Casting from the bow of my drift boat, I could hardly
believe the power and finesse of my buddy’s new Hardy 5-weight as I drilled a
big orange Sofa Pillow under bank-side willows swarming with salmon flies.
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| Sofa Pillow (above). Real Deal (below). |
The imitation bounced on the current only a couple of feet
before a trout sipped it as if it were a mayfly. Any similarity ended at the
hook set on stout 2X tippet. I bent the 9-foot fly rod nearly in half. It felt
like I’d set the hook on a cement block – until the trout raced to midriver
from a hole shot that rivaled a saltwater flats skiff.
Montana’s Yellowstone River is known largely for being
America’s longest wild river and for the legendary unpredictability of its
trout fishing in the 90-mile blue-ribbon stretch downstream from Yellowstone National
Park. Every now and then, though, the ‘Stone gives it up.
This was one of those times.
Not only was the Yellowstone giving it up in a crescendo of
trout madness that anglers were already calling the “epic” Salmonfly Hatch of
2013, the river had been fishing superbly since mid May.
The healthy, wild cutthroat trout that took my Sofa Pillow
and 20 yards of fly line came to the net after a spirited fight. A quick
picture and I released the trout. Then my fishing buddy Dan Mitchell reminded
me that we were playing Montana baseball – three strikes or a fish landed and
we switched. It was his turn to fish, my turn at the oars.
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| Chuck Schwartz |
Days before the salmonfly hatch, Dan had broken a rod on a Yellowstone
fish east of Livingston and he was anxious to learn the timing of his new Hardy
rod. I found it to be about the space between a back-pocket lightning bolt and
thunderclap. Scarcely had I gotten a
Corona Light teed up and the boat positioned when Dan raised the rod sharply
and fly line sporting a rooster tail shot under the boat. I pulled for open
water so he could fight the fish, put the net within Dan’s reach and chugged
the beer so I’d be ready to take over the rod, as per Montana baseball’s
immutable rules.
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| Dan Mitchell |
Dan and I had already experienced several
days of quality salmonfly fishing that, for the Yellowstone, can only be
described as the sum of all superlatives. So it was not news to us a few days
hence when the angling grapevine pronounced the hatch under way at Loch Leven
Fishing Access. Within 48 hours the river swarmed with anglers and salmonflies
as both moved upriver.
What made the 2013 hatch unique? Simply put, it was the
first time in 20-plus years that the Yellowstone
River was not swollen with spring’s muddy runoff bucking along at 15 to 20
miles an hour. Of course the big bugs make their appearance every year and the
trout gorge on them, runoff notwithstanding. But relatively
low, clear water in May and June 2013– half the normal volume – gave anglers access to the hatch, which has assumed
mythical proportions on the Yellowstone for its elusiveness.
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| Bob Hayes (above). The Author (below) |
But it’s not the only elusive hatch on the Yellowstone. This year, as usual, anglers stayed tuned to the
river in March and early April in anticipation of the Mother’s Day Caddis
Hatch, a blizzard hatch that all too often coincides with spring runoff – as it
did this year. By mid-May, though, the river was dropping and clearing,
prompting optimism that the 20-year salmonfly shutout could end.
Indeed, by mid-May the river had dropped to levels safe for
floating and
wading.
The water was turning green and the dangerous debris was
already downstream.
The hatches
were sparse, but the trout – big trout -- were chasing streamers. The stage was
set for the salmonfly hatch.
But, of course, this is the Yellowstone, an undammed river.
So when the temperature jumped into the 80s for a couple of days in late June,
the river flow increased by several thousand cubic feet per second, turning the
water toward unfishable milk chocolate. The fragile optimism for the imminent
salmonfly hatch was taking a standing 8-count.
The heat wave continued but the river began to drop and
clear again on June 23. Runoff was
over -- early for once and the hatch was on.
The last week of June is a blur. High moments with friends
and fish on the river are captured by cell phone cameras and less reliable
memories. It includes my first float through Yankee Jim Canyon with longtime
friend Bob Hayes, who recently bought a raft to go where his drift boat could not.
The fishing above and below the canyon was stellar. Fishing in the canyon,
where anglers seldom venture, defies description. And switching places with
Bob, as river baseball required, was done at a speed and with an insistence and
lack of decorum I suspect is unique to rafting the canyon during the salmonfly
hatch.
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| John Palmer with a beauty. |
Another moment that surfaces is the two young flyfishers
framed by the setting sun who were attempting to revive a trout that looked
like it was at least 8 pounds. As we passed in the drift boat, they asked for a
Coke, which they said would help revive the fish. Really?
Still other gilded moments are the confident rise of a large
trout to a perfectly drifted fly, the unrestrained joy of a friend with a deep
bend in his fly rod, and the look-away hookups that happened because we were
imparting slight action to the fly.
It was 10 glorious, frenzied days of fishing, the likes of
which my friends and I may not see again. But that’s okay, because 50 years of
roaming the planet with fly rod in hand teaches that matchless days astream are
just that.
Kimball Leighton is a
former Yellowstone River guide/outfitter and author of the book “Seasons of the
Yellowstone: An Angler’s Year”
