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Friday July 19, 2002 Coffee and pastries at Cappy’s in West (inside Book Sellers bookstore) – no Jim Danskin today!! Apparently he was at another bakery over by Arrick’s fly shop. However Chet Keeler was there and we chatted with him. Chet was a professor at Central Washington State University – he retired from there – but continues to work part-time as a Park Ranger in the summers. Turns out that he knew JR’s uncle who was head of the business school there – small world!!! Also it then turns out that MS’s uncle was the accounting professor at CWU – wow – seems like Ellensburg, Washington may be the origin of life as we know it! We call ahead before we leave and get rooms at the Fisherman Mercantile Hotel on Rock Creek where we will end up the day. The rooms at Deer Lodge were all booked up due to a rodeo weekend – seems like we hit that rodeo weekend some years ago when Chet was on the trip with us. Heading northward toward Ennis, stop by the Earthquake Center where the 1959 earthquake story is being told. Cool place to visit. Factoid: 10 times the material in Hoover Dam came down the hillside that day and caused enormous damage and killed 20 some folks. We elected to continue to $3 hole and see how the fishing was; we had heard the river was running at 2X normal levels (2,000 cfs vs. 1,000 cfs).
Pulled into the $3 hole parking lot – sunny & warm with big dark clouds on the horizon. We recall an effort by Trout Unlimited, Orvis, and local conservation groups to procure the river easements in this section along with the adjacent land to keep it from being developed. AB mounted a campaign in Washington State and the TU chapters came up with $1500, with Orvis matching grants, yielding $6000 toward saving one of the last public accesses for wade fishing on the Madison River. A sign in the parking lot attests to their success. A great achievement for the future!!
JR/AM head downstream around the bend, over a fence, to the water about mile downstream. No luck for us although we did see a memorial plaque on a boulder in the river dedicated to some guy who spent way too much time fishing. GK fishes by the bridge we drove in by and hits a 14 inch rainbow right away!
So much for the theory of better fishing far away from people! However, fishing is slow for everyone except AB who keeps raising big fish but without hookups! We fished beetles, elkhair caddis, pupatators, prince nymphs, stimulators (yellow and orange), and a gaudy salmon fly (something like an orange stimulator on steroids) with big black legs – picked the latter fly up in Idaho as a fly to scare fish away. Seemed to work today but then the other flies had the same effect on the fish. As we continue to fish, the dark clouds come rolling in and finally blot out the sun. Then the rains come (hard, heavy, and steady) – looks like it will do this for a while – also JR/AM have some concern over possible lightning since when you stand up, you are the highest thing around – not necessarily a good strategy.
So we head back to the rigs. Arriving there, the sun comes back out and the clouds move on. Fishing does not improve. Finally decide to move on toward Rock Creek. As we head onward on Highway 287, in front of us we see huge dark clouds and repeated lightning strikes. Looks like we are on the road to Dante’s Inferno. We are hit again by really heavy rain and some hail along with lots of thunder and lightning all the way to I-90. Due to time constraints we push onto Rock Creek, check into the motel, and head to Ekstrom’s Stage Station for dinner.
Right after dinner as we walk back to the hotel, the skies open and another huge deluge comes down on us. Of course we got the accompanying electrical storm as well so that the satellite TV signal feed kept getting knocked out. AB had been our treasurer this year. He has interesting accounting standards that probably would not be GAAP approved. Figuring out the expenditures and the rebates due to folks became a huge comedy of errors – several surprises on the numbers including some conundrums on why numbers did not add up as expected. All ends well although we did have some good laughs during the divvying up. To bed finally. Saturday July 20, 2002 Wake up to a warm, overcast, foggy morning but no rain. Fellow fisherman at the hotel tells me about a really good fishing spot they hit the day before (I find it on the map – we are going there this coming year!!).We also learn a little more about access locations on Rock Creek. The fellow at the Mercantile is pretty good about telling you where to fish and what patterns will probably work – he also consciously tries to spread the crowds out a little to improve the fishing for everyone and put less stress on a given section of the creek. Can’t really argue with his intent and plan. Wading through a herd of wild turkeys in the woods, we find the access to the stream behind Ekstrom’s camp ground and wet a line but do so only perfunctorily. We mess around for a while and then decide to head home. Everyone has had a great trip but it is time to move on now. Reach home in the late afternoon. Good to see the family!! Post-trip summaries of the trip including impressions and feelings: AB:
GK:
JR:
MS:
Best of List: Best Food: Osterman’s for Walleye and Chicken Fried Steak Ekstrom’s Stage Station for Breakfast Lake Hotel for elegant fine dinner dining Mammoth Hot Springs for Western Brisket Bulwinkle's for hamburgers
Most Disappointing Food: Mountain Mike’s – a disaster the night we there – used to be so good! |
