Views from the campground in Ennis

Our retreat in Ennis MT was a campground located right on the Madison River. Here is a little of what it looks like.


View from the tent.

Downstream a little

The other side of the tent

 Our living room

 

Our bedroom -- see Alicia still snoozing.

Looking at Pictures

If you want to view the pictures in more detail or high resolution, just click on one.

Then, all of the images will pop up in a scrolling image list.

Those images are full screen, and make everything BIGGER!

Bigger may be better for some blog followers.

A nice dip in the cold water 

Bugs

Fish eat bugs. Lots of them. All kinds of bugs.

We fish using something fake that tries to imitate various bugs.

The real bugs look like this....

Mayfly

 

Caddis

  Stonefly - yellow sally.

This is "the hatch". It occurs after bugs mate.  They gather in huge drift of bugs as you can see in the next few pictures. All the yellow looking fluff are bugs. Thousands of them.

Hatches are considered "real good" by fly fishermen.

And the good news is the bugs don't bite.

Other fisher"men"

Whenever you are near a major river, you get a chance to see other fishermen - these guys are very good at it, since they live off their catch.

They are Osprey

In the west, as in many other places, somebody builds high rise apartments for the Osprey - where the parents raised their children

Here are a few shots of Osprey

Arkansas to Montana

We took three days to drive from Arkansas to Ennis MT - a little town that advertises itself as

Population 820

11,000,000 trout.

Must be a good place to fish! The main river here is the Madison.

Along the way we stopped at B&Bs in Plattsmouth NE, Rapid City SD and Bozeman MT.

Plattsmouth is a town on the Missouri River which had to deal with 15feet rise in the river level a few years ago. We toured the town with the B&B owner and were amazed at the levels that the river reached, .. and what it damaged.

Rapid City is of course the big city next to Mt Rushmore, the Badlands, Custer State Park, and Sturgis (the place that has the big motorcycle gathering).  We stayed here 2 years ago for a couple of days and toured the area again, - we had seen most of the sited during a climbing trip here a long time ago.

Bozeman is the home of Montana State University and lots of outdoor activities - like fishing, skiing, hiking, etc, We've been in the area before but not in town. Bozeman is very active and trendy and if Alicia and I were to ever move, it would likely be to Bozeman. Way back in the 80's I had the chance to visit Bozeman a few times for work related things.

The fishing has been okay, but since the weather has been unseasonably hot, the rivers are warming up thus limiting the quality fishing. Finding a campsite has been refined by the requirement that is must have trees! This area is high sagebrush plains, open space, and little in the way of tall trees. Luckily, we took the time to evaluate various locations and found one among the trees, on the river.
Alicia likes camping next to rivers.

Paul Bobby 2 - It was so good we did it again

So, now all 3 dams are spilling lots of water... what to do?

Call Paul and set up another late day trip... so we called and lucky for us, he was available again..

So we got off at about 3 and returned about  8:45 -- he had to depart "early" to keep his wife happy.

Here are some shots of that trip

Master Sargent Paul Bobby ... His guide business is "GI on the Fly" ...

Arriving at the bottom of the dam -- this is where the big fish live
 

 A two-fer -- we both caught a fish at the same time.

 Time-out at the dam

 Finally, a large brown trout to be proud of...

To Missouri and Back

So, both dams in AR we too high to wade fish, ( too much water release for generation), so we talk to the fly shop and the suggested a dam in MO that was about 70 miles away. Table Rock Dam in Branson MO.  Branson is a BIG tourist town. But we only saw the river.

In these conditions it is best to heed the alarm (warning) sirens that wail upon water release. Everyone out of the pool! Note the Dam

Here is Alicia doing here best.