Madison River at Three Spots, Cold and Windy

Note:  this post is out of sequence.  I could not complete yesterday's at this time so I moved on to this one.  Yesterday we left Mammoth and moved to Baker's Hole.  I will update and publish September 4th's soon.

Saturday September 5, 2015    Day 39  Gallatin N.F.    Baker’s Hole Campground, site 27   2^nd day

It was a cloudy cold morning, low 40’s, but we got brave and sat outside around the campfire with our coffee as long as I kept it stoked and until we ran out of coffee.  Then we went inside.  It was too cold to just hang out outside. 

Was fairly late that I left to go fish the Madison River.  About noon.  Where I fish is about 45 minute drive, and then a 30 minute walk.  But on the way I would check out some other spots.  The first one is a section between Hebgen Dam (which makes Hebgen Lake) and Quake Lake, which was caused by debris falling from a mountain after an earth quake and damming the Madison River in 1957.  Another story in itself.  In the fall, the brown trout (huge ones) leave Quake Lake and move upstream into this section of river to spawn.  So lots of anglers go there in hopes of catching a nice size brown trout.  The parking area at the end of the ½ mile “road” was full of cars and anglers.  So I left after barely enough room to turn around.

Next I went to $3.00 bridge access site.  That’s the actual state of Montana name for it.  It used to be private property and the owner charged a $3.00 fee to fish there.  So it was always called $3.00 bridge.   He decided to sell the property to rich developers and a West Yellowstone fly shop owner (Craig Matthews of Blue Ribbon Flies) collected millions of dollars to buy the property and donated it to the State of Montana as a public access to the Madison River.  It is very well known in western fly fishing circles.

I suited up and headed downstream on the south bank.  It was a cloudy, cold, and windy day.  Low 50’s was our high.  Passed two other anglers who were not having any luck over the last two hours.  One caught a fish as I was talking to him and he was happy not to get skunked.  The other one was having a bad day, too, but he had landed one.  I fished about ½ hour with no luck, so I decided to move on to my normal spot over at West Fork where I always seem to do well.

I parked on the bluff like I always do and followed the river to the 1^st bend about ¼ mile up and started nymph fishing.  In about 20 minutes I caught two brown trout about 12” long.  Both were jumpers.  After that I kept moving upstream, fishing likely looking water.  I did not get any more fish over the next hour.  I quit fishing at 16:30 and spent ½ hour walking back to truck.  The wind was howling.  The river had white caps on it.  I had never seen it that intense before.  So you can guess how easy it was to cast into the wind.    I was wearing a tee shirt, my fly fishing shirt, my fleece, my waders, and my fly vest.  And I wasn’t hot, even with all the walking.


The angry sky over the Madison Range as seen from my parking spot.

Got back at 18:00.  Too cold to sit out.  The whole campground was holed up in their campers, watching satellite TV in their leather recliners.  At least the ones in the $200,000 motor homes.

Worked on my blog draft for yesterday and played Treasure Hunt on my computer.

 

I did not take many pictures today.  But I will put another one here anyway. 

Here's a picture of the U.S. Post Office in Yellowstone
National Park located in Mammoth Hot Springs, WY.