East of the River

Friday evening I finally opened up a documentary I downloaded a few weeks ago, with the intent of watching in-flight during work travel.  In the documentary, North of the Sun, two young Norwegian surfers travel to a remote cove north of the Arctic Circle to build a winter cabin and surf, paraglide, and snowboard in isolation.

It has been some time since I've spent a night in the woods, or had my own sense of place nowhere.  It inspired me to get up early Saturday morning, dust off the backpacking gear, and hike into Bear Trap Canyon, a part of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness along the Madison River.  After passing a couple early rattlesnakes on the trail, I was able to focus on the mid-sixty degree spring weather.

About 4 miles in, I found a nice grassy patch next to the stream, and setup my tent there.  The weather was too nice to spend time around the tent, so I began hiking upstream and casting into each subsequent pool.  There were caddis, golden stoneflies, and hendricksons hatching in large swarms, but no fish rising.  Nymphing produced multiple trout out of each hole, both with large stonefly nymphs and caddis pupa patterns.

By 5pm or so, after a couple dozen trout in hand, some dehydrated chili mac & cheese sounded pretty good.  I made dinner, gathered firewood, and drank some gas station variety fermented grape juice, all while a torrential storm rolled into the canyon.  A large, old pine gave me shelter while I watched the storm unfold.  Val hid in the tent from the thunder she believes will certainly get her, one of these days.

After the storm passed, and the bugs began to swarm again, I waited and watched the the water for some fish to change their minds about eating from the surface film.  To my disappointment, the frenzy never took place.  It was, however, not a poor choice of scenery for sitting and waiting.

Also, since I missed the opportunity to post earlier in the week, Thursday evening on the Yellowstone River was one of those magical spring evenings when the temperature cools off for a few days and forces the flow back into a manageable fishery.  Combining that with a massive mid-May caddis hatch made for what will certainly go down as one of the best dry fly days of the year.