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A Great Day with Golden Stones on the Madison River
Classic big bug action on Montana's iconic 50 Mile RiffleUnlike previous years, my summer expedition for 2026 has not been all about fly fishing, as I’ve spent more time working on this website than I have on the water. Working parked next to a river in Montana is a job that I can get behind, if only there was some actual revenue coming in.…
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The Green Drakes Came to Party at the Ranch
The fish had better things to do, I guessOpening day on the Railroad Ranch came and went, another year passing by with not much good to say. The weather was nice, and the bugs were there, but the fish? Where have the fish gone? The morning of the 15th of June, the crowd of eager anglers spread out along the banks of the…
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Opening Day on the Ranch, 2026
Will this be the year that things turn around?Last year on June 15, the fishing was tough on the Henrys Fork through the Railroad Ranch. The one good shot I had at a big rising fish was ruined by buck fever, and I pulled my fly away before the fish had turned. The two weeks that followed saw my net shockingly empty, with…
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Last Chance Ghosts
Searching for fish to eat a dry fly on the Railroad RanchI’d spent the last several days staring at the surface of the river. I was on the Henrys Fork of the Snake at Last Chance, Idaho, and I’d been there for two weeks. The Harriman Ranch stretch of Henrys is world renowned as a dry fly fishing paradise. On opening day, June 15, you can…
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Fly Fishing Scenes, August in Montana
From the Bighorn to Glacier and backI started the month down on the Crow Reservation, on the Bighorn river below Yellowtail dam. Cottonwood camp was the base for the first few nights, then I moved to the Bighorn access point downstream. A nasty thunderstorm blew in and threatened the huge tree I was parked under, so I beat feet up to…
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Scouting the Gardner River from the North Gate of Yellowstone
I wrote last summer about my visit to my old favorite honey hole on the Gardner river in Montana, and this year I decided to hike into the park from the North Gate in the Town of Gardiner. The old road through the park from Gardiner to Mammoth Village was destroyed by the flood of…
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Labor Day Fish Tales from Montana
Hebgen gulpers and late summer callibaetisI’ve spent the last couple of weeks on Hebgen Lake, near West Yellowstone, chasing callibaetis-eating rainbows and browns. Today, on my last day on the lake, I found an honest to God “gulper”, a fish that’s eating bugs on a steady tempo… about one every three seconds. That allows you to predict where to place…
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July in Montana, Broken Bikes and Brown Trout
A KTM that didn't like getting wet and dry flies on the BighornMy last post had me dreaming of dry fly action on the Henrys Fork, and sad to say, it was a two week exercise in “hope springs eternal”. Maybe tomorrow the bugs will come out and the fish will start looking up? Apart from a few nights of substantial brown drake hatches, where I at…
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Dreams of June on the Henry’s Fork
The clock is running down on my stretch of work in 2025. I’ve got a date with a river in Idaho, opening day on the Railroad Ranch, at the little fishing community of Last Chance on June 15. Looking back, I think I’ve only hit the opener once, in 2021. Lets see, in 2015, my…
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A Texas Drum at Redfish Bay
April 9, 2019: Today I paddled out for the third day in a row, an unbroken string of sunny skies and bearable winds. Yesterday was almost prime, though the water clarity was still off from the last northern. After almost 4 months in Texas, hoping for a chance to sight fish to reds, I finally…