Fishing the Solstice Sunrise, June 21st

Our time off is finally synchronized. June 21^st was our first day off together since Heidi has been here, so we spent an overnight in the town of West Yellowstone. An hour’s drive just outside the Park’s West Entrance, we rented a cabin in town at Sleepy Hollow Lodge. I stayed there with buddies on fishing trips in 2007 and 2009.  No fishermen there this time though. We shared continental breakfast the next morning with half a dozen Asian tourists, we were the only ones speaking English.

Sunrise over the Madison River, June 21

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get up early and fish a little before breakfast. I was headed back into the Park by 5:45 to fish a favorite place on the Madison River. Summer sunrise is such a beautiful time of day, the early morning light and cool, still air.  Three million people visit Yellowstone every year, yet few get up early to experience an entirely different sense of place.  A car passed by my fishing spot every couple of minutes. Three hours later, the constant stream of daytime visitors heading into the Park had begun.

A bit chilly for late June morning

Early mornings of the summer solstice are all the more special, the longest days of the year. The fat of the summer lies ahead, a time of endless possibilities for doing things and going places.

On the way to the river, I passed a small herd of bison greeting the morning in their own way. A dozen calves cavorted along the riverbank like school kids on a playground.

Bison along the river at sunrise

My destination was Grasshopper Bank on the Madison River, made famous by legendary angling authors Ernie Schwiebert and Charlie Brooks three decades ago. It gets its name midsummer when its trout rise to imitations of grasshoppers and other terrestrial insects.

It has personal connections for me. In 2009, I fished there with Mike Rogers, Dave Parker and Jim Zyla. In 2011, it was Dave, Mike, and his son, Charlie.  A couple of nice trout were caught each trip. Dave had a really big trout on the line for a while one of those trips. Another evening, he and I witnessed an epic evening hatch of some miniscule insect that drove the trout nuts. Drove us nuts too, we never figured it out.

Snow left above the treeline, Madison Range

I fished for more than an hour working nymphs and streamers around logs lining the riverbank and down into troughs in the uneven bottom. The current carves around large beds of rich green submerged vegetation. It was pleasant fishing this beautiful river on a morning like this, but the sun was well up and I hadn’t produced even a half-hearted bump from a trout.

I picked up and walked two hundred yards downstream to where the slow pool breaks over into a wide shallow riffle. My motivation was more nostalgia than any hope for a fish. This is where Dave hooked that big trout years ago. The clock wasn’t in my favor, for I had to be back to the cabin in time for breakfast with Heidi.

Fishing is as much about optimism as about opportunity. Anglers have to believe that the next cast is going to bring a strike, when odds are it will not. You can make a hundred or more casts between strikes. It’s a fisherman’s corollary to Henry Ford’s quip, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.”

In higher water, fish hug the 'Rip Rap' in the soft pockets of eddies

The water levels are much lower this year than any of my past trips here. Good holding water for fish was skimpy. I methodically cast to them all. Behind midstream boulders; against the rock retaining wall along the road known as the ‘Rip Rap.’ Then, to all the possible lies around what’s known in my mind as ‘Dave’s Island.’ Nothing.

There’s another angling rule: ‘you can’t catch fish unless your hook is in the water.’ Turning back toward the car, I kept casting. My second or third cast into last-chance water (shin deep, featureless), I felt the jolt of a bigger fish.

Summer solstice brown trout, Madison River

It hit a black wooly bugger, a go-to fly for this trip (any trip). I put this fish in the net, a nice deep-hued brown trout of 16” or so. Nice sense of accomplishment. A quick snap of the camera for photographic evidence, held him in the soft current until he could swim off on his own.

I can’t imagine a much better way to greet the summer solstice.