Ah, Yes, Summer In Montana...

[Al Agnew]

JS, I've fished Armstrongs, De Puys, and Nelsons a number of times. Armstrongs is actually the upper half of the same spring creek that continues as De Puys--same creek, different owners. Nelsons is on the opposite side of the river in the same reach. They flow about 40-50 cfs (at least that's my estimate...about the size of an Ozark creek that's very marginally canoeable). They are absolutely full of wild rainbows and browns with the occasional cutthroat or cut-bow. Sizes range from 10 to 20 inches, with most of them around 15 inches, and a few bigger ones. The water is very clear and there's a whole lot of varied habitat, from riffles and shallow runs to deeper pools. Some of the pools are big enough to be pretty slack water with a lot of aquatic growth. Pretty creeks, gorgeous setting, and of course fishable when everything else is flooded. They have the reputation of being very tough fishing, requiring 7X or even lighter tippet and very small flies. That reputation is partially true--the fish can be very selective and you may need the very light tippet to fish the very small flies. However, I usually spend part of the day there fishing the little flies, especially if they are rising to dries, but sometime during the day I'll put on some 4X fluorocarbon, tie on a pretty decent size woolybugger, and catch a bunch of browns in those slower pools. If it's a cloudy, windy day, I'll spend the whole day fishing streamers, and have caught more than 50 fish a day on them.

Is it worth the $100 a day? Well, if everything else is blown out, it definitely is! Otherwise, if I'm there for a week, I might fish a spring creek one day just for the heck of it, but I don't feel like I HAVE to fish them to have the complete Montana experience.

Yesterday was a different Montana experience. I had scouted out these public ponds in the town of Three Forks when I first got out here...the De Lorme atlas said they held largemouths. So I loaded up the solo canoe and drove over there with my bass fishing tackle. There are three ponds. The first one I fished was quite clear, and I spent some time just paddling around and looking for fish. It had quite a few carp, but while paddling I only saw a couple of bass. So I figured they must be deeper than I could see. No idea exactly how deep the pond was, but there was a lot of water too deep to see the bottom, with hardly any of it structurally obvious. There was quite a bit of aquatic plant growth. So I started out by trying topwaters, making long casts and bringing them from the shallows over the areas where the bottom dropped off and disappeared. I caught on small largemouth. Then I tried some tubes and jigs, nothing. The sun was high and bright and there was almost no wind. When I got to a point where I could just drag the canoe over a narrow spit of land to the second pond, I climbed up on the bank and looked at it. It was muddy, visibility no more than 6 inches. Hmmm....that could be interesting on this bright day. I slid the canoe into it, and immediately started seeing carp. That pond was absolutely FULL of big carp...maybe that's why it was muddy! Anyway, I started fishing a big spinnerbait along the bank in the shallows. I came to a spot where a willow shaded the water--shade was VERY scarce on this pond. I made a nice cast under the overhanging willow branches and got a nice strike. It turned out to be a fat 19 inch largemouth, maybe 4.5 pounds. Cool. I fished all the way around that pond and only caught one more, about 15 inches.

By this time it was early afternoon and the sun was getting hotter and brighter all the time, so I decided to skip the third pond, which was also clear, and drive up the Madison River to see if I could find some trout fishing, since I had a fly rod and my waders and fly vest along. On the part of the lower Madison I have fished many times before, I found the river to still be high and murky, but clear enough to fish. Since everything else around here is still muddy, the guides were out in force with their clients in drift boats, and also the river was almost clogged with tubers and college kids floating in every conceivable craft drinking beer. They were surprisingly subdued, however.

I stopped along the road where there was a long stretch of nice bank I could fish with streamers. I fished downstream for a quarter of a mile, getting only one strike that I missed. So I put on a couple of big nymphs (there were a lot of small caddis flying around, but few on the water and nothing rising) to fish back up to the truck and ended up catching a couple of 14 inch trout, one brown and one rainbow.

All in all a nice day.

[Fishhand]

A fisherman's eye and a storytellers pen, good stuff Al.

[jscheetz]

Thanks Al - Might have to check one out when I am up there next time -

JS

[Al Agnew]

Further adventures...

Last Sunday, Mary and I floated the lower Madison with our friends Tom and Theresa, their daughter Emilie, and their two dogs, Wilson, a chocolate lab, and Grace, a boston terrier...all of us in our raft. We took the fly rods, but didn't expect to fish very seriously.

The water in the lower Madison comes off the top of Ennis Lake, so it's warmer than most other streams around here in the summer, so warm that at times the trout get stressed. On Sunday it was in the mid-60s. What this means is that the lower Madison, while still furnishing some good trout fishing at times, is warm enough for the party floaters. It wasn't quite like Current River, but the river was pretty crowded with college and high school kids floating in various rubber duckies and tubes and kayaks, most of them drunk. An enterprising soul was shuttling the crowd the seven miles or so from put-in to take-out in a big van at 5 bucks a person (cheap compared to the shuttle services that the guides use, which charge $20-30 for the same shuttle. So we had planned to do our own shuttle, but instead just moved the cars down to the take-out after unloading and had the shuttle guy drive the two of us who drove them back to the put-in.

So we fished some...and the sum total for four hour's float (did I say the river was still high and really moving?) was one 8 inch brown. Still, it was a nice day and the river felt good.

Yesterday morning, I had to take an ATV that my brother-in-law borrowed back to our friend who lives in Pocatello, ID. He was to meet me at West Yellowstone, where the Madison comes out of the park. So after transferring the ATV to him, I planned to drive down the Madison toward Ennis and stop to wade and fish at the first inviting access. I drove along Hebgen Lake (man-made) and then Earthquake Lake (which was formed by a huge landslide that dammed up the canyon and made a pretty deep, narrow lake out of the Madison. Then I came out onto the wide open spaces of the Madison toward Ennis and Ennis Lake. And every access I stopped at was jammed with anglers. It was unbelievable, 50 or more cars in the parking lots, boat trailers everywhere, nimrods lining the banks. Nowhere looked inviting. I finally drove into Ennis and to an access just a few miles above Ennis Lake. You're not allowed to fish the river from a boat in those last few miles between the bridge at Ennis and the lake, so I didn't expect there to be QUITE so many people at that access...but I was shocked to see only ONE car that looked like an angler, and no fishermen in sight. I'd never fished there before, and I had to wonder what the deal was. Was it such poor fishing that nobody bothered? Did the fish vacate that stretch to drop down into the lake. Curious, I drove back into Ennis and stopped at one of the fly shops, and asked them what the story was for that access.

"Oh, everybody is fishing farther upstream because that's where the salmon flies are hatching. There was a bit of a hatch down there a few days ago, but it ain't happening now. Actually, the fish might be getting hungry, since the hatch was a few days ago. If you want to try it, don't miss fishing the shallow water in the riffles."

Better advice was never given. I got back to the access and started fishing with a big Prince nymph with a Copper John dropper. Wading was difficult and there was a LOT of river I couldn't fish, even though it's a shallow stretch--the current was just too strong and the bottom composed of basketball-sized, SLICK boulders. But where I could, I fished the subtle drop-offs in the faster water and caught some average-sized browns. And then I figured out where the bigger fish were. There were some braids, and where they left the river and came back into it there were shallow riffles with somewhat deeper drop-offs at their bases. I'm talking riffles 6 inches deep and drop-offs down to maybe 18 inches before slowing down in 2-3 feet of water. In those drop-offs right up against the riffles, I caught a 20 inch, a 19 inch, and an 18 inch brown, along with several more browns and a couple of rainbows over 15 inches. And I also caught some little 5 inchers that I jerked over my head when I'd set up on them!

It was the best fishing I've had out here this stay. It also beat me up...slipped on the rocks twice, went in over my waders once. But I caught fish, and didn't see another angler until I was taking my waders off to leave, when a car pulled up with a guy and his son.

Who needs salmon fly hatches?

[wildhunter066]

Hey Al thanks for all your great posts.I love reading your posts about montana they are great. I dream of going on a trip to somwhere in the rockies to fish.It will happen someday and your posts just make me want to go even more.

[jay bird]

What a great post, I wish I would have seen it earlier. This post brought back a ton of good memories for me. My Grandparents lived in Three Forks, and I spent some great summers over that way, and I also was lucky enough to do a four month clinical in Livingston. The clinical started in Mid may and went through the end of Aug. The hours of my clinical really let me get out and do some great flyfishing around the area. Did not do to much on the yellowstone Summer of '95 big flood, but did some fishing on Mill Creek and up at Sliver Falls. Would also go down to Three Forks and fish the Madison a little. Mill creek was my Honey hole and during the middle of the week I would usally have the creek to myself. Any way need to get back there some day when I can.