Day 15 Fly Fishing Adventure on the Madison River

What a Fantastic Day! We met our Fly Fishing Guide, Tim Samardich, (Our Friend Dawn Perrecca’s cousin) at East Slope Outdoors (Big Sky, Montana) at 8:00 am to start our fly fishing adventure and to check off one more adventure off Rene’s bucket list.  What an adventure it was! Our guide drove us from Big Sky, Mt to the Madison River Valley, about 1 ½ hours away passing by Quake Lake. 

A little history about Quake Lake: It was created after an earthquake struck on August 17, 1959, killing 28 people.  The earthquake measured 7.5 on the Richter scale (revised by USGS to 7.3) and caused an 80-million ton landslide, which formed a landslide dam on the Madison River. The earthquake was the most powerful to hit the state of Montana in historic times. The landslide traveled down the south flank of Sheep Mountain, at an estimated 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), killing 28 people who were camping along the shores of Hebgen Lake and downstream along the Madison River. Upstream the faulting caused by the earthquake forced the waters of Hebgen Lake to shift violently. A seiche, a wave effect of both wind (over 100mph) and water, crested over Hebgen Dam, causing cracks and erosion.
The earthquake created fault scarps up to 20 ft (6.1 m) high in the area near Hebgen Lake and the lake bottom itself dropped the same distance. 32,000 acres (129 km²) of the area near Hebgen Lake subsided more than 10 ft (3.0 m). Several geysers in the northwestern sections in Yellowstone National Park erupted and numerous hot springs became temporarily muddied.
Within the immediate vicinity of the earthquake and resultant landslide, a few dozen cabins and homes were destroyed. Overall damages to buildings and roads were minor with damage costs placed at 11 million dollars in 1959. Aftershocks up to 6.5 on the Richter scale continued for several months.

After some land instructions on how to cast and going over some fly fishing techniques, such as mending the line, we loaded the boat and hit the River.  I was so excited and within the first 15 minutes snagged my first trout.  I thought oh boy here we go! Then the humbling part came in…. fish were biting but I couldn’t seem to keep them on my hook but Steve on the other hand was able to snag a number of them.  Score so far: Steve  3 Rene’ 1 but who is counting, the scenery was beautiful, the sun was shining and we were having the time of our lives.  In total we landed a total of 9 trout; Rainbow, Brown, and White.  I am certainly not revealing who out fished who.  OK Steve 6, Rene’ 3 and that is not counting the all the "big ones that got away" (Including "Walter" who was so big he bent Steve's hook straight). It was a great day and we had a ball and learned so much about fly fishing.

A special thanks to our guide “Tim”who made our adventure so successful and enjoyable.  We were also impressed on how much he cared about the trout and his belief on the whole catch and release policy.