The Madison Valley.

Flows @ Kirby – 948 cfs…..not bad for this time of year…fish it dry

Fall is here my friends.  I saw an aspen turning colors, just one little branch – a few leaves to be exact, not the whole tree, but none the less it was turning.  The upland season in Montana opened yesterday, which officially starts Fall in my house.  My GWP, Huckleberry, was in great form while hunting huns.  He is 8 and while that is getting up there for a bird dog, he nailed three solid points and between my father and I, we knocked down three huns.  I sailed another, hunted it up, but never found it.  I hate loosing down birds. It sucks.   Huck slept all day and when I got off the river this evening, he was ready to go again.  If any of you readers out there are ever considering a bird dog, I can’t help but say how bad ass German Wirehair Pointers are.  There is no other hunting dog….well maybe a Gordon Setter or Shorthair, but thats it.

Classic shot. Amazing what one finds while walking for birds.

 I floated from Windy to Story ditch today and while the weather was beautiful, the fishing wasn’t all that great.  We had superb fishing out the gate down to Wolf Creek, but then the switch shut off.  We changed flies a hundred times by lunch and apparently it wasn’t the flies.  A black beetle did raise a few nice ones though, but nothing consistent.  There were lots of small trout eating today which normally means the big fish ate all night long – sculpins and nocturnal stones that will make any larger trout fat and happy.  We did have a few, maybe 10 good ones all told give us a shot at them, but this section of the river was off today.  Then, we drifted under Mac and things changed a bit.  The big honey ants came out of the ground and were hitting the river.  While there were still little fish eating, a few more big ones came up to to eat our ants down to Story Ditch.  Tomorrow could be epic.  Warmer weather, south winds, ants and hopefully a few hoppers in the river. 

An angler fishes below Palisades Campground.