27 August 2009 - Thursday

AM up at 0530 to go bicycling – not sure of the route yet but that is the purpose of first rides. Still dark at 0630 but it is starting to lighten up. Got out of hotel with bike by 0700 – head down Highway 287 toward town. Nasty rumble strips and lots of 18 wheel trucks going through…..not my idea of an idyllic ride. After a mile, I heard a rattle – it is a rattle I have heard before – most recently on the Skagit Spring Classic – it is the bolt that holds the rear fender on the bike – it located under the fender, by the tire, which requires removal of the rear tire to access the area. Bummer…..I elect to carefully cycle back to the El Western to fix it since last time it took vise grips to work the bolt into place.

Arriving back at the El Western, I flip the bike over on a picnic table, remove the rear wheel and get the tools to work the problem. Andy was up early and came over to offer advice and some extra tools he had in the truck. After tightening the bolt and putting the wheel back on, the bike was ready to go but it was getting on in the morning and we came to fish! So put the bike away, the gods decided not to have me cycle today, and we started to get ready to go fish.

Everyone was up with coffee and getting the gear ready – the Madison River just above Ennis Lake is a good sized piece of water so I elect to use a 6 wt rod with a wide range of possible flies. Everyone loaded up with new batteries for the walkie-talkie’s – I am going to wet wade today as it promises to be warm. We ate our breakfast in the huge kitchen area in our lodge area (bagels/peanut butter which Andy brought!).

Headed out to start fishing at Valley Gardens access about 10:00. GK and AM head outward and slightly up river while JR and AB head down river. Water is fast but wade able – there are little to large buckets where the water color darkens (sometimes only a little!) indicating deeper water to hold fish. When the water flow over the buckets get about walking speed – lookout! That’s where the fish are likely to be! Of course, AM forgets his net but since the fish are biting, who wants to go back and get it! AM had consistent fish hookups by covering water – "landed" about 7 (the fish never touched the ground to my knowledge!) plus numerous LDR’s – all dry flies except for one copper John bead head hookup – sorry about doing that – it didn’t feel right. The water felt big so larger attractor patterns seemed to be in order – most hookups were on a #12 orange stimulator with legs and a few were on a Chernobyl hopper. Sure was glad to have a 6 weight rod to do the line management on the water. Fish ran from 11 inches to 15 inches – one brown and the rest rainbows.

JR and AB fished down stream and found some chutes with holding fish. Pretty neat fishing weather – mid day temps were about 80-85F which is perfect for wet wading. I talked to some folks rafting down from Varney – didn’t sound like they did too well fishing wise but it was a great day to be on the water – sometimes the fish (or more accurately the fishing) just get in the way!

Off to the Madison Valley Store for lunch and dinner fixens – everyone stocked up.

Napped till about 5 pm and discussed Braids or $3 hole – elected to try the braids per the original plan – AM tried to remember to take net and eye glass guards this time!!

Headed out and got to the braids around 1830 – talked to a couple of fellows who had just come out from the braids – one local and the other from Texas. Fishing had been slow this day – they found it varied a lot from day to day with some times it being very hot!! Alas, today was not such a day. They recommended hiking about 2+miles to the end of the trail – we set off to fish the braids after almost 11 years of waiting …..AM then went back and retrieved his net from the car…..then he went back and got the box of woolly buggers for the pools…..then he went back for his camera……then he was about to go crazy but couldn’t figure out anything else he needed which had been left in the car…..sounds like rookie mistakes!!

We hiked in along a well used trail to the braids – many cutouts so it was cook’s choice on when to leave the trail and head over to the river. A fence ran on our right demarking the boundary of private lands abutting the river.

AB/GK went in at one spot and JR/AM went in another spot – these seemed random so it is hard to figure out why we went in where we did. We found the river to have lots of little braids with a main stem a few hundred yards away. The water was fairly thin with slots and pools as it moved around the braids. Due to the hike in, it was about 1915-1930 before we got into fishing water. Due to the late hour, we had a low orange sun which either created glare on the water or glare in your eyes depending on your orientation to the setting sun. The end result was the same in that it was very hard to read the water – "pools" could be 6" or 36" or 6 feet – you just couldn’t tell. This made fishing difficult to say the least. We noted the evening water temps to be like bath water at the end of the day which probably also contributed to difficult fishing as the oxygen levels had to be down. JR/AM found an island in the middle of the river with "No trespassing" signs on it – not sure how that works in a state like Montana which has public access up to the high water mark – fishing wasn’t adequately stimulating to cause us to challenge the signs however. AB kept fishing after the rest of us had moved back onto the trail to return to the cars – he finally hooked into a 12 inch brown as the sun was seriously starting to set.

We headed back together on the access trail and used our flashlights at the end to see our way to the cars. Everyone back to the cars in the very dark by 2045 – Back to the El Western for dinner and scotch!! Then crash!