Sacrilege II

[Al Agnew]

Last fall I wrote here about trying my smallmouth baitcasting tackle out here on the Yellowstone River for trout, and hooking (and losing at the bitter end) the largest trout by far I'd ever hooked anywhere but Alaska.  I called it sacrilege because I was almost embarrassed to be fishing casting tackle on an iconic fly fishing river.

We've been out here since early March, and it's been a pretty sucky spring so far.  Cold.  Snow.  And WIND.  So far I've actually had one nice day a couple weeks ago that I got on the river by myself in my little Water Master raft, and one day floating in the little drift boat with Mary.  Both days, the fishing was pretty decent.  Both days, I took nothing but fly tackle.  I hadn't fished the casting rod since one more day last fall.  

We got up this morning, and I checked the forecast.  I had two options I was thinking about for today.  One was fishing.  The other was maybe fishing maybe not...I belong to an athletic club in Bozeman, and there's open pickup basketball there every day of the week from noon to 2:00.  There's also pickup basketball for older guys (like me) from 10:00 to noon on Tuesdays and Fridays.  I almost never miss the old guys game, and had played yesterday.  Sometimes I stay afterwards to play with the young guys for an hour or so...the old guys play half court and it's not as much of a workout as playing with a bunch of 20 somethings full court.  But yesterday, not enough young guys showed up after I'd played with the old guys (by the way, I'm 72, and there are three or four men playing that are older than I am...one is in his 80s!).  So I thought maybe I'd load up my waders and fly tackle along with my gym shoes and clothes, and head over to the athletic club.  If there weren't enough guys again, I'd drive on out to the lower Madison and wade fish.

I checked the river at the house...it's been very murky for the last couple days from a somewhat warm heavy rain over the weekend.  It was still murky but fishable, and had come up a few inches during that time but seeemed to be dropping a bit.  What to do...Mary said, "Just get on the river.  I'll pick you up at 3:30 wherever you want to fish."

Well, it seems the older I get, the more piddling around I do before I actually get on the river.  I checked to see if the Water Master would fit into the back of the 4-Runner, so that Mary could use it to shuttle me.  Had to rummage around to find a carabiner that I could use to click into the latch on the hatchback of the 4-Runner...last summer I'd tried hauling a couple kayaks in the back, and found out that the darned open hatchback gives you that loud warning ding-ding-ding without over stopping, which is exceedingly annoying on a 30 minute drive, but if you push a carabiner into the open latch on it, the latch clicks closed and the car is fooled into thinking the door is shut.  Stored the carabiner and a length of rope in the 4-Runner, unloaded the raft from it and into my old Chevy truck, gathered all my gear, and at the last minute, grabbed the only jerkbait I still had and my baitcasting rod and threw them in.  As I drove through town, I stopped at the butcher shop to get a good sandwich made for lunch.  Stopped again at the only sporting goods store in town that might have actual lures instead of flies, and bought a couple countdown Rapalas.  Stopped again at the quick shop for gas and grabbed a sweet tea and a couple donuts to eat on the way to the put-in.  And finally made it to the river about 10:15.

There were a couple guides and their clients getting their boats and tackle ready, so I threw on my waders and asked them if they minded if I went ahead and put in, and they said to go ahead, they weren't quite ready.  So soon I was finally on the river.  I didn't rig up the baitcasting rod in their presence!

I stopped at the first riffle eddy to drift nymphs along the seam.  Nothing.  Stopped at the next one, hooked a whitefish and then a heavy fish that turned out to be a mountain sucker, one of the more annoying fish to hook, because they are covered with a snotty slime that hardens and sticks to your hands, your net, your line...yuck.  No trout, but I did briefly hook a 10 inch rainbow that leaped 4 feet out of the water twice like a fishy maniac.  Okay...might as well try the jerkbait.  I put on one of the new Rapalas.  Fished it for a half mile before hooking and losing a decent brown.  Shortly afterward I caught a 12 inch rainbow, and then a 17 inch rainbow.  Stopped at another riffle corner to nymph.  Nothing.  Back to the Rapala.  Nothing.  

The day was gorgeous.  Sunny, 60 degrees, no wind.  The fishing wasn't.  I stopped for lunch and savored my excellent sandwich, watching a stretch of bank just below where if trout are rising anywhere, they will be there.  Saw one small rise.  Midges were sparsely flitting across the surface.  An occasional mayfly fluttered by.  Not much happening.  Might as well keep fishing the Rapala...nope.  Why not put on that Pointer 75 that I'd hooked that giant trout on?  So I did.  I started down that bank I'd been watching, and immediately caught a 15 inch rainbow and then a 19 inch brown.  Hooked a slightly bigger brown and lost it on the next stretch of similar bank.  Caught another nice rainbow.  Fishing wasn't fast by any means, but the quality of the fish was making me happy. 

And then the sky began to cloud over.  And then the wind made its presence known.  I was drifting down a fairly fast rip-rapped bank and getting no action, until a huge brown struck right at the boat, nearly jerking the rod out of my hands.  I saw its side turn as it struck, had it on briefly, and lost it.  And then nothing.  And then the wind really cut loose.  Blowing out of the northeast, which means blowing straight upstream, 30 miles an hour.  The temperature dropped into the upper 40s.  I was done.  I rowed hard against the wind the last mile to the take-out, getting there in plenty of time to wait for Mary to show up at 3:30.

Tonight as I write this...it's snowing.  

[Hawg]

I've been fighting the urge to use the BFS bait caster/ rod that I've become quite fond of in these trout trophy areas around here.

I brought it with last time and left it in the truck and casted my streamer rod about 500 times instead. Caught 3.

I also have a pile of little Japanese lures that I stared at before packing up last time at four in the morning.

I feel like if it works well I'm never gonna go back ha ha. I often use flies in areas that don't ever see them and do well with bass, catfish and crappie and what not. I feel like this would be the same for the trout and these Japanese lures....