Big Water, Big Fish

Well, there are some sure signs it's spring in Montana.  It must be Mother Nature is moody as hell lately.  Earlier last week the temperatures topped 80 degrees.  As you can imagine this really got the snow melting which in turned stained all of our rivers brown.  It is not impossible to catch fish under these conditions but why try when we are blessed with great spring still-water fishing.  Spring is a great time to fish lakes.  The ice is off and the fish are prowling the shallows where a fly caster can present them with deceivingly tasty morsels.  When you throw rainbow trout into this equation you complicate things.  Although they should be hungary from a long winter, but they have spawning on the brain and some take some convincing to eat.  I guess I understand this...would you be thinking about a cheeseburger if a pretty lady wanted to spawn with you?

So Noah and I mounted up in the old Dodge Ram and headed out of Bozeman toward Canyon Ferry.  Part of Noah's love for these little trips is the special diet he gets when fishing.  I generally throw out all the rules and let him have stuff that is otherwise contraband.  He grabbed a root beer and some powdered sugar donuts for the 1 hour drive to the lake.

When we pulled up to the lake shore I was surprised to see no other fisherman in sight.  Canyon Ferry is one of the hardest fished waterbodys in Montana so this was amazing.  Then I realized why.  It was about 35 degrees and the wind was howling.  The lake was covered in white caps and some waves reached 3 feet.  It was going to be a tough day, but as I told Noah, "We are tough men!"  

I bundled Noah in full on ski gear, snow pants, boots, hat, gloves the works.  I brought two rods for Noah.  One rigged for throwing lures and the other for bobber fishing with night crawlers. (I know, but you have to catch the boy some fish if its that darned cold!)

I rigged the fly rod with a red blood work tied to a 9 foot leader.  From the lead fly I trailed a egg pattern about 12 inches behind.  I placed a strike indicator about 5 feet above the first fly and prepared to do battle with the gale.

Things started pretty slow.  On a calm day a person could sight fish for these rainbows, but with the rough seas, this was impossible.  Its hard not to get discouraged.  Canyon Ferry is immense in size and it seems like scratching a lottery ticket.  Its daunting to think that somehow a fish is going to find your tiny little fly in that amount of water.  But they did.  

We found a small bay protected from the wind somewhat.  I was able to cast 30 to 40 feet of line.  Then it was simply a game of patience and concentration.  I would strip in a few feet at a time and then just let the indicator bob in the surf.  I was moving slowly down the shore line, kind of trolling my fly 20 feet off shore when the first fish hit.  What I sensation!  These were heavy fish.  No they did not take off screaming to the middle of the lake, but the sheer power of these things was great.  The fish had taken the red blood worm, which in my opinion imitates a chronomid.  Noah was jacked, and immediately asked me to fish in my spot.  The fish was beautiful.  A classic colored rainbow with a disproportionate sized tail.  I did not have a tape with me but she had to have been close to 20 inches.  But it was not the length of these fish that made them big, it was there linebacker like physiques.  They were so thick!  That first fish must have weighed 4 to 5 pounds.

Unfortunately (and surprisingly) The old bait and lure thing never paid off for Noah.  He had a short period of jealousy and frustration, but I reminded him that we were a team and when either of us caught fish it was a victory.  His spirits eventually lifted and he finally stopped fishing and began watching me and waiting for the next highlight.  

In the grand scheme of things the fishing was not exactly red hot.  We only caught 3 fish in 5 hours but it was more than worth it.  This fish took the fly hard and were a thrill to catch.  As I set the hook on the final fish and it thrashed the surface near shore, Noah shouted, "Dad! You are awesome!"  That is the best part of children...their naive minds.  I am certainly not an awesome fly fisherman, but to Noah I am, and thats all that matters.

Happy Easter Noah

After we got home from the trip to the ranch, we loaded the rest of the family up and turned around and headed south to Gardiner to spend easter with Brenda's family.  After being away and fishing for the past two days I left the rods at home. (What?!!)

We spent a nice easter morning being with family, hunting for easter eggs and eating.  As evening approached, I began to get the itch.  Noah did to apparently because he began to working on his Grandpa to go fishing that evening.  It turned into a guys night out.  Noah and I, my brother and laws Jason and Kenneth and Grandpa Gary took a short drive 5 miles north and got on the Yellowstone to do some spin fishing.  Remember, we left the fly rods at home.   I remember thinking to myself, "I guess its ok if I cheat just once and fish with shiny metal and treble hooks.  I anticipated hot and fast action and honestly was kind of excited after making about 500 casts to catch 2 fish earlier that week in central Montana.  I deserved it.

After fishing for a good 45 minute only one of us even had a fish on.  Ken has hooked a small fish that got off near the shore.  Noah was going to work.  He was not happy to stand in one spot and cast.  He was working the water, making bomb like cast over half way across the river.  I was about 100 yards from him when I heard the splash.  A large fish was thrashing the surface near the center of the river.  Attached to this fish was a fishing line, followed by a pole which was held by a 6 year old boys intensely working his reel.  He maneuvered his rod to keep the tension on the fish.  The whole time he hadn't said a word.  The fish was on the bank by the time I got to him.  He turned and looked at me with a smile on his face and said rather calmly "biggest fish of my life."  It certainly was.  He had landed a beautiful brown trout.  I pulled a tape measure on it and it measured just over 17 inches.  The fish was in great shape, thick and heathy with beautiful red speckling against his chrome flanks.  

Grandpa caught a small cutthroat later that evening and I managed land a 6 incher.  Noah was the king and he was very proud.  The fish of his young lifetime.  When we got back he showed everyone the picture, told everyone the story and asked me to make a few phone calls to tell some other people of his epic accomplishment.  I could not imagine a better easter present for a boy.

Central Montana

  With a 4 day weekend at hand, I decided to go visit my dads ranch in central Montana.  Gracee actually hitched a ride up on Wednesday and Noah and I followed her Thursday after school.  We spent some time at the ranch and helped with a few ranch chores.  One great bonus to this trip was the somewhat unknown brown trout fishery only minutes from my dads front door.

This steam is technically a river but is very small in size.  It is much like the East Gallatin near Bozeman.  It is a winding water, characterized by riffles, run and undercut banks.  At first glance one would never guess that lurking in these waters are big brown trout.  The standard FWP info claims that fish average 10 inches in this river.  But an inside source who had fished the river last spring said that it was more like 16-18 inches.  Others report fish in the 5 pound range being caught frequently.  When fish are getting this big it is not unlikely that there are some 30 inch fish in this thing!

Noah and I set out with much excitement and anticipation.  We first arrived on the river at mid day.  Noah was casting lures and I began swinging streamers.  4 hours later, Noah and I trudged home...fishless.

The water was fairly muddy, and the day was very warm and bright.  These were also brown trout and they are not known for feeding out in the open on a bright sunny day.  Noah was pretty much over it.  The stream was hard for him to fish.  It was narrow and brushy and he snagged up quite often.  He did give it a valiant  try and I am always impressed with the diligence that he displays for being so young.

He was tired so I drove him back to the house.  It was now almost 6 p.m and I did not want to end it that way.  I figured the evening would be better anyway.  I drove back down to the river and began working the banks with big streamers.  A lot of casts went by before finally a got  a hook up.  The fish fought hard and it was defiantly larger than any of the fish I had caught so far this year.  I landed the fish and pulled a quick tape on it.  It was just a touch over 15 inches.  Not a big fish by any means but after so many fish-less hours I was feeling like a just caught a steelhead.  This fish did create one milestone for me.  It was the first fish I have caught on a fly that I tied myself, a black and green woolly bugger.  I released the fish a fished on with a little more adrenaline in my veins.

It took another 2 hours to strike pay dirt again.  By now the excitement of the last fish had worn off and I was beginning to tire.  The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky.  I had no more luck on the self tied wooly bugger so I went bigger and brighter.  I tied on a natural and yellow double bunny and went to work with it.  I spotted a deep undercut bank and casted across and slightly upstream.  I mended once to let the fly sink and then let it swing into the deep water adjacent to the opposite bank.  I suddenly felt a jolt unlike anything I had felt in a long time.  This fish had my rod bent double and made a quick run that took about 30 feet of line.   I actually had to strain to keep the rod tip up.  I finally landed the fish.  It was by far the biggest fish I had caught on my fly rod in a number of years.  I taped it at 19 inches.  Once again, not a trophy trout, but under the difficult circumstances I was thrilled.  I released the fish and being a little caught up in the moment, looked toward the beautiful evening sky and spoke out loud..."Thank you."

Skunked in the Bear Trap

I spent the past week planning a little fishing trip.  Noah and I were due for an all day outing that would take us further than our typical 1/2 day trips to the East and West Gallatin.  Being that we live only a 20 minute drive from one of the most famous trout rivers in the world, I decided it is probably time that we fished the Madison.  I am embarrassed to say that after living here for almost 6 years and in the state my entire life, I had never fished this river.

I began thinking and researching were on the river to fish.  I looked up a few fishing reports and contemplated a few options.  Being it was early February I decided that the head of Bear Trap Canyon just below Ennis Dam would be a logical choice.  I friend also informed me that the river was more defined there and one could wade the bank and fish the pocket water in the canyon.  This sounded perfect for a day out with Noah.

I of course then began to read about the monster fish that reportedly stalked the tail waters immediately below the dam.  The thought of even the possibility of hooking a lunker gets me a little excited and I might get a little carried away with my imagination.  Needless to say I was pretty excited as Noah and I packed the truck and headed towards Ennis early Sunday morning.

This would be the first time that Noah would only take his fly rod.  I hoped we could get at least one fish so he could receive the gratification that he has seemed to obsess about lately.

The drive over was absolutely beautiful.  As you drop into the Ennis area it seems all you can see is beautiful mountains surrounding the ice covered waters of Ennis Lake.

We parked the truck in the Canyon at 9:30 and there were no other fisherman in sight.  This is what I had wanted, even though the fish would probably not be very active until about noon.  

The canyon was beautiful.  It reminded me a lot of Yankee Jim Canyon near my hometown of Gardiner.  We waded and fished through various riffles and pockets with no luck.  Noah stuck to the red san juans while I experimented with some black stone flys trailed by various small nymphs.   Not a single strike all morning.

We ate lunch in the truck at about 11:30.  Suddenly fisherman began appearing all over the place.  By the time we had finished lunch there were 6 fisherman fishing the short stretch we had spent the morning on.  We waited patiently for a guy to move from a nice spot that we had not covered yet.  We decided to set up shop there and work the spot hard.

Noah struggled through his day of casting.  He did well at times, but the waters were a little advanced for him.  He rarely was able to get his flys to were fish might be.  We tried everything, nymphs, streamers and even a dry fly in response to a few random rises that occured.

Under less crowded circumstances I would have started to work down the canyon further, but it seemed like everytime we would head to a new spot, 1 or 2 fisherman were on it.  I really don't like fishing in crowds and to tell you the truth I don't really know the rules and etiquette of it all. Plus I had the little guy with me and we needed more space.  You never know when a 6 year old is going to get board and chuck a big rock into the river and ask you if you heard that fish jump!  Probably not a part of crowd fishing etiquette.

We gave up.  We called it good at about 1:30.  We drove back down the Madison and tried a few pull offs on the lower river, but once again...crowded with fisherman.  I either need to get more use to this or stay away from the Madison.  This is February mind you, the "off season". Imagine what it looks like in August!

We did stop and make a few cast from a boat put in.  The river below the canyon turns into a wide spanning indecipherable riffle with no real obvious holding areas.  I put a huge nasty double bunny on and swung it through the current for about 30 minutes.  I was brought back from my building depression by a huge strike.  I set the hook but had apparently missed.  I got back into it again.  I mean any bad day can be saved by a 20 inch brown.  Two cast later another jolt...and then nothing.  I made at least 20 more swings but nothing.  Noah was over it by now and was now on a mission to collect as many dried cattails as possible to make his little sister a fishing pole...uh ya, he had lost interest.  Who could blame him, six hours on the water and...nothing.

We loaded back into the truck and limped home, tails tucked, ears back...defeated.  But, as always Noah showed his appreciation by telling me "thanks for taking me fishing dad.  It was fun even if we didn't catch anything."  He is amazing that way.  We have been skunked together more than I would like to admit, but he keeps coming back, keeps saying thank you.  Then it always hits me, there is a little more going on here than just catching fish...

A Great Day

 Noah and Ashton and I packed some snacks and our fishing stuff and took a drive over to the Gallatin River near Belgrade today.  We brought our 5 month old yellow lab Jax.  We hiked up river from the access about a mile to a nice deep run that I remembered from last summer.  We have had some very warm temperatures for this time of year (it got up to 60 this week!) and the river was flowing very good.  

This particular fishing spot brought back memories of a wonderful day last summer when I took all 3 of my kids to this spot and spent a great afternoon.  The kids played in the sand and splashed in the water.  They caught a handful of minnows from a shallow pool.  We ate lunch and I even had time to catch a fish or two out of the deep pool.  The sad part is that i actually caught my biggest fish of last summer from this run...an 18 inch whitefish.  Needless to say last summer wasn't a good one for large trout.

Back to the present.  Our "secret spot" looked very different than it had in August.  The sand bar was nothing but a sheet of snow and ice and the pool itself was crowded by a thick ice shelf that shrunk the river by at least half.  Despite these changes, the spot was still very fishable and by standing on the ice it was an easy cast and drift to get the flys to where the fish were.  

Noah brought his spinning rod rigged up with nymphs and a casting bobber.  I tried a few different small nymphs with no success.  I then tied on a small red san juan worm tied from very ultra chennile on a size 16 hook.  I raised the indicator to well over the depth of the water and placed a small split shot above the fly.  I wanted to make sure I was on the very bottom.

On the first cast, I watched the indicator jig as the fly bounced on the gravel bottom and then it suddenly disappeared.  A few seconds later I had landed a 10 inch rainbow.  Ah ha! I thought.  I tied the same fly on for Noah and we both began catching fish.  By the time we had finished we had pulled 8 fish out of this one run, the biggest being a nice brown of about 15 inches (a decent fish for the Gallatin).  This of course does not include the fat sucker that Noah snagged off the bottom of the river.

We returned to the truck at about 4:00 p.m.  Just a wonderful day on the river with the kids.

1st Fish of The Year

   I headed down to a good friends cabin in Paradise Valley in early January.  I did not take Noah which always makes me feel guilty, but the ice shelves on the banks of Yellowstone where too dangerous to bring the little guy. (This will prove to be true a little later in this post.)

I drove over the pass to Livingston and then swung south into the valley at about 11 a.m.  I took the pine creek road across the river and then drove another 7 miles or so on the east river road to the Jerla's cabin.

It had been calm and in the 50's when I left Bozeman, but the Paradise Valley's trademark winds had things feeling a bit cooler.  Zach greeted me with a beer and we rigged up our rods.  I tied on a black and orange bitch creek I had tied the night before and dropped a yellow stone fly nymph about 10 inches off the shank of the hook.

We then hiked about 15 minutes upriver on the Old Yellowstone Trail.  This was old wagon trail that was once the only trail to Yellowstone Park.  As I had suspected the river banks were frozen out about 10 feet from the regular shore line, shrinking the river by a good 30%.  We reached a bend in the river and spotted some promising pools.  We stopped in an old historic concrete dug out the drink a beer and get out of the wind.

The bend in the river had a large pool of back water which was now a wind blown mixture of sand and ice.  We carefully crossed this out to the main channel and began fishing a nice deep run. 

Zach started fishing a about 50 yard above me.  I made about 15 casts up stream, dead drifting the nymphs thru the fast water and then riding the back current back around.  The drifts were long and covered a lot of water.  I knew there had to be fish holding in this spot, but it was January and the trout were not likely to chase anything.I figured I should keep working the spot and if the fly moved close enough the fish would take.  I patiently continued dredging the run, when the indicator made a slight pause.  It was so subtle, I'm not sure why i even reacted, but when I lifted the rod I was pleased to feel the wonderful tugging of the fighting fish.   The fish was heavier than I expected and got into the current and took a little line.  I began playing it on the reel and then the thought first crossed my mind that I didn't know how i was going to land this fish.  The last 2 feet of ice near the water was pretty thin and this fish was a little too big to jerk up onto shore.  I then started to doubt that I would even have the opportunity because this feisty trout kept diving for cover under the ice shelf.  I winced a few times as I waited for my leader to snap, but it never did.  

Zach had walked over at this time and asked if I needed the net.  I said yes, and Zach made his way towards the fish which had now made its way towards the top of the run near the faster water.  Zach stepped out on what appeared to be sand and as he leaned to net the fish the whole bank disappeared from under him.  Zach plunged neck deep into the icing Yellowstone. 

He quickly turned back toward shore.  I offered him my hand but for some reason that was insulting to him.  He drug himself onto shore, soaked from head to toe.  After all of this I still had the fish on.

The trout was tiring and I was able to swing him to a safer landing zone.  Zach, acting as if nothing had happened quickly reach out and netted the fish.  It was a fat and healthy rainbow, about 14 inches long.  Zach being the great friend that he is snapped a picture, and I then released the beautiful fish back into the river.

At this point I urged Zach to start running for home before he became hypothermic.  It was about 25 degrees with a stiff 30 mph wind.  The funny thing is Zach actually contemplated it!  He finally made a b line for the house for some dry cloths.  He returned in about 1/2 hour and we continued fishing.

We only stayed on the water for another hours and i was only able to snag a sucker with my dropper after it took a strike at my lead fly.  We  returned to Zach's place and warmed up some old pizza, had a few beers and watched the NFL playoffs.  I headed for home just before dark.

The fish in itself was nothing spectacular, but it was the first of 2009, and was netted by a good friend.  This in itself mixed with a little drama made for a great day of fly fishing in January.

Introduction

It is now 2009 and Noah and I have entered this year with a shared passion for fly fishing.  The spark reignited with me late last summer and as exploded with full force which has become even a little obsessive at times.  As my fishing outing became more and more frequent Noah’s interest has grown and grown. 

            At first I always packed along a carton of night crawlers and let him do the bait and bobber thing, but he quickly graduated to chucking spinners.  As he watched my catch a few fish on the fly rod he became more and more interested in fly fishing.  We soon began tying nymphs and a casting bobber to his spin rod and fishing that way.  At Christmas he got his first fly rod, a 6 1/2 foot eagle claw noodle rod.  We also began tying flies together.  Although the last 1/2 of 2008 was filled with some interesting stories, I am choosing to let those go and begin a fishing journal for the new year of 2009.  Noah accompanies me on most of my fishing excursions so he will definitely be a central character.  I see this as a special year for both of us as we both learn and grow in this newfound love that we share.