Blog

Box Canyon: The "Box" continues to produce good fishing. Best results have been with small beadhead nymphs and streamers. Try streamers early and late in the day and nymphs from late morning through the afternoon hours. For streamers we suggest Sculpzilla's, Olive Zonkers, Olive and Black Slump Buster's and Double Bunnies. Our favorite beadhead nymphs are Red and Black Krystal Zebra Midges, Red and Brown standard Zebra Midges, Krystal, Flashback and standard Pheasant Tails and Red Headed Step Childs.

Last Chance/Railroad Ranch: The "upper" portion of this section of the river has been a little slow the past couple of days. Concentrate your efforts on the river below the Osborne Bridge and down through the Pinehaven area. Look for Callibaetis, PMDs, Midges and Ants.

Riverside to Warm River: Again, nothing much has changed in this section over the past two weeks. It is still a great place to escape the crowds and have fun fishing attractor dry flies to many small to medium sized trout.

Warm River to Ashton: Fishing has been very good down on this section of the river. Streamers, nymphs and dry flies are all working down here. We have had some good reports of the fish starting to look for hoppers so a hopper dropper system is a good bet. We like using tan Grand Hoppers or Fat Alberts with a size #16 Flashback Pheasant Tail or Brown Zebra Midge in combination.

Ashton to Saint Anthony: Fishing on this part of the river is pretty slow and will remain so untill the days start to get shorter and the nights cooler.

Other area waters: Madison River (below Quake Lake): Fishing is very good to excellent with both dry flies and nymphs. Caddis, Yellow Sallies, Epeorus spinners and Spruce Moth imitations are the ticket.

Hebgen Lake (MT): Tricos, Callibaetis and Damsels are all producing good fishing on the surface. Woolly Buggers and leeches subsurface.

“Playing Hooky at Sheridan Lake”
-René Harrop

Dawn on a day in mid August felt more like September as Rich and I made our way west on Yale Kilgore road. Smoke hung low over the Centennial Range mixing with dust from the fire crews assigned to manage the Willow Creek fire. Crowding the shoulder, I allowed plenty of clearance for more than a dozen heavy vehicles as they rumbled down the rough unpaved road. Clearing the restricted burn area, we broke into the open terrain of Shotgun Valley and turned left through the big gate at Sheridan Ranch. It was Wednesday, a day when Paini and I would normally be working but the call of hot fishing on the private lake was impossible to resist.

As planned, we met Lake Manager Mike Smith at 7:00 A.M., and soon were loaded into two battery powered 16 foot Jon boats with Mike and his Chocolate Lab Jackson leading the way out of the small harbor. Nestled against a heavily timbered ridge, the 400 acre lake was perfectly calm in the crisp morning air, but the rings of big rising trout gave a hint to what lay in store.

At Mike’s instruction, Rich dropped anchor on the edge of a defined channel about sixty feet behind Mike’s position. It was Callibaetis time which made twitching an appropriate nymph in front of cruising trout an easy decision. Not one to waste time, Mike was banging out 70 foot casts with his big 7 weight and had hooked the first fish before Paini and I had tied on a fly. The cart wheeling leap of a heavy Kamloops exploded the calm surface, and the wail of Mike’s reel broke the morning quiet. It was a preview of things to come as Rich and I quickly selected a target, and the game was on. Paini was into a fish within the first half dozen casts while my fishing was interrupted by a savage strike that sheared the Callibaetis Nymph from the 3X tippet like it was 7X. Slowly retrieved nymphs produced consistent action until the sun began to warm the surface at around 10 A.M.

Gradually, the surface activity began to intensify as Callibaetis duns and spinners became progressively more numerous. Employing tactic commonly utilized for dealing with gulpers on Henry’s Lake, we switched to floating Callibaetis patterns. The constantly moving trout were a challenge to intercept with a perfect cast that also required a little luck as the artificial competed with hoards of naturals for attention.

A solid two hours of wonderful dry fly opportunity and enough trout hooked to satisfy us all flew by with amazing speed. Emergence had already ended when a light breeze swept the remaining spinners from the picture. Unconcerned with the absence of rising fish, Mike led us to deeper water where he proceeded to demonstrate the effectiveness of his favorite leech pattern which he generously shared with Rich and the old guy. A double hookup at about 2:00 P.M. brought agreement between Paini and me that seven hours and several dozen impressive trout was enough action for any day. We reeled up and headed for the dock where cold beers and stories of the day were shared with our gracious host. The subject of missed work never came up.

Sheridan Lake is a splendid and well managed private fishery that is available by reservation only. You can contact the guys at TroutHunter for more information.

AN EVENING WITH DOUG PEACOCK
Renowned American Naturalist, Outdoorsman & Author
Friday, August 22, 2008 @ TroutHunter Bar & Grill. 7:30pm.

Doug Peacock will describe his experiences in the wilderness with grizzlies and share his early film footage of bears. A question & answer period will follow.

Doug Peacock is the author of Grizzly Years, Baja, and Walking It Off: A Veterans Chronicle of War and Wilderness a book in part about his friendship with Edward Abbey. His latest book, co-written with Andrea Peacock, is The Essential Grizzly: The Mingled Fates of Men and Bears. A Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret medic , Peacock has published and lectured widely on wilderness issues. He was named a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow for his work on a new memoir about archeology and the peopling of North America. He lives south of Livingston, Montana

Like others of his generation, Doug returned from the Vietnam War in spiritual and psychological crisis. He found the balm to sooth his troubled soul in wild places and in the company of North America's largest predator. Grizzly Years is his account of that time. Peacock is believed to have spent more time with grizzlies in the wild than anyone else in the world. His intimate knowledge of their ways is unparalleled.

Peacock may be even more famous as the model for George Hayduke, a fictional character in the best-selling novel The Monkey Wrench Gang and the follow-up novel Hayduke Lives!, by his close friend, the late Edward Abbey. Abbey's Hayduke was the original wilderness avenger and saboteur. His type of activism is believed to have inspired the creation of Earth First! and the practice of "monkey wrenching," or "eco-terrorism" as the mainstream media would have it.

Peacock claims to be not nearly as colorful as the character Abbey imagined; he prefers solitude to groups and battles for the protection of wilderness with his pen and his voice.

Although living with the Hayduke legacy strained Peacock's friendship with Abbey, they remained close until Abbey's death in 1989. But there's a lot more to Peacock than there is to any fictional character, even one by a writer the stature of Abbey, as Peacock's own books, articles, and film clearly demonstrate. When he's not communing with the wilderness, he is dedicated to working for its preservation.

In Peacock's view, wilderness is essential to the survival of Homo Sapiens as a species, and the question he poses is relevant to everyone living on Earth in the 21st century: Where is our modern, consumer lifestyle taking us?

Doug will speak at 7:30. There is no charge for admission. Tables are available for those dining. Reservations are required. 208.558.0919