I can't take it anymore!

After spending the last two days whipping out the last 16 dozen Soft Hackle Copper John's for my commercial orders this spring I had a itch to get outsite and enjoy myself a bit. I jumped on the computer and pulled up the Weather Undergound to check out the wind conditions in the area. It was a bit breezy at the Table Mountain site along the Lower Madison river so I checked out the Karst site in the Gallatin Canyon. The wind gauge was sending back a calm reading so I called up my good friend Chris to see if he was interested in looking for a "Fish Ball" in the canyon. He was just getting his day started when I called but said that he would like to join me in a hour or so. I told him I had a list of chores to complete, which included the unenviable task of cleaning our bathrooms so I would not be heading out for a while anyway.

I arrived at his house around 12:30 and we put on our waders and jumped in the truck. One of our favorite haunts in the winter is the "River Runs Through It Rock" which is where they actually shot the photo for the film poster. The fish stack into the hole throughout the winter and it gets you away from the roar of the traffic on Hwy. 191. We pulled off the highway and made the short drive up the snow covered dirt road to the parking area near the rock. Trico was eager to get out of the truck and head to the river to feed her obsession with all the rocks in the river. Chris and I strung up the rods and slid down the bank and into the river.

Chris was the first to come tight to a fish and he landed a pretty little Gallatin River Rainbow on a small red brassie. I headed up above him and the rock and started my Apricot Egg and Big Ugly on it's desent into the depths. It took me about ten minutes to come tight to a fish and I was starting to wonder if a fly change needed to be made. The fiesty little rainbow faught hard and I was glad to finally get on the board. I caught two more fiesty bows and took a break on the bank so that I could just relax and change up the fly setup to something that might entice a quicker response from the fish. I changed up to a yellow egg trailed with a soft hackle baetis nymph and then headed back into the run. The new flies did not make much of a difference and I managed to bring in another small bow after making 30 to 40 drifts through the deep hole. Chris was catching fish on occassion with his King Prince and Red Brassie setup but both of us were starting to wonder if the "Fish Ball" was sitting in another hole.

I headed back to the bank for one more fly change and after fumbling through my boxes I made a rash decision to put on a # 8 Pat's Rubberleg trailed with a smaller yellow egg. After adjusting the weight and resetting the indicator a bit deeper I stumbled along the rock bottom and got my feet set in a good comfortable position. I sent my first cast into the deep pocket and relized my coat was unzipped with my lanyard hanging out so that if could catch all my excess fly line as I made my next cast. I tucked the lanyard back inside my coat and zipped up the jacket to keep all line catchers at bay. As I was fumbling with my zipper the indicator dove to the bottom and I was onto a nice healthy rainbow that measured between 12 and 14 iches. My next 4 cast produced a rainbow on each cast and both Chris and I were now sure that the "Fish Ball" was fully intact and sitting in the hole. Chris made a quick change to a rubberleg and we spent the next 15 mintues catching and landing various sized rainbows and one record setting whitefish. After we both had caught a couple dozen fish we decided to leave them alone and call it a day. We waded back across the river and scrambled back up the bank to the truck. We only spent about two hours on the river but it sure was a great time, and it definetly beats the monotony of sitting at the fly tying bench whipping out the same fly time and time again.