Madison River Fish at Baker's Hole

Note:  This post is out of sequence.   The post for Friday, September 11 will be after this one because I didn't complete the draft yet, but to keep moving, I decided to go ahead and post this one. 

Saturday September 12, 2015  day 46    Gallatin N.F., Baker’s Hole Campground, site 31, 2^nd day

After breakfast and coffee inside the warm Oliver, fished the Madison River at Baker’s Hole.  Followed the river upstream past several bends.  It is a meandering river as it winds through stands of willow bushes, thistles, and grass, with the occasional abandoned beaver dwelling.  The water is very clear throughout the whole river, in and out of the park.  Here's some pictures of the section of the Madison River in the Baker's Hole area:

 

Tried to show the mountains in the background.  The Gallatin Range.

Same photo as above, but showing the whole run.

At the end of the big bank on the left is where I caught my fish.

A side changed coming into the main stream.

 

I started out nymphing (now that you know what that means) but with no success.  I met some others on the river that were also nymphing, with no success.  I switched to streamers, hoping to get a big brown.  No luck.  The big browns are just starting to come up the river.  It's not like salmon spawning.  At least not until October, so I'm not surprised I didn't get one.

Then my luck changed.  In a back eddy, I saw trout feeding on the surface, quite regularly.  No bugs were visible on the water or in the air.  I decided that they may be taking midges, or midge larva.  These are tiny bugs, of the same order as mosquitos, but they don’t bite and suck blood out of you. 

There is a fly pattern invented by George Griffin of Grayling, MI, called a Griffin’s Gnat.  It imitates a pile of midges on the water.  It is extremely easy to tie, peacock herl wrapped with grizzly rooster hackle.  (Peacock herl is those green iridescent filaments from a peacock tail feather) I tied a Griffins Gnat on my leader and had immediate success at catching 10-12” rainbows.  Landed 4, but missed many.  It was a blast and lasted about an hour.  It was somewhat challenging because they were on the other side of the river with weird cross currents between me and them.  I couldn’t get too close because the water was too deep and fast to wade across, so I had to throw a long cast.  But I pulled it off.  It was the best time I’ve had so far fishing at Baker’s Hole.  I forgot to mention the one that got away.  The first fish I caught was quite large.  I had it on for over a minute and then he broke free, but I got a good look at it and it was a large brown trout.  The river has resident fish, which are the smaller fish, and the large brown trout coming in from Hebgen Lake to spawn.  They are followed by large rainbow trout from Hebgen Lake who follow the browns to eat their eggs.  The rainbows I caught were resident trout.

George Griffin, by the way, is the founder of Trout Unlimited, a national organization for the preservation of cold water fisheries.  It was founded in Grayling, MI on the Au Sable River.

Today my 2^nd 7-day park license expires, so I won’t be fishing Baker’s Hole for the last two days I’ll be here.  I’m going to get another 2-day non-resident Montana license so I can fish my favorite section of the Madison River near West Fork access.

Was 80^o here today.  Was 34^o in the morning.  I’ve been coming here after Labor Day since 1993 and it’s always been like this.  Warm in the day, cold in the morning.  I’m somewhat surprised we haven’t seen snow yet, especially on the mountain tops.