Back In Montana

[Al Agnew]

Mary and I got back to Montana yesterday. If you want to fly from St. Louis to Bozeman, Frontier has a flight leaving at 6 AM, connecting through Denver, and getting to Bozeman before 10 AM. Of course, it's not so great to get up at the ungodly hour of the morning to get on that flight, especially since we live almost an hour and a half from the airport. Mary was complaining that, because of my fetish for getting to the airport plenty early, we had to leave home at 2:45 AM. The airport is never crowded that early, and it's usually a breeze going through security...

Except, can anybody explain why the TSA wants you to get to the airport two hours before your flight, but they now don't open the security gates until 4:30 AM, even though there are several flights leaving at 6 AM? Mary was still complaining as we waited at security for 15 or 20 minutes before we could go through the metal detectors.

But, as we sat on the plane, at the gate, for 15 minutes after our flight was supposed to leave because there was some snafu at security after we went through that resulted in very long lines, and about 30 people who were supposed to be on our flight hadn't cleared security yet, Mary told me she'd never complain about my early fetish again. Ah, the joys of flying these days.

After being gone all winter, there's always a lot of things to do when we get to the house, so it wasn't until late this afternoon that I finished all the chores and slipped down to the river for an hour or so of fishing. It was a gorgeous day, up into the 60s, partly cloudy, and light winds. The Yellowstone is about as low as you'll see it, flowing 1300 cfs, and fairly clear. I grabbed my nymph rod, a 5 wt. St. Croix, rigged a Pheasant Tail and a soft hackle, and headed for the run on the main channel at the house.

It's a sweet run at this level. The river splits into two main channels, coming back together at the lower end of a gravel island, with a fast riffle on the near channel dropping abruptly off into fairly deep water at the junction, forming a swirling eddy where the near channel riffle shoots out into the other channel. Then the river straightens out into a deep run with slow water on the near side and gradually faster water out toward the middle. It goes that way for about a hundred yards, before quickening into the next riffle, but right where it speeds up, there is a quiet backwater on the near side, and a hard current seam where the faster water meets the backwater, and a drop-off along the seam and extending out into the riffle a bit at the head of the backwater. That's where I decided to start fishing.

First drift, I hooked a nice trout, but lost it. Next drift resulted in a 12 inch rainbow that leaped all over the river. Then it was whitefish city. I quickly caught a half dozen whitefish, and I could see the flashing sides of other whities along the seam. I decided that this would be a good time and place to practice nymphing without an indicator, which is something I'm going to try to get better at this year. There were plenty of fish, so I knew I would be getting takes if I could get good drifts and detect them.

It worked so well that the first drift resulted in a fine 16 inch rainbow. I wonder if that fish had avoided taking the flies before because of the indicator. Then it was back to whitefish, and a lot of good practice at short line nymphing. Finally one more rainbow of about 14 inches was fooled, but this one did nothing but go nuts rolling over and over like some kind of pike, and when I got it in I discovered that it had really tied a bunch of knots in my two fly plus split shot set-up. It took several minutes to get everything straightened out.

The sun was getting lower, so I headed up to the main riffle. I discovered that at this low level, I could easily wade all the way across it, fishing the drop-off...which means I can wade all the way across the river here, since the other channel has a little less water than the one I'd just waded across. But I only hooked one trout, and it escaped. So I waded back across, and began to fish the soft current seam where the eddy begins to straighten out. First drift, I hooked a fish, and I immediately knew it was a big one; when I lifted the rod to set the hook I could feel a heavy, throbbing weight. Big whitefish, maybe? Nope. The fish shot toward me, faster than any whitefish ever moves. I frantically stripped in line. Then it turned and zipped toward the middle of the river. I let all the line I'd stripped in slip through my fingers and when the line straightened out I let go, letting the drag take care of the run. But the rod bowed and bowed some more and I bent to the fish, waiting for the drag to slip...PING! Why didn't the drag slip? I looked, and my fly line had been wrapped around the reel handle.

After retying everything, the next drift hooked another rainbow of about 13 inches that, like the first one, jumped all over the place. I hooked another one briefly. Then another one, again briefly. I checked the hooks on my flies. Looked okay. A few drifts later, I hooked another rainbow, and this one, like that second one, rotated like a whirling dervish. Again, when I got it in, I had a huge tangle of flies. This time, it was too much of a tangle to fool with; I broke everything off. Deciding that I didn't have much time left, I decided to simplify, only tying on one fly, a Hare's Ear. Drift. Nothing. Drift. Nothing. For about 15 minutes, I fished with zero takes. What happened to those fish? The sun was going down, and it was time to head back to the house for supper. I reeled in, and then discovered that I'd apparently screwed up the knot on my fly, because I'd been fishing with a couple of split shot and nothing else!

I'm really looking forward to fishing here this year, because they are building a new bridge over the Yellowstone on the east side of Livingston, and the word is that they have closed the river to drift boats and rafts through the construction. Which means that none of the guides will be floating past our house, which is a mile of so below the bridge with no accesses between us and the construction. I can still float from the house down to the next access, but this year I won't have a whole lot of competition!

[Mitch f]

Great story Al! I wish you would have landed the big one; did you ever get a good look? For some reason I remember the big ones that got away more than the big ones I land!

[mic]

I hate you Al. Keep the reports coming though.

[exiledguide]

Al, Its the Totally Stupid A$$&%les what do you expect...........

Have a great time