplished Angler was BACK, baby!

Exhibit B: The First Fish

There was a bit of a skip in my step as I moved downstream another 30 yards to the next tree.

Exhibit C: The Second Tree

Within 5 minutes, and in view of the tree than had just produced the respectable brown, I was granted a second opportunity to land a fish. With water temps hovering around 44 degrees, neither of these fish were what I would call game fighters. The fish on the Firehole (coming next week), though considerably smaller, put up a much better fight pound for pound. But a thick fish with a muscular tail in heavy water can put up considerable resistance when they don’t want to be caught, and my 6 wt was in no way too much rod for these fish in these waters. After playing the fish carefully, I succeeded in landing the 17 inch rainbow. And there followed considerable rejoicing, even though I was alone.

Exhibit D: The Second Fish

Forty minutes later I was back at the rig, removing boots and waders and trying not to be too impressed with my angling accomplishments. After all, 2 fish in 7 hours of fishing isn’t exactly impressive. My ego was also kept in check as we compared notes. The tally for the day was:

Jimmy – 6 hooked, 5 landed: 2 rainbows and one brown in the 14-16” range, one brown in the 16-18” range and one brown approximately 20-13/16”.
Nash – 5 fish landed: 2 in the 16-18″ range, 1 fish 9-10″, another fish 12-13″ and one 19-20 inch hawg.
Stan the Goosemeister – 4 hooked, 2 landed: The biggest was 20″ and the second 16″ (which really means they were 16″ and 12″).
Marck alleges to have landed around 25 fish. I believe most were over 25 inches, and at least two were steelhead.

It rained on us a few times during the day, but nothing that had persisted. The wind had blown off and on, but was nothing to complain about. We reflected on the fact that it had been a good day as we stowed gear for the next leg of our journey which took us to Ennis. We were looking forward to a repeat burger performance at the Roadmaster Grill, however, the Roadmaster had been replaced by the Gravel Bar Grill. While the food was good, we were disappointed because we were jonesin’ for a Kong Burger and to find out how much more weight the owner of the Roadmaster had lost since last year. Guess we’ll never know.

After enjoying our meal we pushed on toward Missoula for lodging – nothing to get too excited about there. It was just a necessary part of the drive home.

On each of the previous two years I came away from Three Dollar Bridge with feelings of self pity for having caught only one fish all day, and deep resentment toward Marck for his uncanny ability to yard fish at nearly every spot. This year my self pity was cut in half, which helped to ease the resentment I harbor toward Marck. And when you’re in Montana, just look around you. Life is good.