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I have been a fishing nut since I was
a child, when Johnny Gosda used to
take me out on the lake and let me watch him catch fish with
his magic fly rod while I dunked worms for bluegills. I fished
in the ocean a lot when I lived on Hilton Head, but since moving
west in 1984, I have become almost exclusively a fly fisher.
In 1989, I started a series of bi-annual fishing pilgrimages
to Montana. I dubbed these trips “Guerilla Fishing.”
My goal was to fish in as many places as I could in a week. I
camped out and relied on mobility and spontaneity, sometimes
driving hundreds of miles in a single day, still wearing waders,
to try my luck and alleged skill in different places on different
rivers. I’ve fished the Big Hole, the Bitterroot, the Gallatin,
the Madison and the Ruby Rivers, and some tiny lakes high in
the thin air and summer snows of the Madison Range.
I’ve been fortunate to have fished in some magnificent places
outside of Montana, too, including Letort Spring Creek and Yellow
Breeches Creek in Pennsylvania; the Blue, Colorado, Dolores and
Williams Fork Rivers in Colorado; the Henry’s Fork and Lochsa
in Idaho; the San Juan in New Mexico, and the Colorado River
in Glen Canyon in Arizona.
But my greatest memories and greatest adventures have all been
in Big Sky Country. This is the journal of my 1993 trip there.
One should be aware that much has changed since this trip. Whirling
disease has devastated the trout population of several rivers,
including the Madison. And the near-wilderness experience of
Montana has been buried under the polished log homes of Californians
on the old rustic ranches of Montana.
Already, a trip like the one I describe here is a glimpse into
a past that may be gone forever...
7-26-93 -- East Bank Recreation Area, Big Hole River, Montana
Something had troubled me since I started this year’s
guerilla fishing trip. Some ghost, some enemy had pursued me
up here, across the Mogollon Rim, the Navajo reservation and
the Utah Badlands. It dogged me up the Sevier River Valley and
through the rain at the base of the Wasatch and across the Snake
River Plain.
I didn’t know how to fight an enemy I couldn’t identify.
I guessed: My father’s ghost seemed too remote, but I remained
aware that he had died just a few months after my last Montana
fishing trip (I remember hoping I could dazzle my Eastern kin
with tales of exotic Montana at the funeral gathering, but of
course they didn’t care). My dog Zar’s ghost still
hovered nearby. The image of his eyes closing and his head dropping
softly to the table and going so awfully, finally, still could
raise a lump in my throat. He left me still wondering if I had
lost his respect in these last few years. I feared he died hating
me -- such a turn after 15 years, when as a puppy he loved me
as a God, only to learn in his old age, as we all do, that gods
have faults, too, and I could not share my love equally among
children and dogs.
Then, too, I saw clearly the very much living enemies I had made
at work. Work no longer fulfilled me. Those I had respected,
most of them, had disappointed me beyond redemption, or had found
work elsewhere, succeeded where I had failed. None of this required
me to hate anyone, but it left me alienated from a few and pitying
the others.
Even my graduate studies had begun to worry me. I had let these
other distractions push aside my scholarly ambitions, and I began
to fear I couldn’t get them back.
And now I came to Montana to confront my enemies on the great
trout rivers that flow from the Continental Divide. It makes
no logical sense, of course, and even though I felt today I had
actually succeeded, I still don’t fully understand it, but
I do know the enemy, and I think I’ve got him under control.
7-27 -- Ennis, Montana, doing laundry
Him? Why him? That should become clear. Let’s talk about
fishing.
My ghosts followed me to the Ruby River Saturday morning.
I liked being back there, having the Claypool stretch through
Laurin all to myself again. Sheep grazed the pastures throughout
and ran from me as I wandered up the banks. They called to each
other over and over, sometimes in desperation, other times as
warning or even belligerence. Each sheep had a unique voice.
I wonder if the rancher can identify each one by its voice.
No fish showed on the entire stretch above the bridge. As advised,
I fished nymphs through there -- princes and bead-head princes
and soft hackles. I may have gotten a bump or two, but certainly
nothing more. I went back downstream and ate lunch at my car,
by the bridge.
I didn’t feel discouraged. I don’t have the experience
nymphing that many other have, though I’ve certainly caught
fish on nymphs, some of my biggest, in fact. But not this day.
And yet, the Ruby had showed more generosity two years earlier,
when I had caught fish on nymphs, including the largest of the
day. This time I did not see or feel anything.
After my sandwich I walked down the road and across the field
to the big bend at the end of the stretch. Very soon I saw mayflies
coming off the water -- pale morning duns, about size 16. I saw
a few risers and soon had a nice brown on a standard PMD.
It began to rain, but the hatch continued, and fish kept rising,
and I kept fishing until I couldn’t see my fly in the rain
splashes. Then I sat in the lee of an alder for a while. The
fish resumed rising when the rain eased off, and I hooked and
lost three or four before I figured out my hook point had the
sharpness of an eraser. I had begun fishing parachute Adams #16s,
tied on Mustad barbless hooks, which I discovered all lacked
sharpness. I sharpened up the hook and started landing fish.
In all, I caught and released six or eight brown trout 12-14”,
one smaller. All fought hard, with screaming runs, some putting
on a great aerial show. I raised a number of other fish, hooked
and lost maybe 10 others, and had a good day until the action
tapered off about 7 p.m. Caddis replaced mayflies, and they swarmed,
but the trout ignored them.
I had caught more fish in the same place two years earlier. Indeed,
I had seen more activity two years earlier. Probably that contributed
to the down feeling I had as I ate prime rib at the Alder Steak
House, but I could still feel the ghosts perched on my shoulder.
I didn’t yet understand the connection.
I woke up feeling sick Sunday morning. My sinuses clogged, and
my head ached. I feared my sinus infection of last month had
returned. I loaded up the truck and headed west -- to the Big
Hole River, taking the dirt road short cut across the mountains
from Twin Bridges to Melrose.
I noticed the scenery, but it did not move me. I stopped at Wise
River for groceries and gas, and I felt light-headed and disorganized.
The store owner had a beautiful yellow lab, and I choked a little
as I told him about Zar. I changed the subject quickly. I drove
on all the way to Wisdom, looking at fishing access points. There
I ate lunch before doubling back, almost all the way to Wise
River, where I made camp at the East Bank Recreation area. I
went back upstream to fish.
I found a river full of weeds. Long strands clung to the rocks,
and big clumps came floating downstream. I couldn’t have
fished nymphs if I’d wanted to, and even my dry flies picked
up strands. I got a few tiny rises at one point, but few fish
showed, and I gave up and went back downstream, where I found
a series of islands and some pocket water. The weeds had gotten
even thicker here, but I did get one little brook trout for my
trouble. The air filled with caddis flies as the day faded, but,
again, no fish rose. I returned to my campsite, discouraged and
tired. At least my headache had faded, thanks either to a dose
of Actifed or just the joy of standing in the river (really!)
7-28
(I meant that last remark seriously. Just rigging up and wading
in can cure a lot of ills.)
I had planned to pack up and head for the Madison Monday morning,
so discouraged I felt after Sunday’s fishing. But the weather
played a hand I hadn’t quite expected.
I knew it would rain, but I didn’t anticipate the all-night
downpour that didn’t let up even when dawn turned the sky
from black to dark grey. The tent had become a soggy mess on
the outside. I didn’t even want to get out to pee, but finally
relented, and having done so I began figuring out ways to cope.
I moved the table under the open tail of the truck and managed
to make coffee and breakfast in relative dryness.
I lazed away the morning in the rain. I saw no use in packing
a wet tent, driving 100+ miles in the rain to the rainy Madison.
I watched a guide and client rig up and put their boat in to
float down the Big Hole. Then I went back to bed.
Actually, I listened to tapes and read and dozed until a brightness
awoke me about noon. I stepped outside the tent and found a brighter
sky with the sun trying to peer through. The rain had stopped;
the drips I had heard on the tent came from the trees above me.
I decided to explore downstream, after a sandwich.
I checked out all the access points down into the canyon. The
water seemed less weedy, but difficult to wade. I worked my way
back upstream and finally settled on the access at Jerry Creek
Bridge. I rigged up and waded in, about 200 yards downstream
from the parking lot. Right away two things happened: my headache
went away, and fish began to rise.
7-29 -- Gallatin River
It didn’t take long before I had my first -- a 15”
wild rainbow, with deep pink sides and many distinctive black
spots. I began getting lots of strikes. I lost a few fish, and
some whitefish got in on the action, too. The fish appeared to
key on a steady caddis hatch, but they came to my parachute Adams
as eagerly as to elk hair caddis.
Two things made this day a turning point for me. First, a lot
of fish suddenly began rising just as a raft of family tourists
passed under the bridge and moved to the other side of the river
to give me room. The tourists must have seen the rise activity
as well as my focused casting efforts. As the drew abreast of
me, I heard a healthy rise almost directly between me and the
raft. With one false cast, I put the fly right on the fish’s
drift line. I peered at the fly, and so, apparently, did the
tourists. The fish struck, my rod bowed over as I raised the
tip, and a cheer went up from the raft. A moment later, the fish
leaped high in the air, and the tourists gave an even lustier
cheer. I just hung on grimly, and the tourists had drifted below
the rapids by the time I eased the hook from the 13” rainbow’s
lip and slid it gently back into the Big Hole.
If I appeared calm to the tourists, I felt quite the opposite.
I had felt a sort of nervous anxiety from the moment I waded
into the river, and my success had merely converted that to an
adrenaline rush. The cheers of the tourists had turned it all
positive. I needed to sit and catch my breath and reflect on
the suddenness with which my ghosts had gone silent. We had beaten
them, the fish and I. We had worked together, unrehearsed, as
a team, to thrill those tourists, and with their very first acknowledgement
of our performance, the ghosts had simly become, for the moment
at least, irrelevant. They may not have disappeared, and that
doesn’t really matter. With the help of my piscean co-star,
I had reminded myself how to exorcise the ghosts.
I realized all of the in a flash by the riverside, and I smiled
as I fought back a tear. Whatever might happen next, this adventure
had achieved its primary (albeit not previously articulated)
goal.
The second event that made the afternoon so memorable came with
my last fish of the day, a 14” grayling -- a native to that
river, which has the last remaining native grayling population
in the Lower 48.
Throughout the afternoon it continued to rain intermittently,
but that became less and less important with each fish caught.
I only got 6 or 8 all told, including a couple whitefish, but
quality dominated the day -- and my psyche.
8-1 -- Back in Phoenix, with a lot of catching up to do.
I awoke in high spirits Tuesday morning. I broke camp quickly
after breakfast and drove east, back over the Melrose-Twin Bridges
shortcut in 4-wheel drive to tackle the mud at the crest of the
range. I zipped on through Sheridan, Alder and Virginia City,
high on the Gravelly Range, and then quickly down into the valley
of the Madison and to Ennis. I got there about 10:30, got gas,
saw a laundromat with showers and took a shower, then suddenly
decided to wash clothes, too, but I don’t know why. I had
plenty of clean clothes. One of the rule of guerilla fishing
demands spontaneity and an absence of “reasons.” Laundry
in Ennis qualifies. That made it lunch time, so I got a cheeseburger
and bought a couple things at Madison River Fishing Company,
then drove south to Ruby Creek campground.
A strong south wind challenged by efforts to set up camp, but
I finally managed, then pulled on my waders and went to the river
right next to my campsite. There the wind forbade me to cast,
but I tried anyway, foolishly attempting to cast drives into
some good looking pocket water. I refused at that point to try
nymphing, and that probably explains my lack of success. Finally
I went upstream to the slough where I had a little success two
years ago. I fished until dark, taking long breaks to await the
occasional risers. I could only cast dries downstream, and I
managed for the day only a single small brown trout (maybe 7”).
The wind continued all night, hard and steady from the south,
and it had not abated by morning. But the rain had stopped, and
Wednesday dawned clear and cloudless. I didn’t feel like
fighting the wind again, so I left camp and drove upstream to
Raynold’s Pass Bridge. Mike Lawson two years ago had told
me he’d had a good day there when the rest of the Madison
just baffled people. The water above the bridge has good stretches
of pockets near shore, and not 100 yards up from the bridge I
saw a big fish rising and taking caddis. Hardly any wind was
blowing, so I cast an elk hair caddis, covered the big fish perfectly
and got....
NOTHING.
Another fish, somewhat smaller, also rose about 5 feet below
the first, but it, too, showed remarkable restraint in refusing
my offerings.
At last I moved on to the next pocket. I noticed most other anglers
were offering nymphs, and I saw one woman 100 yards above me
land a fish there. I finally gave in, added a strike detector
and some lead and soon fought a big rainbow to the shallows behind
a down tree, where it broke off. I landed a couple more 16-18”,
then took a lunch break. I went back to the water and fought
a huge trout, following it more than 100 yards downstream from
where I hooked it until it managed to plunge into a brush pile
near where the first one broke off. This one, too, escaped. Another
big fish fired straight upstream after I hooked it, and it, too,
broke off, or, more accurately, threw the hook.
About 3 p.m. I decided to go scout the Gallatin. I had gotten
no reliable information from fly shops or other anglers, so I
decided to check it out for myself. I fished for an hour or so
around the bridge a mile or so downstream from where the river
emerges from Yellowstone Park. I had a lot of action but little
success there in ‘91. This time, despite heavy insect hatches,
I saw only one fish rising and got it -- an 11” cutthroat
-- on the second cast. Fishing blind produced nothing. About
6 p.m. I drove downstream to see how the water looked below the
notorious Taylor Fork. It seemed slightly cloudy, but after two
rainless days, I could see the bottom in two feet of water and
considered it fishable. I decided to move to the Gallatin Thursday.
I stopped at Raynold’s Bridge for an hour and got one big
whitefish there before driving in gathering dusk through heavy
clouds of caddis back to my Ruby Creek campsite. The wind blew
hard again all night, but still no rain.
I broke camp quickly Thursday morning and drove back to Raynold’s
Pass Bridge, where I nymphed for a couple hours. It seemed more
crowded now than the previous day. I caught pretty good rainbow,
maybe 16-17”, then hooked a huge brown trout. The brown
didn’t go off on long screaming runs, just bore down hard
in his home pool. I brought him literally to my feet and raised
the rod tip to keep the line tight as I reached down for him,
and found that my rod tip was caught, not in the tree above,
but in the tangle of some other angler’s line caught in
the tree above. I couldn’t maneuver the fish toward me with
the rod, so I had to move toward the fish, which, lying peacefully
in 3” of water, suddenly lunged and broke the tippet. It
lay still for a moment, as though not aware it had freed itself.
I took another step forward, ready to hold the fish and revive
it. My step accomplished that, and the big trout -- at least
20” -- slowly finned out of the shallows and back to his
own pool.
Earlier, I had hooked a big fish that ran straight upstream rather
than down as rainbows do. It managed to break off in some rocks
upstream. I never saw the fish, but guessed it was a brown, based
on its upstream run.
I fished nearly 1/2-mile upstream as people pressure grew from
below, but had no more action. At noon I retunred to John Wesley
Powell and drove east again to the Gallatin. I made camp at Red
Cliff, in no hurry.
About 3:30 or so I drove downstream into the canyon, just scouting,
dismayed at the fact that nearly every turnout had a vehicle,
a far cry from ‘91, when, at least on a weekday, I could
hop from tournout to turnout and see hardly a soul on the water.
I didn’t get all the way to Gallatin Gateway before turning
around and starting back up. I found an empty turnout just below
Greek Creek Campground and fished up from there for a while.
I lost the first fish I hooked and thought I saw white spots
on dark sides, which would mean brook trout. I don’t doubt
brookies live in the Gallatin, but I didn’t expect to see
one, especially not way down in the canyon.
I found myself once again casting into a strong wind, nearly
as strong as on the Madison, but not so steady. Occasionally
it would lay down enought to allow me a fairly accurate cast,
and I moved upstream I found a fair number of fish looking up,
although they often didn’t rise to the natural caddis coming
off the water. They did rise to my elk hairs and even to my P.
Adams.
I continued hopping upstream turnout by turnout, and finally
I hit a long run with a deep middle but interesting pocket water
along the edge below the road. Caddis continued hatching heavily,
but few fish rose, and those that did rarely exceeded 8”
in length (at least those that then rose to my flies). But the
seams close to the current-parting rocks yielded fat rainbows
up to 12-13”, even though they never showed themselves first.
Those larger fish quickly dashed toward the heavier, deeper midstream
water, and there the current helped them pull line screaming
from my reel as I stumbled over the rocky bank trying not to
let too much line go.
I lost count early, but I believe in four hours of fishing I
got more than 20 rainbows, mostly from the one pool. I had to
keep fighting the wind, though, and I spent as much time sitting
and waiting for calm interludes as I did casting, I think. That
tempered the excitement I might have felt, and so did the rather
odd behavior of the fish. Many naturals, few rises, but happy
to take my flies, even though they didn’t resemble the naturals
(P. Adams for caddis!).
The next morning I went down canyon again and worked up, again
seeing lots of naturals but no rises, and this time, no fish
to my flies either. I started fishing about 9:30 or 10 a.m. and
got my first fish just after 2 p.m. A thunderstorm had rumbled
up the canyon during the night,and I had feared Taylor Fork would
cloud up the river, but it stayed as clear as the day before,
so I couldn’t blame the notorious Taylor. Anyway, once the
fish started hitting I did pretty well. For some reason I kept
count and by 5 p.m. I had 18 fish -- six per hour, a pretty good
rate! I decided at that point to go well upstream, so I got in
the Explorer and headed south, past Big Sky, Red Cliff and Taylor
Fork. Finally I pulled into the driveway by the stretch containing
my Brown Trout Rock (where I landed an 18” brown on a nymph
on the first day of my first Montana expedition in 1989). I saw
a couple of anglers right at the parking area, so I hiked upstream
to the riffle below the rock and waded in, working up and across
through a thickening cloud of caddis flies. I saw one healthy
rise in a seam of current below a submerged boulder, and I got
it -- a 13” rainbow -- on the third cast. I kept going to
the boulder and worked it for 30 minutes, dries, nymphs, seams,
fast water, eddies, dead water...nothing. I went back to the
area below the submerged boulder and covered some nice rises.
A couple came to my fly, but either they or I missed. Most just
ignored my offering.
I fished until dark and got nothing more. Reluctantly I went
back to the truck, peeled off my waders and ended Guerilla Montana
‘93. I drove to Big Sky, splattering the windshield with
caddis flies. I got gas, made reservations at Buck’s T-4
Resort for the Best Western in Salina, Utah, for the next night,
then went to my campsite and cooked, ate and organized in the
dark.
I left Red Cliff at 7:30 a.m. the next day, headed home to
Phoenix. |
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