Fish Fry

Today we fished The Channels of the Madison down near Ennis. The Channels is a section of the river where it splits multiple times into many various sized channels. The channels are separated by grassy and rocky islands (with some trees). David saw a deer and Luke saw grizzly tracks. We enjoyed this section of the river much more than others, as evidenced by our staying there for several hours. I had a pretty big brown trout on as soon as I got in the river, but he got off when TR attempted to grab him (my error, not his). Other than that one, I didn't get much more than a few canardlies. As for the other fellas, they caught a mixed bag of biggies and smallies. The good news is that we went home with three decent sized brown trout perfect for eating.
We weren't sure those 3 would be enough for dinner so we stopped by the local butcher shop and picked up a salmon fillet on the way home. It wasn't quite dinner time yet, though, so we headed back to the mountain lakes for a little while. TR and I started at the upper lake to catch some more Grayling, which we did. We caught about 11 or 12 in thirty minutes. David and Luke were clear across the lower lake by the time we got back down there. On our way to meet them, TR and I fished where we could. It was quite windy so it wasn't easy. But that's when it happened. That's when TR hooked one of those monsters that he saw the day before. I believe this was the biggest fish of the week and certainly the biggest rainbow. And he was some nice eating too.
And just when we thought we'd had enough fun, Luke and David found a rope swing. Only the Yoders can go all the way to Montana and find a rope swing. It was a nice, high swing and would have been perfect for gainers if it was a little warmer.
We trekked our way all the way around the lake and back to the car - hungry and ready to eat our catch. We all felt like we could live off the land if we had to. Just give us a car, some nice carbonite fishing rods and fancy reels, all the sweet gear we love, and you could call us true grizzly men.
Once we got home we immediately started cooking up the fish. TR and Luke concentrated on grilling the brown sugar salmon while David and I worked on the trout. David filet TRs big rainbow and we prepared the brown with skin on. We covered all four in seasoned bread crumbs with salt, pepper and other goodies, then fried them in an iron skillet with garlic olive oil. With sides of rice and beans, it was awesome. And I'll tell you what. Give us a propane grill, a stove top, some nice pans, and lots of spices, and we are true mountain men.

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