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| Madison Brown - First Trout on the NRX |
Saturday was tough; though optimism ran high in the morning. We woke up to relatively warm weather. Breakfast was good. We drove to the parking lot at the Duck and just one other car - that was promising. We knew there were big fish in the Duck, but catching them would be a challenge. We all hiked up-stream and divided into pairs. I stuck with John. The water had no movement and the bottom was like sludge. We worked our way downriver and got to a deep bend. I fished the bend for a few minutes and then walked along the bank about 10 feet from the bend to give John a shot at it. A 15 inch brown swam by me towards the pool. 30 seconds later, a huge lake run brown, well over 25 inches, trudged upriver towards the pool. John was now working the pool and I gave him a heads up. He got a hit, but couldn't get the hook-up. I then walked a little further downstream and saw three nice fish scatter. It seemed we had found the fish; however, they could not be fooled. Brad caught a nice brookie, but the rest of us were skunked.
We then drove over to the Gallatin in the Park. The weather was getting warm and there were plenty of people fishing. I high-sticked a small nymph in some runs and hooked into a nice fish. I thought it was a nice brown but it turned out to be a whitefish. We all caught whitefish, but not a single trout. One in our group wasn't feeling good (or else he just wanted to watch football!), so we dropped him off at the hotel and plotted our next move. I had noticed a few cars parked on the side of the road about a mile from where the Madison exits the park, so we pulled over to the gravel area. After a short hike we came out on a wonderful stretch of river. I caught a nice brown within a few minutes, swinging a big soft hackle. It got dark quick and we had to leave, but this spot is high on my list for the next trip.
