Author: Steve

The float with Rick the next day was as good as any day we have ever had
fishing on the Madison. Lots of fish; some of them big. We didn’t land any
giants, but we boated a seventeen inch brown and an eighteen inch rainbow.
We fished on the surface all day, so we hardly caught any of those big
whitefish that like to lurk on the bottom and suck up nymphs. Rick is pleasant as always. A day with him is a good thing. The
conversation often revolves around fish, insects, plants, trees, birds, and
how they are all interrelated and affect the fishing. His head must be a
busy place too. The fishing is consistent throughout the day. There are no extended flat
spots. That’s unusual. The afternoon float is interrupted by a spectacular
thunderstorm. We pull over to the bank, don our raingear, and abandon the
boat. From the “shelter” of some bushes on the shore, we watch the opposite
hillside get pounded by lightning. The weather is warm and the clothes we
wear are of the quick dry variety. Not a problem. After the storm, the fishing was on fire. We had two more hours of active
agitated fish. We got to the pullout late. Eight o’clock. An hour’s drive
back to the shop to settle up, and we’re on our own for dinner. Chicken
fried steak at the Café Eat was on the agenda. For a ten o’clock dinner,
though, we decided on a little lighter fare back at the Bounder. A good day fishing. All fish released unharmed. Slightly traumatized
perhaps, but relatively unharmed. Rags waited for us in the motorhome. He was glad to see us and told us so
repeatedly.

The camp at Big Sandy.

The campground at carbondale. We backed in so our heads would be next to
the river at night.

Annie in the mist.

We did a two-day job in Carbondale. It took three days. While we were
finishing up on the third day, Rags the cat made his escape. Before we
left, we opened up the windows and vents of the motorhome, so the pets
wouldn’t get too warm in our absence. We opened the windows, but left the
screens closed. Rags opened the screen. Right after we left. Rags spent
four hours in the wilderness. Unsupervised. He was waiting by the door
when we got home. He was exhausted, and his bladder hurt. Rags normally
spends most of his time sleeping. Rags of the Jungle probably can’t sleep
much when he’s alone in the wilds. And he certainly can’t pee. Rags could
hardly wait to get back inside to his cat box. Since he had just spent four hours not running away, we left the door open
while we were in and out doing some chores. Rags didn’t care. He put his
head under the skirt of one of the chairs up front, went to sleep, and paid
no attention at all to the open door. Later, we left the door open again,
and he joined us in the campsite. He walked over to the next door to talk
to the neighbors with us. He headed through the bushes for the stream.
Guess he was hitting all his favorite places. It was fun to let him hang
out with us, without his leash on.
Fishing results: We fished the Eagle, and caught nice big rainbows. 12 to
15 inches. The small water of the upper reaches of the Roaring Fork
produced a mixture of small rainbows and browns. The Crystal, right next to
our campground yielded one nice size brown trout. The upper Crystal gave us
several nice sized browns and a really big whitefish. The Frying Pan holds
big brown trout, and leaping rainbows. We caught a bunch there. Fishing the Frying Pan is a magnificent experience. The water is cold and
clear and fast. The wading is mostly knee deep. Standing in the water,
casting upstream, you can pick out fish holding in the water within ten feet
of where you are standing. They will often be actively feeding. While you
fish for targets a little farther away, you can see the trout right in front
of you rising to pick bugs off the surface, then falling back to watch for
the next morsel. You can’t catch these fish right next to you, but you know
that the whole river is filled with fish like this. All you have to do is
make the proper presentation to the ones that don’t already know you’re
here. It is my favorite place to fish. There are sometimes difficulties involved in fishing the Frying Pan. Judy
is recovering from the beating she took on our last visit. I got her rigged
first, and off she went. I stayed at the car and got my gear ready to go.
By the time I got to where she was fishing, she had tumbled down the bank
getting to the water, had gotten herself back together, and was standing in
the river bleeding from her banged up knee. We fished and fished. She
caught the fish of the trip, a beautiful rainbow trout. She hooked it,
played it, netted it, and held it for a picture. She released it unharmed.
We fished until our legs and feet were numb from the cold. Walking back to
the bank, on numb legs and feet, she stumbled on the rocks in six inches of
water and did a face plant. This one I got to see, so I hurried over to
save her flyrod from floating away downstream, then helped her over to the
edge, and out of the water. She finished the day understandably stiff and
sore, but proud of the good job she’d done to land that beautiful fish. Now
her arms and legs and knees look like Matt’s used to when he was a kid.