Two nights ago my buddy Erik and I floated the Lower Madison and had some pretty tough luck. We hooked 3 pretty darn big trout on streamers, and landed zero. It's pretty rare to lose fish once they're hooked on big streamer hooks with heavy tippet, but it happened (3 times), and we weren't too jazzed about it.
With our appettites for big trout whetted, we decided to head back out to the same stretch last night to give it another try. This time our buddy Brian came along, and graciously rowed us the entire stretch.
It was a gorgeous night, about 78 degrees when we put on, no wind, and lots of bugs. Things were ho-hum for the first couple of miles, but we did get to see a Baldy trying to protect it's dinner from swarm of magpies, which was pretty cool.
After an hour or so, our perservence paid off...and we were rewarded with a few nice trout.
Then, as daylight was waning...along came Mr. Brown
After a few terse words about a line tangle that kept him from casting to a spot he was wanting to hit...Erik's line untangled, and he hucked his Olive Buttmonkey right on target.
As fate would have it, this monster brown porpoised out of the water to crush his bug as soon as it hit the water. After a few laps around the boat, and some solid runs, he was in the boat.
It was true team effort, with Erik on the rod, Brian on the sticks, and me on the net. That's really what it's all about when you're fly-fishing from the boat...when everybody does their part and it ends perfectly.
Damn, that was fun.
Nice work, Swibbles!!!!
It's not every day that 18 or so inch football Rainbows look small, but this was one of those days!
