Running on Fumes

 We had an interesting day.  Frank and Terry floated the Madison River with a guide by the name of Wilson.  Wilson is from Charlotte, NC, and spends summers here in Montana.  Frank said he "caught about 3 fish" and Terry said "thats about right".  (Terry has a saying; Fishermen aren't born liars, but they get over it).  I won't vouch for their testimony.  Truthfully, Terry did catch a beautiful 20" Rainbow, as did Frank, but Terry landed his fish.  Terry caught his on a black zebra midge and Frank "caught" his on a Blue Tail fly.  Frank and Terry went to the fly shop in Ennis and then decided to go fish below the Ennis dam but since the 5th wheel was on the way to the dam, they decided to stop for a drink.  When Bob and I returned from our fishing adventure at about 7:30, they were having another drink and never made it to dam.

Bob and I drove over through Alder and drove up the Ruby river about 20 miles to the nation forest area.  The upper Ruby is a small stream, and holds several species of Trout and Grayling.  Just about every small hole on the river held Trout, and even though we both caught quite a few Trout, we missed or lost a lot more than we landed.  We caught Cutbows, Rainbows, Browns, and Grayling, and one Whitefish about 14 inches, the largest fish of the day.  Bob caught most of his on a Stimulator, a top water fly, and I caught most of mine on a #157, and a Blue Tail fly.

Joe and Terry doing their camp chores

Off at the crack of 11

Bob does Ruby

Dale Jr. ain't got nothin on us

While Bob and I were on the river, Bob noticed a truck, which had stopped next to ours, on the road. When Bob and I got up to the truck, for the ride back to Ennis,  Bob noticed that our fuel gauge was about on empty. Apparently they pumped about 5 gallons of our diesel fuel into their tank.  We decided to take a short cut over the mountain. About half way up the mountain our low fuel light came on and coasted down the other side of the mountain to save fuel. We barely made it to the gas station by drafting behind a semi truck for the last 6 miles. Again we we're saved by Bob's quick thinking. When at last we made it back to Ennis, we put in 22.954 gal of diesel fuel in a tank that holds 23gal. We had called Frank twice  to warn him that we may need rescuing but we we arrived camp he was well past caring if we made it back or not and was preparing to grill burgers. We ended the evening sitting around the camp singing John Denver and Jimmy Buffett songs planning tomorrow's  fishing trip to the Gallatin river.

Submitted by Joe