Scouting Day!!

Sunday began far to early with a 4:30 am wake up from the alarm clock and a trip to the airport to drop off my wife and son. We arrived at the airport at 5:15 for their 6 am flight and it was a mix of rain and snow. I dropped them off and hit the Truck Stop for some early morning grub. The Ham and Cheese omelet hit the spot and greasy hash browns were as good as they get, even though I would pay the price later in the day with all the grease and butter sitting in my stomach on top of the rest of the contents of my digestive tract. After eating breakfast I headed home and hit the bed to catch up on some more sleep. I finally got out of bed around 9 am and hit the fly tying vise to tie up some # 18 Soft Hackle copper johns and a few # 20 tungsten soft hackles for a day of fishing on the Gallatin. I was scheduled to take a trip on the Gallatin on Monday and I wanted to get out and fish it a bit before guiding on it the next day. My dad and Peter Penefold arrived at the house around 10:30 and we jumped in my dads truck with all our gear and my faithful fishing companion Trico the Spring Spaniel. We drove up the Gallatin Canyon all the way to Big Sky to check out the conditions of the river and to see how much it still looked and felt like winter in the Big Sky area. I had not been up the canyon most of the winter and I was surprised to see that most of the snow was gone from the banks of the river. When we got to Moose Creek it started to snow and the big wet heavy flakes were coming down at a moderate pace. We drove up to the top of the porcupine wildlife management area and turned around. There was a guy in the " Hog hole", which I wanted to stop and give a try so we continued on down the road to Deer Creek to check on the pod of risers that typically inhabit this deep hole. When we got to Deer Creek there was a mother and her two sons there who were from New Zealands North Island. They were visiting the area and her sons were attending school in Breckenridge Colorado for snowboarding. The one son had his fly rod rigged and was trying to fish in a pair of skater tennis shoes and a pair of shorts, all while it was snowing out. He did manage to catch a fish at the run above the bridge and we rigged up a dry fly rod for peter to go after the large pod of rising fish on the highway side, just above the bridge. There was conservatively 50 fish actively feeding on the surface, most of which were under 10 inches long. There were a couple of larger fish at the head of the pool but even these fish were not much larger than 12 or 13 inches. Peter headed down to the water and placed his first cast into the spruce tree behind him. After retrieving his fly from the tree he managed to hook several of the small fish on my light colored pullover midge # 20. After the fish stopped rising we jumped back in the truck and headed for Squaw Creek to fish a run or two and show them both the back road that gives you good access to the Gallatin away from Hwy 191. We ended up fishing the River Runs Through It rock and Peter and I did the death wade to the other side. It started off a bit slow as I had on a Idlywilde Goldenstone # 10 with a # 20 Tungsten Soft hackle on the rear. I hooked three fish from below the rock on the Stonefly nymph and peter hooked one rainbow above the rock on # 18 Soft Hackle Red Copper John trailed 2 feet off the back of a # 12 Royal Parwulff. I put on the Parawulff because I saw a large March Brown adult on the surface as I was crossing over to the other bank. Unfortunately there were not enough March Browns out to bring the fish to the surface but it will be very soon that we can get them to come up to a Wulff pattern. My dad nymphed up the road side of the run and he managed to hook one rainbow from the pocket water above the main run. Peter also headed upstream and I stayed in the deep run knowing full well that there was a ball of fish somewhere in the deeper water and all that I had to do was unlock their exact location and find the right fly setup. I moved above the Rock and changed my setup to a Brown and Yellow Rubberleg trailed with one of Fluery's half eggs that we did well on a month earlier on a trip at the Lodge. The Rubberleg was a # 10 and the Egg was a Mc Cheese Egg on a # 14 scud hook. I put on one # 4 split shot and bang the first cast I stuck a nice 12 inch bow on the rubberlegs. My second cast came tight to a 13 inch brown trout that ate the egg. I them proceeded to haul in a dozen fish in about 20 minutes with all most all of the fish falling to the egg pattern. Peter had returned from his jaunt upstream and I gave him my rod and the spot where he caught a couple of decent rainbows. We fished it for another 15 minutes and I think we sore mouthed most of the fish in the hole. We waded back across the river and jumped back into the truck. We made one last stop at the Kleinschmidt diversion dam where I stuck another dozen fish and called it a day. The bows on the Gallatin are starting to put on some color and they are definitely all over the eggs. One thing that I have come to the conclusion on is that a poorly tied fly generally works better than a archival quality one. The Fluery egg out fishes my perfectly round version much better and I have had to retie most of my egg patterns. The Fluery egg is your basic egg pattern that most tiers first tie up and it needs to come out looking like half an egg rather than a full round one. It is very quick and easy to tie, which is a huge plus when it comes to egg patterns. I sat down last night and whipped out 5 dozen of them in less than an hour and a half.
After scouting all day on Sunday I awoke to 4 inches of fresh snow and more flakes falling as I write. Beth did not want to venture out in the weather and I am pretty sure I do not want to drive to Big Sky in it either, so I guess I will spend the day tying up my commercial orders instead of guiding on the Gallatin. We will make it up on Wednesday and I can't wait to get back out on the Gallatin.