Joey and headed to Montana on 6-29 after several tough days fishing the Provo in Utah. The drive was great and made it to Island Park on a single tank. We arrived early afternoon and we went into Slide Inn fly shop to get our camp site and my fishing license. We set up camp pretty quick and took over the semi roofless gazebo. Joey could not wait to go fish and rush out to fish the back channel behind the camp ground. We were pretty beat putting in long days for few fish on the Provo. Joey had 4 fish to hand in 15 min which consisted of 2 rainbows, 1 Brown & 1 Whitey.
The water was ripping through the main channel behind the Slide Inn so we decided to try the waters above $3 Bridge. We fished upstream on the far side of the river. We did pretty well nymphing I had 6 fish in about 2 hours. We hiked pretty far upstream to meet a friend hiking down from Reynolds. It was very difficult walking the banks because they were very muddy from all the afternoon T-storms. There are also several spot where you can step into a very deep mud hole and it happened to me several times. We had good luck nymphing so we decided to switch to dries without a major hatch or rises. It was overcast at 3 in the afternoon and we had several fish take small Stimmies. This was the day that my old faithful Sage SP 590-2 bit the dust at the hands of my son who got his backcast hung up. We had to hike all the way back to the car for a backup rod. I think we fished till 5 or so till the t-storms chased us of the water. We were pretty tired from all the bolder & mud hole jumping. We just kept changing the size up of our dries through out the week and had success. The Salmon flies were down stream and we have yet to hit it right. I hear they are seeing larger numbers of bugs that they have in the past. Its only 14 hrs from Sactown and you could be fishing that night if you leave around 4am. Madison is fishing the best I have seen in the last 5 years.
Writing these reports is starting to feel like home work. I think I would like to sum things up and let the pictures do the talking. Something was off when we got to Montana and we soon found ourselves drained for energy. Not sure but I think Utah had something to do with it. Once we were able to catch fish we started to loose the desire to fish a lot. We caught some nice fish but we missed many trophy fish that were looking up and have not been stuck yet. I hooked very big rainbow inches from the bank who went airborne. I thought I had him in the bag since I had an ideal area to land him but he spit the hook just as I thought it was a done deal.
We woke up to an over cast day and decided to fish streamers only below $3 bridge. We are not early risers so we thought we would have a chance with the overcast conditions. We fished hard for 2-3 hours and did not have much luck. Joey moved a large fish but did not get him hooked up.
We drove into Ennis to pick up some supplies and the soft jerky from the butcher shop. Hit the fly shops and deposited some cash. We decided to have lunch and found the Claim Jumper Saloon which we passed many times and never tried. We found out that they have some neat booths made from a 57 Chevy and a Cadillac. Good food at reasonable prices and sure beat going to Subway.
We decided to hit west fork and fish dries only. I caught a couple dinks and had one nice fish turn left in the main current and snapped me off real quick. Joey was not feeling too well so we cut the outing short and hung out at the slide inn.
We went to Bill’s place for his 4th of July party and had a great time. We brought some of my dad’s home made wine to share. Joey had a few fireworks we picked up in a supermarket in Utah and Bill let him light them off. We had a great tri-tip and chicken dinner and could see all the fireworks going off in the area from his deck. Here’s a shot of the moon rising.
I decided that we wanted to try something different and it was suggested that we try Red Rock Creek which has cutts and grayling. Well our directions were sort of vague. Turn right when you can see Henry’s lake. Well there were 3 rights available to us and the first one we knew went to Cliff Lake so we took the second one which was the wrong one but it took off the beaten path for miles and not a damn creek to be found. I’m not a big 4 wheeler but we went down this road for miles and it got pretty ugly in places and our 4 wheel drive saved our butts a couple times. We never found a creek but we did see some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. Even though we never wet a line we were very satisfied and pissed off about our directions.
We did end up finding the right road and it was a dream compared to what we had just driven. If you see this sign you are in the right place. We fished the creek a little and the fish were not cooperating but the deer flies and mosquitoes were out in force. We gave up and called it a day.
We had a great time but I think we bit off more that we could chew. We fished 3 days every weekend in June and chases Shad in the mornings. Joey came down with a stomach flu that was going around the campground and had an episode in the middle of the night a 100 yards from the bathroom. We decided to end our trip a few days short very satisfied with what we accomplished.
The Madison was fishing very well and if you are thinking about going it should be on fire now.
Tight Lines,
Jet & Joey
FYI
The hair is gone! Joey decided to cut it off for the start of football season.
