"The Rip Rap Bank where the Magic got started"Wednesday May 9th: Lower Madison with the dogs and Larry. Flows were 1800 C.F.S. and the clarity was a solid three feet in a greenish colored water. Weather started out with clear blue skies and 70 degrees with clouds and wind blowing in around noon and lasting most of the day.
I was debating whether to float the Slower Murderson or try and squeeze in a float on the Gallatin from Shed's to Cameron when I woke up. After picking up lunch from Mama Mac's and crossing over the Gallatin my decision was made easy as the Gallatin had started to get a brown color to it when I crossed over. The 80 degree temperature had sent down a good bit more water and with it more sediment. Larry was ready when I arrived at his house atop the Dairy Farm and we jumped in our trucks and took the short drive to the Lower. We parked Larry's truck at Black's Ford and headed for the put in at Warm Springs. When we arrived Grossenbackers had a group of 5 boats getting ready and there was another raft getting ready to float as well. We loaded our gear in the boat and launched the boat. I started Larry off with a Trude and a caddis dropper to fish the pockets in between the weed beds and let the group trip float on by us. I knew that they were all throwing indicator rigs with a crayfish and a bead so they would pass by quickly and we would not have to deal with them the rest of the day. As we got to the top of the weed beds I had Larry running cast into the pockets between the weeds with the dry dropper rig. There were some March Browns, Caddis and some small mayflies that I believe were psuedo cleons coming off the water. We fished the top end of the weed beds near the island on river right and then I pulled the boat back across to the top of the weed beds so that we could run a few quick nymphs through the edge of the weed beds on the left side of the river. I gave Larry a nymph rig with a copper zonker and a # 16 peacock anatomay dropper. He ran the nymph rig all the way down the weed beds to the end of the island and we had no success at all. I did make several fly changes as we walked down the beds but none of them produced results as well. I tried a lite brite caddis, brown Mangy caddis, two tone tommy worm and a prince. As we hit the second weed bed I changed him back to the dry dropper rig and we stung a small fish out of one of the deep buckets. The Group trip came by us and it took them longer than expected to get out of site and out of ear shout from us. They had a group full of rookies and tangles and instruction were on the slate for the guides. They did appear to be having a good time as they were plenty loud as they passed us. We proceeded to make our way down the weed beds and then we headed to the right hand side of the river to see if any fish were rising in the willow lined bank ahead of the "ice shelf" island. With no success up to this point I jumped back in the boat and we changed back to the nymph rig. I switched the nymph rig up to a natural zonker trailed with a pheasant tail and we dropped anchor and ran some drifts through the rock garden on the first corner. It was starting off to be another one of "those days" on the Slower Murderson. We pulled up anchor and the wind started to blow as we floated by the "rock slide", when a big fish ate the strike indicator on the shallow riffle in the middle of the river. Of course Larry got all excited and he wanted to fish a dry fly immediately. I gave him the same tired speech about fishing eating indicators and we continued to float on down the river. As we floated I started to notice a couple of different size Golden stones flying around and when we got to the bridge piling we pulled in and I rigged up a new dry fly setup. The rip rap bank below the piling is most effectively fished using a dry dropper setup as you can get it in closer to the bank and keep a good drift going so we made a plan to hit it hard. The water was up so I was not sure if I would be able to walk the boat down the bank but I cinched up my waders as high as they would go and got ready to walk the boat down the bank. In years past I have done well fishing a Lime PMX when the stones were out so I rigged Larry with a # 10 Delektable Lime PMX and a # 12 Rubberleg Legal dropper. As we set off down the bank the wind was gusting and a good bank of clouds had set over us. We made it about 50 yards down the bank and Larry was into a small bow on the legal. I pulled the boat to shore and threw the anchor in the rocks so I could net the fish for him. We set back out and we pulled five fish off the rest of the rip rap bank with a nice 17 inch bow being the highlight of the short run. The big rainbow first swiped at his dry twice and then we hooked him on the legal after a couple of more cast. As the wind picked up I pulled the boat all the way over to the opposite bank and we had a bite to eat. The dogs love lunch time because Larry loves to throw them food as we eat. They were in dog heaven with all the excess bread on the Mama Mac's Sandwich's.
I was debating whether to float the Slower Murderson or try and squeeze in a float on the Gallatin from Shed's to Cameron when I woke up. After picking up lunch from Mama Mac's and crossing over the Gallatin my decision was made easy as the Gallatin had started to get a brown color to it when I crossed over. The 80 degree temperature had sent down a good bit more water and with it more sediment. Larry was ready when I arrived at his house atop the Dairy Farm and we jumped in our trucks and took the short drive to the Lower. We parked Larry's truck at Black's Ford and headed for the put in at Warm Springs. When we arrived Grossenbackers had a group of 5 boats getting ready and there was another raft getting ready to float as well. We loaded our gear in the boat and launched the boat. I started Larry off with a Trude and a caddis dropper to fish the pockets in between the weed beds and let the group trip float on by us. I knew that they were all throwing indicator rigs with a crayfish and a bead so they would pass by quickly and we would not have to deal with them the rest of the day. As we got to the top of the weed beds I had Larry running cast into the pockets between the weeds with the dry dropper rig. There were some March Browns, Caddis and some small mayflies that I believe were psuedo cleons coming off the water. We fished the top end of the weed beds near the island on river right and then I pulled the boat back across to the top of the weed beds so that we could run a few quick nymphs through the edge of the weed beds on the left side of the river. I gave Larry a nymph rig with a copper zonker and a # 16 peacock anatomay dropper. He ran the nymph rig all the way down the weed beds to the end of the island and we had no success at all. I did make several fly changes as we walked down the beds but none of them produced results as well. I tried a lite brite caddis, brown Mangy caddis, two tone tommy worm and a prince. As we hit the second weed bed I changed him back to the dry dropper rig and we stung a small fish out of one of the deep buckets. The Group trip came by us and it took them longer than expected to get out of site and out of ear shout from us. They had a group full of rookies and tangles and instruction were on the slate for the guides. They did appear to be having a good time as they were plenty loud as they passed us. We proceeded to make our way down the weed beds and then we headed to the right hand side of the river to see if any fish were rising in the willow lined bank ahead of the "ice shelf" island. With no success up to this point I jumped back in the boat and we changed back to the nymph rig. I switched the nymph rig up to a natural zonker trailed with a pheasant tail and we dropped anchor and ran some drifts through the rock garden on the first corner. It was starting off to be another one of "those days" on the Slower Murderson. We pulled up anchor and the wind started to blow as we floated by the "rock slide", when a big fish ate the strike indicator on the shallow riffle in the middle of the river. Of course Larry got all excited and he wanted to fish a dry fly immediately. I gave him the same tired speech about fishing eating indicators and we continued to float on down the river. As we floated I started to notice a couple of different size Golden stones flying around and when we got to the bridge piling we pulled in and I rigged up a new dry fly setup. The rip rap bank below the piling is most effectively fished using a dry dropper setup as you can get it in closer to the bank and keep a good drift going so we made a plan to hit it hard. The water was up so I was not sure if I would be able to walk the boat down the bank but I cinched up my waders as high as they would go and got ready to walk the boat down the bank. In years past I have done well fishing a Lime PMX when the stones were out so I rigged Larry with a # 10 Delektable Lime PMX and a # 12 Rubberleg Legal dropper. As we set off down the bank the wind was gusting and a good bank of clouds had set over us. We made it about 50 yards down the bank and Larry was into a small bow on the legal. I pulled the boat to shore and threw the anchor in the rocks so I could net the fish for him. We set back out and we pulled five fish off the rest of the rip rap bank with a nice 17 inch bow being the highlight of the short run. The big rainbow first swiped at his dry twice and then we hooked him on the legal after a couple of more cast. As the wind picked up I pulled the boat all the way over to the opposite bank and we had a bite to eat. The dogs love lunch time because Larry loves to throw them food as we eat. They were in dog heaven with all the excess bread on the Mama Mac's Sandwich's.
"Doggy Heaven, Lunch Time with Larry"As we ate the wind continued to gust and there were a lot of the stones flying in the air. There were two sizes of the goldens flying around. There was a smaller # 14 stone and a larger # 8 of # 10 size as well. The change over to the dry dropper setup was finally producing some results. I took a few cast as we were stopped with a spin rod rigged with a Panther Martin and caught two very small browns and had on another fairly nice sized brown as well. I know that fishing with a spin rod is looked down on by a lot of fly addicts, but they need to get over themselves and remember that fishing is supposed to be fun and no matter what method of fishing you are doing it is a great time. Some of the best fishing this year has been with my son at the Bozeman ponds drowning worms. Sorry to get off subject but I had to put in my little rant.
I walked the boat back over to the highway side of the river after lunch and Larry immediately hooked a nice rainbow on the PMX. The fish fought hard and broke off the dropper sometime during the battle so I had to re juice the fly and add another dropper. We continued on down the bank and had another fish come up to the PMX in the small rock garden before it breaks into "Gaper Flats". I walked the boat back across the river to hit the rocks on the other side and Larry missed a nice 15 or 16 inch brown off the shore below the rock piles. I jumped back in the boat and floated down the middle of the river till we hit the camping site and then I jumped back out to walk the boat down to the "Head Gate Hole". We had no luck on the bank so I got back into the boat and rowed over to the middle slot to fish the edges of the weed beds. I dropped anchor in the slot across from the head gate and Larry caught 4 smaller fish all on the PMX. We proceeded down the weed beds and Larry missed a couple on the dropper and landed a couple of more small fish on the dry fly. By the time we hit the bridge we had a pretty decent day going. The weather had been breezy but the cloud cover definitely helped out with the fishing.
After we went under the bridge we had a slow period until we hit Red Mountain Campground and where Larry hooked three fish on consecutive cast just before hitting "Doc's Channel". All of the fish came up to the PMX, so I decided to switch up to two dry flies. Larry was very excited and made the comment that he was finally fishing like a man again. I giggled and praised him for doing so well with the nymphs and responded to his comment about how he would rather catch 6 fish on a dry than twelve on a nymph. I ask him if he would rather catch 25 on a nymph and he said that might be O.K. too. We continued on the float and we caught another dozen fish on our way to the take out at Blacks Ford. The fish ate the # 14 Parawulff Adams about half the time and the PMX the other. It turned out to be a great day and we both were satisfied with the fishing we had for the past two days.
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