Unexpected Fun on the Lower Madison……

After a busy few weeks around our camp getting things done that needed to get done, we finally decided to get back to doing something really important and went fishing yesterday afternoon.

After some scrimping and saving, doing without and some gnashing of teeth, Jake and I pooled some cash and wrangled a discount out of Aire on one of their catarafts.  We’ve been piecing it together over the past few weeks but ashamedly had not taken it out for a maiden voyage until yesterday afternoon.   We didn’t have time for a full day’s float so the lower Madison it was.

Timing was poor for fishing – it was nearly 90 with a glaring sun, a little breezy as it almost always is on the lower Madison, and even though we were easing into the late afternoon when there should have been some bugs around, there was very little happening.   I graciously offered to row the first stretch, wisely planning to let others experiment and burn their alloted time casting this and that until the day’s hot bug and pattern were discovered.

Not 20 minutes into the float Jake’s drifting hopper disappeared; he was drifting it down a weed slot on the bank side of the boat, I immediately offered a sage appraisal that he was hung up again.  As soon as the words left my mouth his ‘hang up’ had flashed under the boat, headed for mid-river, and stripped him deep into his backing.   Though missing from the accounts of the story I’ve heard today, I adroitly eddied the boat out and we sat there for several minutes watching what we now presumed to be a nice fish slowly moving away, stripping more line, and stopping now and then to shake his head and make Jake once again ponder his knot tying skills and how old his tippet was.

Finally the current help a bit and pushed him below us; Jake finally manned up and gained some line, and shortly thereafter brought him to hand.  Not bad for a hot fall summer day in the middle of the afternoon.

Even Jake gets lucky now and then.

Pics by Jess.

Tags: Fish Stories