"WILD SPORT IN THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE", published by Trout and Salmon

March 2005



Squinting through the blistering rain, cascading down the windscreen in thick, oily rivulets, I finally glimpsed the sign I’d been quietly praying for. Looming out of the storm, a flimsy gale-shaken sign pronounced that I’d finally arrived at the spot where Montana’s Highway 287 snakes off west, into a gap between the jagged crags of the western Rockies. That gap is the magical Madison Valley.

Wrestling the truck around into the teeth of the storm, I watched the huge bolts of lightning walking down the valley towards me, out of the apocalyptic darkness at its head. As the rain intensified and the black storm seemed to engulf us, I glanced around nervously at my sleeping family – they could have been dozing innocently through the end of the world. I peered beyond the demented wipers, flailing impotently at the sheets of rain, and glimpsed the Madison for the first time. Rushing between the boulders on its long, long journey, via the Missouri and Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico, the river glowed with promise in the eerie, livid light of the West. The rain eased momentarily, and a fragile beam of sunlight sliced between the thunderheads and ignited the river in a brief, but delicious fire of golden light. My heart leapt: surely this was an omen for the coming weeks. As the black clouds shouldered back together to muscle out the intruding sunshine, and the rain hammered down with a renewed sense of rage, I thought of the river’s big, burly trout, hunkered down in their lies, waiting for the storm to pass. Waiting for the caddis flies to start hatching again. Waiting for me.

The sun came out the next day, flooding the valley with more of Montana’s singularly rich golden light, and showing the Madison and Gravelly Ranges off in all their austere grandeur. After a trip to the legendary gold-rush town of Virginia City with my deliriously excited boys, I managed to sneak away for an afternoon on the river. The whole fifty-mile stretch of the river from Quake Lake to the cowboy-town of Ennis is impossibly seductive, and it was hard to know just where to start. I popped into ‘Madison River Fishing Company’, one of Ennis’s tackle-shops, where Brian, a cool, easy-going young ‘dude’, decked out in a flamboyant psychedelic shirt and an outrageous beard, told me to make for Varney Bridge. “The salmon-flies might just start popping today” he shouted after me as I almost ran out of the shop, simultaneously trying to fumble my fishing license into my wallet and open the car door at the same time.

In my rush, I’d maybe not quite grasped Brian’s instructions as to where to fish, and when I pulled up at Varney, squeezing in between the serried ranks of boat-trailers, his directions were already blurry. I decided to wander upstream, and after walking a fair way, I found my access blocked off by a pretty unambiguous wire fence. Rather than tramp back to the bridge, I decided to thrash my way through the undergrowth and wrestled my way through to the river. Reaching the water, I slipped and half-fell into the water. Righting myself, I waded out maybe fifteen yards and was about to swing the nymphing rig that Brian had proposed into the attractive-looking seam-line in front of me when I heard a huge splash from over my shoulder. I looked around, convinced that the sound was that of earth subsiding after my earlier slip. As the ripples expanded, I recognised a salmon fly – a huge one – bobbing down the current, and another huge splash betrayed a large, handsome-looking rainbow as it callously devoured its pitiful victim.

I hurriedly bit off the carefully constructed leader and replaced the nymphs with big, foam “McSalmonfly” imitation, gleaned from my adventures in Oregon. Backing out into the river, I skimmed my side-cast low under the bank side foliage. The fly caught an outstretched branch and hung tantalisingly for a second before dropping delicately into the trout’s feeding lane, hard against the bank. The birdsong and the sound of the rushing river fell away as I was consumed by the intense, magical anticipation that elevates the dry-fly experience above all other forms of angling. The fly swam that last, long yard down to the fish, and then the big rainbow dutifully crashed through the surface and we went at it like a pair of raging prize-fighters, toe to toe in the rushing ring of the Madison River.

When I finally scooped the magnificent fish into my net – a steely-blue, thick-shouldered creature that tipped the scales at a little over four pounds – I’d skidded nearly fifty yards down the treacherously slippery bed of the river. I’m ashamed to say that I extended the fish’s revival process just long enough for a passing drift-boat to witness my prize, and one of its occupants, a sage-looking old guy hollered out that I’d “got me there the fish of a life-time, son!”

The next few days were wild – in between taking Cath and my boys on horse-riding trips and visits to spot bison, bears and deer in Yellowstone Park, I squeezed in a couple of short but explosive sessions on the river, taking some lovely fish including a beautiful brown that another drift-boater estimated at “Gotta be close on six pounds”, although in truth it probably went around three and a half. The magic couldn’t last – the salmon fly hatch seems to bring half of the Western Hemisphere flocking to the Madison, and the pressure is relentless. Worse still, the salmonfly are huge – no matter how delicious the fish might find them, there’s only so many they can eat before they’re sated, and the fishing suddenly grinds to a halt. My man Brian had the answer: “Ever fish at night?” he asked in a low voice, looking around furtively to make sure no one else was eavesdropping on our conversation. I nodded discreetly, and he grinned the grin of a man who should be keeping a secret. “Caddis, man, tons of ‘em – Varney Bridge – all those big nocturnal browns come out to play” he winked. As I made to replenish my box with Elk-hair Caddis and small Stimulator patterns, Brian held out another fly – an X-Caddis – similar to an Elk-Hair but without the palmered body and sporting a “Zelon” shuck. Most caddis flies don’t hang around for long when they emerge in the surface film, but if you’re a trout, that’s the time to eat them, and the X-caddis perfectly mimics that crucial, vulnerable few seconds when the fly is wriggling out of its pupal strait-jacket. That night, I made hay: after reading my boys a bed-time story & enjoying a glass of excellent Californian red with my wife, I drove down to the river and started to cast my flies into the dying embers of the sunset. Two old guys in Stetson hats wandered onto the bridge and squinted down at me in the gathering gloom. “Ever catch anything in the dark?” enquired one, with an inflection that suggested he thought I might be a little soft in the head. “Apparently!” I called up, and was rewarded with a classic swirling caddis-rise that buckled my rod over and had the old guys laughing. “D’ya get many trout in Australia?” asked the other guy, a veritable Professor Higgins, as I held the fish up for them to see. “I wouldn’t know – I’m from London!” I laughed, and over the next hour or so, we enjoyed an easy-going bout of good-natured banter, punctuated by a procession of good-sized fish – all browns, just as Bryan had predicted. The old guys eventually left me to it, and as the darkness consumed the river, the action intensified. By midnight, having taken a couple of particularly hefty fish that gleamed like bullion in the golden light of my head-torch, I called it a day.

Over the next few weeks, I managed to squeeze in a few trips to other waters in the “golden triangle”, where Montana, Wyoming and Idaho meet. I drove over the infamous Little Bighorn range – through another tumultuous electrical storm – and fished Wyoming’s prolific North Platte in the company of Bret Van Rensselaer, who runs the excellent North Platte Lodge. Using tiny pale morning dun emergers, we caught some beautiful silver rainbows and a clutch of big, handsome cut-bows that ploughed off like trains on feeling the hook. I made the pilgrimage to fish the Yellowstone on the opening day of the Park fishing season, July 15th, and managed to bustle my way in-between a herd of metal-slinging psychopaths to catch a dozen large, vividly-painted Yellowstone cutthroats rising to big Green Drakes. These lovely fish seemed oblivious to the relentless salvoes of Mepps and Panther Martin spinners whistling all around them, not to mention the formidable-looking herd of bison that decided to ford the river and had us all scuttling hurriedly for the bank. They fed voraciously all through the day, and did little to contradict the “dumb blonde” status conferred upon them, but they are undoubtedly the most beautiful trout I’ve ever seen, and I found myself handling them with a special reverence, as I watched their lissom figures glide back into the wide waters of the famous river. I made time for the spring creeks that empty into the Yellowstone in the aptly named Paradise Valley. Armstrong Creek, a gin-clear Chinese puzzle of a river, where the fish approach every emerging sulphur dun with a caution bordering on neurosis, gave me twelve beautiful fish on tiny Sparkle duns – again featuring the zelon shuck that so effectively replicates the real thing and seems to give off an irresistibly vulnerable message to the fish.

However, it was the Madison that kept drawing me back – I woke early one morning in our little timber cabin, perched on the banks of the river, just above Raynolds Pass Bridge, and glancing out of the window as I filled the coffee percolator, I saw the unmistakeable sight of a big, splashy rise. I looked in on my three lads, dozing after a long day driving out to see “Old Faithful” the day before and then, kissing my snoozing wife and whispering that she’d know where to find me, I slipped silently into my chest waders, grabbed my rod from the roof-beams, and crept silently out of the house. The weather was heavy and unnaturally warm for such an early hour, and as I crossed the bridge, I watched the glassy tail of the “Ross’s Rock” pool, just upstream, start to dimple with rise after rise. I worked my way cautiously into the icy river, right at the base of the pool, and waited for the next fish to betray himself. When he did, I showed him the Elk-Hair caddis that had worked so well on the fish chasing the skittering egg-layers at night. The fish had a look, but evidently wasn’t impressed. I watched another confident rise, but again the fish refused my fly. Fish were everywhere, and I knew that if I could unlock the secret, I’d have a field day. Although the water was littered with adult spotted caddis (Hydropsyche), the rises were bulging and suggested that the fish were keying on the emerging insects. I looked for a klinkhammer on my fly patch, but the little x-caddis immediately caught my eye. On it went, and I watched with bated breath as the fly settled on the water. The change was immediate and astonishing: the little fly worked its voodoo on every fish I showed it to, each one racing off into the heavy current and sending me slithering off down the river after them. I gingerly pushed out across the vigorous current and onto the large shallow bar in the middle of the river, allowing me to properly present my newfound talisman to the bigger, darker shadows hovering in the central current. I picked them off one by one, beautiful quivering silver rainbows that shivered in the frigid water.

By the time I saw Cath nursing her coffee and shouting from the far side of the river to come in for breakfast, I’d worked my way right to the top of the pool, and caught nineteen fish - I held up the last of them – an immaculate, hard, silver-bright wild rainbow of nearly two pounds –for Cath and the boys to see, and then, elated, I picked my way out of the river, back to the house and the start of another perfect day under the big sky.


Accommodation:

We stayed at “Flies and Lies”, a lovely timber cabin perched right on the river, opposite one of its most prolific pools, just above Raynolds Pass Bridge. This place is a fly-fishing ‘temple’, where every last item – from the oven-gloves to the telephone - has a piscine flavour to it. Yellowstone is around 45 minutes away by car.

Contact Jim Kimmey @ Madison Management
Ph 001 406-682-7034
www.madisonmanagement.com
e-mail:http://www.madisonmanagement.com

The “Gray Reef” section of the North Platte offers some of the biggest, toughest trout in the US and is set in the stunning wild-west of central Wyoming. Brett Renselaar is the likeable, easy-going guy who runs the excellent North Platte Lodge, near Alcova, Wyoming.
Contact him by e-mail: Nplatlodge@aol.com
Website: http://www.northplattelodge.com


Tackle:

Take a 5 or 6 weight for the Madison and other bigger rivers, and try and fit in a little 8ft, 3 weight for the excellent spring creek fishing – Armstrong’s and Depuys in Paradise Valley are both magnificent.

Brian Rosenbourg and all the guys at ‘Madison River Fishing Company’ are excellent, enthusiastic and friendly anglers who will show you exactly what to have on the business end when fishing on the Madison. Brian lent me a lovely little brook rod outfit for Armstrong Creek, and was always full of helpful tips and advice. Madison River FC also provide guides and drift-boat trips, as well as up-to-date reports on the river conditions and the fishing. Make it your first stop on arrival in Ennis.
Telephone
001-406-682-4744
Address
Madison River Fishing Company
109 Main Street / P. O. Box 627
Ennis, MT 59729
E-mail
mrfc@3rivers.net





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