My friend Doug and I always fished these on the east Fork of the Smith River. On summer days I would walk to his house. He would grab his rod and a box of flies. Off we would go for a day of fishing next to the town.

We always waded wet with black and white sneakers. The first step in the cold mountain water left us breathless. But soon we adjusted, or just got numb.

We gave the gopher tails lots of action by twitching the line or rod. Doug was a great fisherman and could always make the gopher tails sing.

We caught browns, rainbows, brookies, and whitefish on these creations. I have no idea what they imitated but they worked.

On our way home we would stop at the light studded truck stop café for a cold drink. With sneakers squishing water and pungent river mud we would order a tall icy glass of Coke. The first sip tasted like sparkling cold neon from a fifties time machine and we would fly home with Elvis as our wings.

One summer day I got a phone call from a man who owned a large lumber company. He asked if I would guide a friend of his who just came into town and wanted to fish.

So at the age of twelve I met my first client. He drove us to the river close to town. We put our rods together and got the fishing gear ready.

He asked me what flies were working and I gave him a couple of gopher tail yellows. We fished together for awhile and then split up.

Later that evening we met at his car. He was dazed. He had caught three eighteen inch browns on my gopher tails.

A few years ago I was driving to Bozeman and saw a fresh road kill gopher. I put on the brakes and stopped. I grabbed the gopher by the tail and gave it a brisk swing. The gopher body went flying into the bushes leaving the tail in my hand.

I had fly tying material. I had been wondering if the old gopher tail fly would work on the Madison River.

When I arrived home I tied three gopher tail yellows with a gold bead head. I put them in my fly box for my next day of fishing.

A few days later I was standing waist high in one of my favorite runs. The fishing had been great and I thought it might be a good time to try my new gopher tail.

I tied one on my leader and cast upstream and across the water twitching as it drifted. Bam! A huge rainbow flew high into the air, falling back into a watery chrome jukebox when Elvis was the king. My gopher tail from that era still worked.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Bill and I had stopped out driftboat at our favorite spot, the Evening Hole. Sitting in the boat looking out across the water I felt like and old rock and roll star getting ready to play the blues in a distant smoky bar.

My fly box was full of large streamers I use for special occasions. I pulled out my favorite fly, the articulated Bad Boy. It’s a streamer with neon yellow rubber legs and feathers of half a chicken. I carefully tied it to my heavy 1X tippit and I was ready to fish.

Bill wanted to fish upstream so I worked my way downstream, looking for a good casting position. I pulled out enough line to reach the hole’s secret sweet spot.

I laid out a long cast across and upstream. I always throw a large upstream mend to let the fly sink quickly without line tension. As it starts to swing I give the fly lots of erratic action by pumping the rod or twitching the line.

I cast three more times always moving a step or two downstream to fish new water on each cast. On the fifth cast the green line stopped suddenly. A huge yellow brown trout leaped into the October sky, twisting and turning as it fell back into the Madison River.

The great trout made several powerful runs and I slowly worked my way across large slick river stones toward the shallow water along the bank.

Bill had the net ready and the big trout made one more long run. With rod held hige I reeled in the monster brown and Bill quickly slid the net under it.

The trout’s head had a large hooked jaw and iridescent colors that glowed like midnight neoon. The brown measured twent five inches, a nice fish on any river.

We photographed and released him back into the Madison riffles. Smiling, we continued our journey down the river. At the last deep run Bill caught a beautiful eighteen inc rainbow, a great way to end another day on the Madison.

That evening after a great dinner I looked at my streamer collection. There many empty spots that needed to be filled.

I sat at my fly tying bench and started to gather up materials to renew my Bad Boy collection. These flies take a lot of materials and time to make, but the results are magnificent. I opened several drawers looking for pearl and root beer Lite Brite.

In the back of one drawer I found an old familiar wood box. I blew off the dust and gently opened it. There were several dozen battered flies that were chewed up and worthless for fishing. Why would anybody keep such old worn out flies?

I picked up one of the bedraggled flies. It was a gray hackle peacock that I had made over fifty years ago. As I held it up to the light I could see my father and me riding through a twisted aged pines in the Little Belt Mountains. We followed a trail through a stand of aspens to see the Tenderfoot, a stream of dreams.

We tied up the horses and had a quick lunch. I opended a saddlebag and found my father’s multi piece bamboo fly rod. I put it together and strung the lfy line.

Dad found the fly box in another saddlebag and opened it. He looked at the flies and pointed to the gray hackle peacock. I swiftly tied it on my leader.

I looked at the sparkling Tenderfoot and noticed a large stone with a quiet pool full of bubbles. I false cast several times, working out the line. The fly dropped next to the boulder.

It floated several feet and Bam! A trout came flying into the mountain air! After several fast runs I slid it into some tall grass.

When I picked up the trout I saw the bright orange slashes under its throat. I held it up in the sun for Dad to see. It was a fine fourteen inch cutthroat.

For the next hour Dad sat under a shady aspen and watched me catch a few more trout. I knew he was smiling.

All too soon we put the rod away and continued our journey through the Little Belts.

Bright headlights safely guided us back home. It was a great gray hackle peacock day.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Lexi slipped it into a beautiful wood box and handed it to him. He opened it and his eyes sparkled as he looked at it. “It’s magnificent! It will be a perfect gift for my friend.”

John gave us a check and went out the door in a world of blinking Christmas lights.

Exhausted, we turned out the lights and put the closed sign in the gallery window. It was cold and snowy outside but our Christmas lights glowed like Las Vegas.

I had put about twenty strands of different lights in a small area. It looked like an electric Jackson Pollack painting.

Light dazed, we drove home in a Christmas blizzard. We had been invited to the Beartooth Fly Fishing Lodge for Christmas Eve. We washed the polishing compound off our hands and changed clothes.

I hurried to the market to get French silk pie and ice cream for the dinner. As I drove through the blizzard big eighteen wheelers rumbled through Ennis. Their lights were bright and they reminded me of Christmas trucks.

While walking through the market, those big truck lights kept sticking in my mind. I suddenly decided to stop at our storage unit on the way home.

With flashlight in hand I was able to unlock it and shove the sliding door upward. I moved the flashlight around piles of boxes, bicycles, skies, shingles, slabs of hardwood, and old furniture.

Fighting my way through I found our red Honda generator and one last box of old Christmas lights. I put them in the back of our pickup.

Shortly I was home again and Lexi was ready to go. As we drove down Main Street the blizzard Christmas lights lit up our spirits.

Driving south we crossed the Madison. Dim moonlight sparkled in the icy cold river. Schools of trout lay deep in the pools waiting for warmer days.

With the heater blasting, we followed the blinking lights of a huge snowplow to the small town of Cameron. A blue neon moon and beer signs lit up a small parking lot.

Puzzled, Lexi asked, “Why are we stopping here?”

“I have something to do,” I said. “Could you get me that roll of duct tape in the glove box? We are going to string lights.”

I got out of the truck in the blue neon light with the roll of duct tape and pulled strings of Christmas lights from the old cardboard box. I plugged several strands together and laid them out in the snow.

The generator had not been used in awhile, but started after a few pulls. With a deep breath I plugged in the lights.

Wow! The parking lot lit up like Sugar City!

Lexi, wearing her fur-lined gloves, helped me with the duct tape. We strung and taped lights around the back of the pickup, over the cab, across the front, around the sides, and back over the cab until we ran out of tape and lights.

“What do you think?” I asked. A big smile told the whole story and off we went in the Montana Christmas blizzard.

It was hard to drive with the lights reflecting all over the windshield, but we slowly made our way. As we passed a ranch house we could see a small dim light. Suddenly the whole house lit up.

With a smile I said “I think they like our Christmas pickup.”

In the distance we could see the Beartooth Lodge. It was hard to see the driveway in all the light reflections.

In four-wheel drive we plowed through several drifts and made it to the lodge.

Dan was at the front door wondering what all the lights were. With pie, ice cream, and gifts we entered the lodge in a swirl of snow.

The smell of elk stew was a welcoming aroma on a cold Christmas Eve. As we walked through a maze of fly rods, reels, waders, and flies Dan said, “I just love your Christmas pickup! At first I thought it was several big eighteen wheelers coming down the driveway!”

Upstairs was a huge Christmas tree Dan had cut at Indian Creek. We talked about fishing the river and all the big fish we had caught or lost.

We had a great dinner and exchanged gifts. The girls fell in love with their silver rings we had made.

Late in the evening we said our good byes and Dan turned the front lights on so we could find our pickup.

The snow had stopped falling and you could see millions of stars. I pulled the generator cord and the lights turned back on.

Dan and his family watched us drive away. Our twinkling Christmas lights slowly became smaller and smaller until they were a small glittering star spreading Christmas joy along the Madison.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.

One afternoon I cast a gopher tail fly in a deep run near the Zentner ranch. A large brown ht the fly and made a blistering run upstream, swishing my line the water like Jaws. I landed an eighteen inch brown that time.

I had been looking at new rods at Peterson’s Hardware for months. Soon I earned enough money mowing lawns to buy a new rod for nineteen dollars.

I took the new rod home and laid it down next to the beat up faded South Bend. I picked up the old rod and put it in my bedroom corner.

It was a good rod. It had etched hundreds of stories in my mind.

Over the years I have fished many new rods made by different companies. I have fished the latest graphite designs made by teams of computer assisted designers. I have fished rods that throw long tight loops with pinpoint accuracy.

I have fished delicate four weight rods that throw small dry flies like a puff of cotton. I have fished stiff eight weight rods that shoot lines across saltwater flats for bonefish and barracuda.

One of my favorite rods is the old crippled South Bed fiberglass with the bent screw eye in the tip, my first fly rod. The old rod performs poorly but it has a magic of its own.

Every time I open the closet door the inside lights up like a chrome neon time machine.

The pungent smell of river willows comes bursting out. Black and white magpies squawk and flap their wings in the blue Montana sky. Summer rain streaks down, thunder and lightning booms across the Smith River Valley.

Records go round and round playing Elvis’ greatest hits. My sister becomes homecoming queen.

Our old green Chevy station wagon loaded with fly rods in the back goes down red gravel roads leaving a cloud of red dust forming leaping trout in the wind.

I put a size twelve renegade in Audrey’s wrinkled hand. Doug and I walk back from the river with creel full of trout, wet trousers and sneakers squishing at ever step. Ice cold coke goes down like a dream on a hot summer day.

My hand shakes when I tie on a dry fly as trout are rising all around me. My brother Larry throws a long spiral pass for a touchdown. May flies emerge from deep sparkling streams.

We hunt pheasants on the day my brother Dan is born. I crawl through tall grass to cast a fly at rising brookies. We ride out of the mountains at night in a white out blizzard, letting the horses find their way home.

Windows of our house glow bright orange and smoke comes out of the chimney as I tie flies on a December night.

A flock of blue grouse explodes out of aspens and our shotguns blast away on a November day. I walk home with a big smile and a nineteen inch October brown trout that has a palette colored in neon.

I close the closet door again and smile at my golden memories.

Bern Sundell’s original paintings and prints are available at RiverStone Gallery.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.

After several hours of painting on a canvas the brown trout head was starting to come alive. Tubes and jars of acrylic paint were all over the place.

As I painted the hologram label on my cd went round and round putting magic sounds in the air seen through the eyes of a hummingbird. Creativity was woven in the air as the clock melted into a puddle of steel.

In the midst of this haze the gallery door opened. My sister Linda and her husband Greg were covered with earthy New Mexico dust. I greeted them and suggested lunch across the street.

Greg was going to a fiddle workshop in central Montana and Linda was staying in Ennis to paint and fish the Madison.

We invited friends over for dinner to meet them. Linda arrived wearing western clothing and huge plate sized silver belt buckle that she called her Power Buckle.

Later in the evening after a glass or two of red wine she became famous for telling a story about her wedding night. Greg turned on the television to find the last episode of The Fugitive airing.

He insisted on watching it and the rest of Linda’s story will be left to your imagination. To this day when I mention my sister people say, “Oh I love that story, she is crazy!”

The next morning we hooked up the boat and loaded the fishing gear. When the dogs saw this activity they went wild.

We drove upriver and stopped at the Beartooth Lodge to get licenses and flies. Nancy supplied us with the latest hot flies and off we went in a cloud of dust.

When we reached Lyons Bridge I strung two rods and tied on a large stone fly nymph as the top fly and Dan’s Lime Juice on the bottom for the first rod. The second rod got a large prince nymph and CDC baby.

We put our waders on and loaded the dogs before we pushed the drift boat into the cool silvery Madison. I took the oars and we were on our way.

As we drifted down the Madisons flylines shot through the air catching sparkly light. We turned into a modern day Winslow Homer framed with laughter and mountains.

Linda was the first to catch a trout, a spunky fourteen inch rainbow. Then Lexi caught a nice brown on the cdc baby.

The air was filled with words like “I’ve got one on!” or “Look at the deer!” and “ I’ve got one on! Oh. It’s a snag.”

After an hour or so we anchored the boat to tie on new flies and let the dogs play. Cosmo, the puppy, had a wonderful time playing with sticks in the water while Plato, the old dog, soaked up the sun with a great dog smile.

I pulled up the anchor and fly lines once again swished through the June sky. It was “Fish On!” instantly. The new flies were on a magic spell.

Linda often cast out twenty feet and looked at the sky or something. Then I would hear her exclaim, “I’ve got another fish on!” Lexi was also catching fish like an osprey.

Too soon we could see our takeout place, Story Ditch, and I anchored the boat. We unloaded the dogs and gear. I put the boat on the trailer.

The road out of Storey Ditch is afflicted with sharp turns and huge boulders. I call it the road from Hell. The black highway was a welcome sight for tired anglers and dogs.

Yellow lines led us straight to the Blue Moon Tavern in the one bunk town of Cameron. After cool drinks we were ready to drive back to Ennis.

Long afternoon shadows silently followed our pickup and boat trailer down the highway. As we drove past our RiverStone Gallery a large trout head and giant flower painting greeted our return to Ennis.

We parked in our driveway and let out our tired dogs and I took all the waders and gear inside the house.

I opened the closet door to put the rods away and noticed an old fiberglass rod in the back corner.

I carefully pulled out the old fly rod to show my sister. It was a faded green South Bend rod with green and red windings, the tip had a bent screw eye for guide and the cork handle was well worn with a scale or two still clinging to it.

The reel was a black Perrine Automatic with a couple of levers on it. The edges of the reel were worn with scratches, dents, and chipped paint. A green level cracked fly line was still in it.

It was my first fly rod.

Bern Sundell’s original paintings and prints are available at RiverStone Gallery.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.

After fifteen miles of yellow lines we could see the silhouette of the Beartooth Fly Fishing Lodge. Near the lodge we could see several driftboats and rubber rafts, signs of fishing activity.

As we entered We were greeted by Dan and Nancy Delekta. As always, Dan said, “What’s happening? Have you been out on the river? It’s been great. Yesterday we really spanked them on Hurless Stones and Lime Juices!”

After thirty years on the river Dan knows about every rock and fish on the river, including what those fish are eating and when.

The shop was fully stocked with flies, rods, clothing, waders, flylines, reels, fly tying materials, and many other fly fishing accessories. We told Dan we needed a few flies to fill the flybox.

Large countertops were filled with trays of flies. As if that was not enough, several plastic chests were also full.

As I looked I saw familiar names and new names. Stimulators, Royal Wulffs, Purple Haxe, Twisted Sisters, Prince Nymphs, One Man Parties, Sofa Pillows, Hare’s Ear, Pheasant Tail, Muddler Minnows, Bitch Creek Nymphs, Wooly Buggers, Lime Trudes, Bloody Marys, Orange Juice, and the light Spruce Streamer which I painted for the 2007 Ennis Fly Fishing Festival.

In one of the front trays were size fourteen and sixteen Renegades, a dry fly that was one of my favorites on the Smith River in the mid fifties. The Renegade has white hackle in the back and brown in the front with a fat peacock body.

Many years ago in the rock and roll fifties my alarm went off at four a.m. while I was dreaming of heaven bound rainbows, secret flies, and the scent of river willows. It was the opening day of fishing season.

All my fishing gear and lunch was carefully placed near the front door as if it was a spirit offering that the Blackfeet had placed there. My mother had left me a simple breakfast in the fridge, which I quickly ate.

As I looked out the window, the eastern sky glowed and its pink fire lit up the Little Belt Mountains, putting magic in the air seen through the eyes of a wild rainbow.

In the west, lights of a house sparkled in the fiery dawn. As I watched the house lights disappeared and two headlights lit up like buzzing fireflies. The lights became larger and larger. Soon I could hear the sound of an old Chevy motor purring in the Montana morning.

The car stopped in front of our house and I heard a car door open as the morning pink dust settled. A black silhouette appeared in front of the campfire-like headlights and I heard a gentle woman’s voice say, “Bern, are you ready? It’s gonna be a great opening day.”

It was Audrey, my fishing pal. I grabbed my gear and threw it in the trunk and off we went into morning haze.

The old Chevy hummed down the road, leaving a long shadow in the morning light. We were headed to the Songster Ranch on the Smith River. Audrey and her husband Ed had ranched there many years not long after the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Audrey was seventy five and had a great passion for fishing. I was ten and had the same passion. We made great fishing pals.

As we shot across the Smith River flatlands we left a trail of earth red dust and great fishing stories blowing in the wind.

The red hills became steeper and Ponderosa pines began to appear in the landscape. Once in awhile I could see the distant sparkle of a river through the trees.

As we came over a rocky hill a sign said Songster Ranch. We made a left turn and followed a curvy road down a gentle mountain of aspens. As we reached the bottom a valley opened up and we could see the old rand house, barn, rusty tractors, and a few cabins.

A silvery ribbon twisted its way through the valley floor. I could already hear the water and see the trout rising. The scent of willows was strong and I trembled like a bird dog.

As we stopped Audrey suggested we have a snack before fishing. I would not waste the time as I eyed the sparkley water. I grabbed my rod and ran down to the river as fast as my black and white sneakers could take me.

Along the river the grass was tall and had a pungent smell. I quickly tied on a Renegade and waded out into the cool riffly water. Mayflies and caddis flies danced across the river, trout and whitefish were feeding all over the place.

I false cast several times working my line out, then threw my line up and across. The Renegade danced on the silver water and slowly floated downstream.

It disappeared in a splash as a twelve inch rainbow inhaled it. The rainbow leaped high in the valley landscape and made a sizzling run upstream, putting a good bend in my green Southbend fiberglass rod.

In a few minutes I beached the rainbow and held it up in midmorning light. It had leopard like spots and a bright crimson stripe and cheeks. I heard a voice behind me say, “Nice rainbow, Bern.”

I turned around and there was Audrey with a gentle smile with her rod in her hand. We admired the first rainbow and I stuck it in my wicker creel. Audrey said I should pick some grass, wet it, and put it in with the river gift trout.

I reached in my flybox and pulled out a size twelve Renegade and put it in Audrey’s wrinkled hand. “Try one of these.”

By noon we had reached the lower ranch where the huge cliffs rose. It was the setting of a lifetime.

We sat on the river bank and had egg salad sandwiches for lunch and drank a cool drink. Audrey told me a story about a baby swallow that had fallen out of its cliff dwelling into the deep curvy hole. It swam in the deep current until a huge brown trout grabbed it like a small mayfly.

After that story I was back in the river casting my green colored line far across the pool. I caught several trout and whitefish. Audrey watched and finished her lunch.

By late afternoon we thought it would be good to count our trout so we would not go over limit of fifteen. I had released many small ones so I had my limit. Audrey counted hers and she had seventeen, two fish over limit.

Audrey did not want to get caught by the game warden and did not want to waste two trout. So she put the two trout down her waders.

We slowly walked back to the ranch, tired and happy. We loaded the Chevy and drove back up the aspen mountain to see the red flatlands as the sun set. The Chevy’s headlights sparkled and the Little Belt Mountains turned black.

Over the years we made a lot of road dust and cast a lot of flies. Later my parents moved away from Montana and I finished high school in Idaho.

I studied art in college and specialized in sculpture at graduate school in Washington. During the wild time in sixties I grew a beard and let my hair grow shoulder length.

One summer I jumped in my pickup with a sleeping bag and fly rod. I was going back home to Montana to fish.

I fished the Big Hole, Madison, Bitterroot, and thought I would try the Smith River. As I drove into my old home town the memory of Audrey was still on my mind.

I drove past my old house and up the street to Audrey’s. I rang the door bell and there was Audrey, looking puzzled. She asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Bern from down the street, your old fishing friend.”

She gasped and gave me a huge hug, long hair and all. “My heavens,” she said, “I thought you were one of those bad long haired hippies that’s causing trouble.”

She invited me in for dinner and we talked old times and fishing. I hugged her good bye and off I went in the morning dust.

Dan had filled up a box with a dozen nymphs and I said, “Hey, Dan, throw in a couple of Renegades for old times. It was one of my favorite flies years ago.”

Lexi and I also bought some tippet material and split shot. I told Dan we were floating from Lyons bridge to Palisades, and the fishing should be good. We said our good byes to Dan and Nancy and off we went with rainbows dancing in our heads.

We unloaded the boat at Lyons and put on our waders. Plato, our fishing dog, sniffed the bushes. I strung two nine foot fly rods and tied on a large sculpin pattern.

I took the oars and we floated the silver highway. Lexi laid the sculpin behind the first rock and was into a sixteen inch brown instantly. The fishing was good and we took turns rowing and photographed a large brown.

Later in the morning the streamer fishing turned off so we fished with nymphs, catching trout off and on. My nymph snagged an underwater branch and parted the tippet.

Lexi moved the boat to the river edge and dropped the anchor. I picked up my fly box and looked down each row. The Renegade jumped out at me, so I plucked it from the box. I tied on two feet of 5x tippet and added the size fourteen Renegade.

Lexi put the boat back in the main current and down the blue neon we went. I cast the Renegade to several spots and no fish. Lexi spotted a deep green hole near the bank and rowed toward it to get in casting range.

I sent the line shooting across the water and the Renegade landed above the pool. The fly floated high in the water and a twelve inch rainbow came shooting out of the river, throwing water diamonds in the air.

The fish made several sky leaps and slowly tired. Lexi netted it and we saw it was a leopard spotted rainbow with a bright crimson side and cheeks. I held it up in the sky and admired it for a second.

I pulled the watery Renegade out of the fish’s jaw with ease. As I released the wild rainbow back into the Madison, an old woman’s face emerged out of sparkling water with a Mona Lisa smile and said, “Nice rainbow, Bern.” That was the last time I saw Audrey.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.

White flame mountains leaped into the pink Montana sky. Headlights sparkled in the cloudy dust as we drove down the washboard gravel road to Palisades boat launch. It was a great spring morning with promises of large leaping trout.

We parked at the rigging area to put waders on and get the boat ready for the morning float. Our fishing dog, Plato, ran around sniffing bushes and wild flowers.

I strung two six weight nine foot rods and tied on stout 2x fluorocarbon tippets. I opened my suitcase-like streamer box and eyed every row trying to make a decision.

I picked a streamer with olive marabou, olive grizzly hackle wings and a spun olive rabbit fur head. It was a sculpin pattern that I created several years ago. It had taken many trout in Southwest Montana and is always a must in my fly box.

I tied it on Lexi’s rod and put it in the back of the boat. I picked up my flyless rod and looked deeper in the fly box. Neon yellow rubber legs caught my eye.

The night before I was tying streamers and went a little on the wild side. I tied an an olive rabbit strip over the back with the neon yellow rubber legs coming out of a sparkly Lite Brite body.

When Lexi saw this creation she said, “Hey, Baby, I need my sunglasses, that fly is so bright!”

Without hesitation I plucked the neon fly from the box and tied it on my tippet.

We pushed the drift boat into the pink blue Madison. Lexi said she would row first since there was no wind. I picked up my rod and pulled out some line.

The mint colored line went shooting out across the Madison, landing behind a large stone. As I stripped it back I could easily see the yellow legs dancing in the current. I cast a few more times and thought about changing the fly.

As I pulled it through the water the fly stopped suddenly and a crimson sided rainbow came flying out of the early morning water with the yellow legged fly in its mouth. It made a fast sweeping run toward a large stone and Lexi moved the boat to keep it from breaking off.

After a few runs we were able to net it and Plato made a great victory woof. We released the fish in the hammered silver current and I was ready for more neon action.

As we floated down the silver winding path I caught and released several more rainbows and browns.

I took the oars and Lexi tried the new neon sensation with the same results. As the morning floated awa we lost a couple of flies on underwater snags and a few on the bushes. The supply was gone.

Yesterday’s Flies

Going back in time when Elvis was the King and Jerry Lee Lewis played Great Balls of Fire on his golden piano, my parents gave me a subscription to Outdoor Life as a Christmas gift. Every year the summer issue had fold out posters of game fish.

I had my bedroom walls plastered with pictures of leaping trout. An old table was set up as a fly tying bench. During that time somebody gave me a yellow and red Herter’s catalog.

I spent hours reading about various lures and checking out prices on fly tying materials I could afford. Getting a dry fly grizzly neck was the ultimate. Orders seemed like they took eternity to arrive in Montana.

Each month Outdoor Life would arrive. I eagerly read everything about fishing first. As the magazines kept arriving, one issue had an article by the outdoor writer Erwin Bauer.

The topic was the muddler minnow, a fly Don Gaden invented in the early fifties. He tied it to imitate the sculpin minnow that the large Canadian brook trout loved. After reading this article I became a lifetime streamer fisherman.

I used the muddler along with other flies for years. As I kept tying flies I became more interested in trying new patterns rather than following traditional ones. I start crossbreeding flies, taking successful elements from one to add to another.

Another Madison Morning

A week after I tried the yellow rubber leg creation we got a phone call from Marty who wanted to know if we had room for him in the boat. We said we always had room if he could row.

A surprisingly quick study, after only two days of learning, he had the rowing figured out. The next morning we fished the bigger runs close to Ennis.

Marty unsuccessfully fished several flies from his box and was frustrated. I opened my fly box and handed him one of the new neon yellow rubber legged creations. I said, “Put this fly on.”

I was rowing and noticed a nice drop off close to some fast water. “Throw your fly in there.” Wham! A huge yellow Madison River brown came flying into the air throwing water sparkles in the morning sun. The fish made a sizzling run upstream and vanished in the silver currents.

Smiling, Marty reeled in his line and said, “I like that fly.”

That evening Lexi and I were looking at the new fly. She announced, “That fly looks like it has an attitude. Let’s call it the Bad Boy.”

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Dan took me to the airport where I waited several hours for a late plane. By the time I arrived in Fort Lauderdale my United flight to Atlanta was long gone.

After several hours of running from one ticketing counter to another without stopping to eat, I barely managed to catch a flight to Denver. After a long weary night in the airport I once again flew over the white snowy Montana mountains.

The silver bird put its flaps down and the wheels touched the runway. Lexi was waiting with a big smile. As we walked to the pickup I was greeted by wind and snow.

When we arrived in Ennis, Lexi said she had something to put together in the house before I could enter. Puzzled I waited in the pickup. The kitchen door opened and out came flying a black and white border collie pup.

Lexi smiled and said, “I named him Cosmo.”

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.

We drove to Red Bay, a forty five minute car ride through thick pine forest to the north end of Andros Island. As soon as we put the boat in the water Herman had the motor on full throttle and we suddenly were skimming over the water at fifty miles per hour.

As we shot across the ocean I could see huge white clouds reflecting in Herman’s polarized sunglasses. Due to the cloud cover he decided it was too dark and we should go to the Jolters where it remained cloudless for the rest of the day.

Dan wanted to wade so Herman poled me around various mangrove islands. At the end of one island he pointed out a huge school of bonefish. There were so many fish the water was vibrating from all the fins.

Herman poled me slowly to easy casting distance. I handed Herman Dan’s huge fly box and he selected a pink sparkly Bonecrusher. I quickly tied it on and laid out a lone line in front of the school of fish. As the fish came closer I took a deep breath. Strip strip strip stop strip WHAM! I was into a nitro powered flats ghost!

Hundreds of bonefish surrounded the boat as the fish made a long run. By the time I landed the five pounder the other fish had vanished into distant green water.

In the afternoon the Yamaha made an alarming cough and came to a halt miles from our take out. The fuel filter was full of sediment. We put the anchor down so the tide would not pull us out to the big deep blue.

After looking through all our flypacks we found pliers that Herman used to bypass the filter. Soon we were once again going fifty miles per hour, which we were happy to see. I should mention that I noticed Dan brought his tool box on the next trip out in the boat.

Herman got out his magic cell phone and called Junior, the local marine mechanic. He told him about our clogged fuel filter problems and made an appointment to meet him at Stafford Creek the next morning.

When we arrived at the appointed time the next day, Junior was waiting with his assistant in a small red car that was vibrating with hot Bahamas music. Wearing orange reflective sunglasses and an outboard motor company hat, Junior pulled the motor cover off and started unscrewing wires and carburetor parts. He put them in a bucket of gas while his assistant cleaned them.

As Junior worked he said, “Ya know last week I tried that Cialis. Wow, oh wow! Hand me that screwdriver. Oh yeah, Cialis. I” put a gold star on the crown of the guy who invented that stuff. Look at all the dirt in this valve. Let’s clean it. Oh, Cialis, I’m back, baby!”

After an hour of motor work and Cialis talk amid roaring laughter, the Yamaha came back to life. We gave it a long test run up and down the bay. Dan handed Junior dollars and he took off in a dusty Cialis purple haze.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Because of the too easily spooked fish, Dan wanted to fish the west side of the island which was a fifty mile boat ride away from civilization. When we reached the west side, the water color tingled timelessly in a blue neon fish dream.

Sydney shut the Yamaha off and stepped onto the poling platform. We were into bonefish instantly.

“Left, two o’clock, fifty feet out, left, get your line out, drop it, strip, strip stop strip strip pick it up throw it left!” In all this shout of rapid fire instructions my fly line wrapped around my head and the fly stuck in my shirt.

Dan said, “Bern, you have buck fever.” Then it was Dan’s turn to fish and he caught a four pounder on his third cast.

In the afternoon we saw a school of bonefish close to the boat within easy casting distance. Magic was in the air. I managed to get the fly in the right place in all the excitement.

I stripped the fly and Bang! Something very solid hit and headed for Miami. A few hundred yards of line spun out immediately and the reel was getting hot.

Several runs later we were able to get it close to the boat and grab the fish by the tail. It was eight pounds of Bahama silver!

As the day continued, I settled down and my double haul casting improved markedly. I hooked another bonefish about five pounds. As the fish was running, a big lemon shark attacked it. I reeled in half a bonefish.

We put our rods away and enjoyed the waterscape back to the east side.

Over the next few days we fished a variety of areas, sometimes just wading the flats all day stalking fish in the bright ocean colors.

Almost every evening we were at Hank’s Place enjoying fishing conversation over dinner. On Saturday night they barbecued wild boar, chicken, fish, and played local Bahama music.

Anglers and friends are invited to subscribe to Brown Trout Delight.

Copyright © Bern Sundell 2007. All Rights Reserved.