I woke up in Bozeman, Montana this morning. I’m on my way to teach two and a half days for The School of Trout in Last Chance, Idaho. I came a day early and I’ll stay a day late so I can fish two of my old favorite bodies of water from when I lived in Yellowstone Country, Quake Lake and the Harriman Ranch of the Henry’s Fork. Today Mother Nature delivered a hand-freezing blustery day with snow squalls, wind and a high temperature of 39°. Despite being more of a winter day than fall, Mark Kuhn and I set out to fish on Quake.
I’ll introduce you to Mark. If it wasn’t for Mark, I probably wouldn’t have a blog. If I did, it wouldn’t be attached to a gorgeous website. It’s unlikely the world would have access to my speaking schedule and I certainly wouldn’t have a store where you could buy my famous coffee mugs, beer steins, whiskey glasses, shirts, my books and more. Mark literally keeps my site looking good, does all the updates and handles every single order that comes through the store.
It’s about a 90-minute drive from Bozeman to Quake. It may have taken longer being we were towing a trailer over a few snowy passes. We were happy to take our time however because the outside temperatures were less than appealing.
Many anglers would stay home and watch football on a Sunday like today, but if you have the gear your fine. Before launching Marks drift boat, we put on our waders and every piece of warm clothing we had. Then we topped it off with our extreme weather rain jackets. Honestly it wasn’t that bad. The one thing I could have used were gloves for when I was rowing and holding my beer!
Believe it or not, there were five other trailers in the parking lot when we arrived. There was no doubt they were up the lake where the Madison River feeds in. I’m sure there were plenty of Baetis Mayflies due to the weather and plenty of rising rainbows and browns. But I prefer to avoid a crowd so we fished the lower section of the lake and prowled with Buggers and Damsel Fly Nymphs. I was throwing my 6-weight Winston with the Scientific Anglers Stillwater Line WF6I and my standard two fly streamer rig. I kid you not, I caught a nice brown trout on my second cast!
It was like old times out on Quake today. No, in fact, today was perhaps one of my better days all time – and that’s saying a lot considering my first day on this lake took place in July of 1981. Today’s fishing was flat out incredible. We were far too numb to count our fish but we caught several rainbows and at least 15 brown trout. All were in that 13” to 17” range. The day was no less than spectacular.
The scenery couldn’t be beat today either. Most people hope for sunny days, blue skies and mountain views. But it’s all how you look at it. Quake, with its snowy protruding trees sticking out of a frothing lake looked nicer than you’d expect.
I’m beyond fortunate to be able to fish so many different places, types of water and fish species so often. It’s an incredible mix that never gets boring. After fishing Mark dropped me off at Trout Hunter where I’ll be staying and teaching the next three days. I taught for the School of Trout when I lived in Idaho and its great to be back. I’ll be kicking the school off in about ten minutes with my Power Point presentation, “The World’s Best Trout Fishing Destinations”. Once done with my teachings for the week, I’ll take my extra day before heading home and walk the Henry’s Fork Ranch. Its nice to be back!