A Tale of Two Rivers

Living out here all summer lets me fish many different rivers. Close by. On consecutive weekends recently, I fished two very different rivers, just one hour away in opposite directions from Old Faithful. Each river provides a delightful fishing experience in its own unique way.

I fished the Madison River on August 9^th outside the Park below Quake Lake. Having an entire day to fish, I chose to explore a place new for me at Raynolds Pass Bridge. I wrote about this stretch of river before back in June. A most astounding piece of trout water, it is a favorite of mine.  With little more flow volume than Michigan’s Au Sable River below Mio, the Madison River below Quake Lake creates an amazing amount of trout habitat.  The Madison’s unique assets are its year-round source of stable cold water (Hebgen Lake), a steep gradient, and a boulder-strewn riverbed. When that fast-moving water meets all those boulders, the result is the most trout-holding water per foot of river that I have ever seen.

Madison's fast water, Raynolds Pass Bridge

It isn’t easy fishing here. The bouldered bottom makes wading difficult. My wading staff is constantly at hand. Fishing upstream is the only direction to maintain stable footing. Try wading downstream instead, and the swift current sweeps your foot away from your intended landing spot.

The trout here don’t make it easy either. They enjoy a plentiful supply of aquatic insects, so they get very choosy when feeding. A lot of fishing pressure adds to their selectivity. Refusals are routine as you try to solve the puzzle of which fly will work.

The weather below Hebgen Lake this day was a welcome change from a stretch of gloom in the Park. Low, gray clouds parted as I passed Quake Lake. I enjoyed a bright, clear sky all the way to dusk.

Summer in Madison Valley

Beginning in early July, this stretch of water becomes hatch water. Mayflies, stoneflies and caddis erupt in succession, providing great dry fly fishing late in the day. Nymph fishing still works during the day as summer progresses, and terrestrials are worth a try too.

The state of Montana has a riparian law allowing angler access to rivers below high water mark. Like Three Dollar Bridge several miles further downstream, angler access is further improved by an easement along both banks allowed by Three Dollar Ranch. A twenty minute walk along the sagebrush ridge brought me to a beautiful stretch of river with plenty of soft pockets and pools along at the edges. As popular as this stretch of the Madison is, I had plenty of elbow room too. The bankside willows were much more challenging than fellow anglers.

One of the Madison's turbocharged rainbows

The evening’s dry fly action was hours away, so I began fishing nymphs. After a couple of small fish quickly, the action slowed through the afternoon. Sometime after 3pm, I had several fish take a whack at my strike indicator. The fish were beginning to look up. Hot and tired from a day of dancing on boulders, I switched to a Parachute Adams as I worked my way back to the car for a dinner break. In quick succession, I hooked a big brown and a rainbow, landing neither. I pulled too hard on the first, could not get below the second to land it in the fast current. The rainbow made two long sprints, visible in the shallow water of a long riffle. What a thrilling fish to hook!

The river at dusk

Returning to the river about 6:30 pm, I was treated to two hours of challenging dry fly fishing as the trout keyed in on a succession of insects. The Parachute Adams worked again for a while, then started getting refused. An X Caddis fooled a couple more before the refusals began. Dusk was settling as the rises continued. Craig Matthews at Blue Ribbon Flies had alerted me to watch for mayfly spinners, but I waited too late to dig one out and try tying a knot in the fast-fading light. That turned out to be the fly-of-the moment. Back at the parking lot, another angler reported catching a 20” brown on a spinner. I will never forget that walk back to the car along the sagebrush ridge under a full moon in the cloudless Montana sky.

Fall River, at Union Falls Trail crossing

A week later, fishing the Fall River could not have been much more different. While the Madison enjoys big-name status, few anglers know about the Fall River, let alone ever fish it. This is off the beaten path fishing.



The Fall River lies in the Park’s southwest corner. We reached it traveling Grassy Lake Road just outside the Park’s South Entrance at Flagg Ranch. Eight miles of excellent gravel road gave way to the last two miles on a rutted stretch that still bore wash-outs from spring runoff. A steep, rutted descent to the trailhead made us wonder if we could drive back out. In for a dime, in for a dollar, the saying goes. Down we went. From the parking lot at the trailhead, a flat, easy 1.3 mile trail leads to the river. Hikers have to wade across here to continue on to Union Falls, a popular back country destination.

The setting here is back country pristine. No road noise or cattle grazing in the distance. No bankside paths worn down by a succession of anglers. No 20” trophy fish will come from these waters, and no prolific hatches will taunt an angler with the scene of many rising trout either. Instead, effortless, almost giddy midday fishing to eager native trout in a beautiful wilderness setting.

A beautiful back country river

We began fishing downstream, Ted jumping ahead several hundred yards. There are no hatch charts or other information about how to fish this little gem; it is back-to-basics search fishing. The current seemed too fast to fish a dry fly, there were no bugs in the air, and it was mid-morning in August. Since I already had my sink tip and streamer on the line, it was the logical thing to try first. It proved to be a good choice. Ted barely got on the board for the afternoon fishing a hopper.

Standing mid-stream in shin-deep water and casting to the deep-side bank of a long run, I began to catch fish immediately. Some on the black wooly bugger, some on the trailing prince nymph.  These trout are opportunistic feeders, no big hatches on a river like this. And, they hit with the abandon of fish that seldom see angling pressure. Almost all were 6-8” cutthroat trout with a couple of rainbows coming from deeper pools that formed in a willowed meadow below. I lost count at a dozen fish; it was nonstop action for more than two hours.

One lucky fish: marks of an ospreys talons

In the willowed meadow, the Fall River is reminiscent of the Fox River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It braids in a delightful array of gorgeous riffled channels, undercut banks, and bend pools. Beaver dens are everywhere, and the head-high willows made me a little edgy cutting across a big bend on the way back upstream. This is prime moose country, after all.

Our fishing ended at the precipice of a large waterfall of at least fifty feet in height. This part of the Park is known as Cascade Corner for good reason. It would have taken a good bit of time to navigate around it, and it was time to head back to the car. There is so much more river to explore here (and the famous Bechler River is nearby too). I hope to return, that’s for sure.

Only after the trip did I read the Park’s fishing regulations. This is another river where the harvest of invasive rainbow trout is encouraged in order to help maintain the native species. They sure would have tasted great on the grill back at our campground.

Flower Power

It has been a fantastic year for wildflowers in the Park, their profusion propelled by above-average snowpack last winter. 140% of average snowfall was measured at some USGS stations. Yellowstone lies east of the drought region that has the West Coast in its grip.

 

Grasshopper Bend, June 8th

Yellows, pinks, purples, blues, and whites brushed the landscape everywhere. I wish I could remember their names. Hard as I try, their names leave my consciousness minutes after I hear them. (Strange, I easily remember the names of mayflies and caddis, the aquatic mainstay of a trout’s diet. Priorities perhaps, or finite synapses?)

Roosevelt, July 10th

Elevation change is the second natural feature of Yellowstone that aids this long period of blooms. More than 3,500 feet of elevation separates the lowest point in the travelled parts of the Park (North Entrance) from its highest (Dunraven Pass). The balsamroot (I do remember that one) that adorned the sagebrush slopes of Grasshopper Bend on the Madison River on June 8^th is the same flower that commanded the slopes of Mt. Washburn almost two months later.

 

Lower Madison, June 21st

Being witness to this long succession of blooms is a perk of spending an entire season here. Right place-right time happens more often when you are somewhere for four months rather than one week. 

The most stunning encounter with the Park’s flower power occurred on July 15^th. Ending a weekend spent fishing up on the Lamar, I left Ted’s cabin at Roosevelt right about sunup in order to return to Old Faithful in time for my work shift. Grand Loop Road goes up and around massive Mt. Washburn. There on an east-facing slope of the mountain, I came upon a vast sea of yellow balsamroot in full bloom. It was over a mile long and probably half a mile deep (note the diminutive glint of a single car in the photo, nearly lost in the field of flowers). Countless blossoms tilted in phototropic unison toward the brilliant early morning sun rising in the east. Mother Nature’s solar collector was going full tilt.

 

Mt. Washburn, July 15th

Conifers, king tree in most of Yellowstone, lose their grip in the north of the Park. Trees are the mortal enemy of flowers, their high branches casting shade which denies flowers access to the sun’s energy. That won’t happen on the broad sage covered flanks of Mt. Washburn. Flower power rules there!

Dunraven Pass, July 26th