Last Dance

 I'm pretty sure it's not going to be great, but this is the walk I want to take on the last morning of this trip.  Its either this, or Dillon, and the easy turn at Cardwell is left.  The evening is windy, but this morning is comfortably cool and dead calm to start.  Just me and a white Jeep in the lot at 7am.  The water at the top of the island has some weeds, but not like the weedy MO.  The Foundation calls the water "turbid," or increased turbidity, I call it Beaverhead clear.  It's not Fork clear like a month ago.  I get in, and slow dance my way down, scanning the water thinking of opening morning, windy afternoons, and brown drake evenings.  I think ahead to mahoganies peppered with baetis in September.  Maybe a grasshopper or two.  Its quiet.

Behind me, I hear a bloop.  I turn around and 30 feet back is a ring of the rise, right where I just danced through five minutes earlier.  A couple minutes later, there's another one above that.  Both one-timers.  A bloop is a light sound, the nose of the fish still coming out of the water, but sort of a spinner sip.  A blurp, on the other hand, often leaves a bubble, like eating a dun or escaping emerger.  A deeper tone, and more arousing.

The water is pretty bugless, just a rare PMD adult or spinner floating by.  Big ones though, big enough to get a big rainbow's attention if even only once.  A couple of tricos hang on my sleeve.  Some fluttering caddis glow in the sunlight above the water.  All together, they're still hardly worth a bloop.

An hour in though, half way down and dead-center on the long dance floor, I finally see two fish start to work.  As I step downstream to get in range of the steady risers, the dreaded north wind quickly pushes down river at my back.  The flags on the ranch lawn show themselves, and that stops the rising fish on the formerly mirror-smooth Millionaire's pool.  I finish the walk down, taking my time hoping its just a passing gust.  Nope.  I see some PMD's flying in a tiny lee south of lower island.  But there will be no morning rise.  On the trail out, there are grasshoppers in the grass and sage brush.  I wonder what might have been.  For now, the dance is over.

Oh, the morning dreams

A confirmation

See you in September

So Predictable

I'm sort of pointed to home.  Fishing's hanging on by a thread.  Flat.  But once I'm home, the summer mind-set is kaput.  I'm weak, or smart, probably the former. I just can't quite drive away when you-know-where is just a short air conditioned drive up the road a piece.  DW has new digs exactly one hour away from the best trout river in America.  Day trip tricos and caddis from dawn to noon, maybe some pmd's, head back home, repeat.  This is how to finish strong, yes sir.  Let's play four.  We do.  6-8 fish mornings, good fish.  A bonus afternoon when some clouds kept things comfortable.  There's no place like it.

Starts grew a little later each day, but early beats everybody and is so comfortable.

The iconic view down at the best trout river in America.

And fish like this daily are part of the reason why

One of the best side channels in America

And fat rainbows too

There's a new beaver in town, but the trout still love river-left

The clear winner for four days.  It imitates, or represents, everything.

This little strip had multiple heads coming up every morning.

Girthy

At 4,000 cfs, the river's version of bonefish flats.  

No brown trout crises here.

This was a nice looking spent partridge caddis before the teeth got a hold of it.

From out here, you have the flats on your left, and the point on your right.  Both accessible with rising fish.

One more

High Ground

It's still roasting, and gonna stay that way since it's mid-July after all.  Needing some "better" fish, the next coolest place I can think of off hand is back in the Yellowstone region.  Just a few degrees cooler than the surrounding lower valleys, with a couple options I know well for some good fish on the dry.  Neither fish well, but at least I check, and don't need to run the A/C for a couple days. 

From clear air on the Idaho side of the Bitterroots to the smokey skies of the Island Park caldera.  

Covered in caddis in the Fork, but only an occasional one-timer eating. Not happening.

A favorite side channel for the evening

On the parachute rusty

Three Dollar morning

The fly for the rare rising fish

I covered some ground up from Three Buck

This is the first bank I ever fished on the Madison in 1984.  Wow, 40 years and I remember it like yesterday. Big fires. I waded up the bank and just mowed 'em down every morning with an elk hair caddis.  Me and "Oregone Don" Freeman, who I would go fish the Deschutes with for steelhead that fall. 

Evening fish from that bank.

I still remember some old timer (I'm in my early 20's then) telling me about all the big fish that came into this side channel to feed around sunset.  I've since seen it many times thanks to him, but not on this visit.  

Not much here at sunset either, where I've seen it boil with fish on spent eporeus in mid-July 

No morning life up here across from that iconic boulder either.

Me and a fish went a few rounds just inches from the bank here.  He missed a couple of my flies.  I missed a couple more of his takes.  He won.

Beating the Heat

Now what coach?  It's hot.  I've fished all my regulars including a cool, relaxing float around Dillon that yielded a 5 or 6 late afternoon fish on an otherwise uneventful day.  Hoot Owls are just announced.  Head for the high country, that's what I'll do.  Over the pass to the Bitterroot valley.  Nice drive.  Gets crowded from Hamilton north.  Up the pass to the west from Lolo leads to some dense forest, slightly higher elevations, and a good sized, untamed river.  I've driven this a few times but never stopped.  Surely its cooler, with some shade that's mostly lacking from the fabled waters of southwest Montana.  Bigger trees, smaller sky.

I had some campsites in mind, but little did I realize I was about to hit the jackpot.  Its hot as hell July.  I crest the little pass on Highway 12 and the truck reads 85, cooler than anywhere down low.  Soon I'm looping though a campground, and notice the sites all have electric plug-ins.  Up here, in the middle of nowhere?  I don't usually even care, but my air conditioner does!  We find this vacant site, with partial shade, the river 100 feet behind the site, a restroom steps away, and the plug-in on the right side. And for a mere $10 a night?  Home baby!

And to top it off, Lochsa Lodge is close by with ice for the coolers, a full service restaurant and store, and gas.  But wait, there's more . . . I connect my booster antenna and get a little bit of internet/cell service that I haven't seen since I left Lolo, 46 miles to the east.  How can this be?  To think I've blown right past it 3 or 4 times in recent years, and a river runs through it.

Cool Home

The river right behind camp

Gotta watch out, make noise

Not tailwater size, just fish.  The regulars say there's some to 18 inches in here.  They use stonefly nymphs.

Big #14 caddis worked

Lots of tributaries, rumored to have some bull trout.  They're colder, so the cutthroats like the runs just below where they flow in.

This was as far downriver as I fished

A great pool, with king salmon too.

This is the fly I settled on to keep the dinks off and bring up fish

Up river above the forks

There's a few big trees too, not redwood size, but big.

So I spend a few days fishing the delightfully comfortable mornings.  Love the cool naps and late lunch back in the air conditioned trailer.  Evenings cool down quickly well before dark.  I take a few dirt roads.  Find a couple of hot springs for a different season.  Talk to some Missoula guys egg fishing for kings. (signs say no bait, but things change quick in Idaho based on anadromous fish runs.)  Visit the salmon hatchery upstream.  I'd stay another few days, or a week, but the fishing is pretty average, and I can't figure out a 15 or 16 incher on a dry.  I need something else. Sure is hard to leave though.

Forecast says a little bit cloudy and slightly cooler around Yellowstone again.  Fork is high but I've caught 'em there before.  Epeorus (PMD/Quill Gordon) on the Maddy? Between the lakes?  Hebgen?  There's options.  My summer clock is ticking.  Movin' on.