26 August 2009 - Wednesday
The YG team leaves JR’s home in Bellevue, WA at 5:12am – AM starting mileage 71919 and AB starting mileage 102670. There are 4 of us this year heading out (AM, AB, JR, GK) but not Mike S as he had just undergone hip surgery a few weeks earlier – wading on slippery rocks in river currents is not yet an accepted form of Physical Therapy for the early days after surgery. Heading eastward on I90 we leave on a beautiful Seattle morning. First rest stop is at Indian John Hill just to shake out the legs and get ready for a long day’s drive to Ennis, Montana, our easternmost point on this trip. We blitzed across Washington and stopped at the Flying J Rest Stop in Post Falls, Idaho at 10:05 am (circa 294 miles). Continuing on our blistering pace we crossed 4th of July Pass at 10:45 (3,069 feet) and Lookout Pass into Montana at 11:30 (now 12:30 in Mountain the time zone, 4710 ft).Reaching St. Regis at 1:04 pm we elect to stop for lunch at the Huckleberry Patch Restaurant where we have chowed down on prior trips to Montana. Typical fare for this establishment was chicken taco salad, buffalo burgers, and so forth – good solid road food for the start of a trip!
Continuing eastward, we next stopped for gasoline in Butte at 4:59pm and then onward toward Ennis. We cut off I-90 at Cardell to come into Ennis Lake from the north. We turned off Highway 287 to circumnavigate the lake from the north side to reach the entrance road to the dam area. Beautiful evening on our first day on this trip – we continued on around the east side of the Lake and explored the Valley Garden access point for the Madison River which looked like reasonably good access to the Madison River.
Reaching our destination in Ennis, we checked into the El Western motel with John Hauck (he and wife Kris own and operate the El Western). We learned about a spring creek (O’Dell) which ran through the back of the property and an adjacent ranch – access was $60/day per rod and only 4 rods per day were allowed. It was about a mile of water with high clarity. Fish can see you coming so sneakiness is a virtue! Further, John talked about fishing the Canyon stretch of the Madison below the Dam at the terminus of Ennis Lake – you can fish below the power house after crossing the footbridge and can work upstream toward the dam – the Madison was flowing about 980 cfs steadily for several days with daytime temps running in the 80’s and 90’s with clear skies.
Because we were originally going to have 5 of us, JR had booked the Trout Lodge at the El Western – fabulous area with kitchen, multiple bedrooms, living area, TV’s, phones, - unbelievable luxury – we decided that this was a great place for basing in the region!
To celebrate our first day of travel, we had dinner at the Reel Decoy restaurant, an establishment we visited last year and which has maintained its good food and service again this year!!
Back to the El Western for a quick nightcap and then to crash.