It may be an over-gneralization, BUT......

[Byron haugh]

I have found that fly fishers are most often very kind and congenial people. Perhaps more so than the general population. At least that is my experience.

One afternoon/evening, my son and I were having a cold drink on the patio of a new little bar/restaurant on the Madison just a few miles upstream from the West Fork and Hutchin's Bridge.

We struck up a conversation with a lady there who's power had been lost and was there to pick up a sandwich.

In the conversation, she mentioned she had a "place" up the river and invited us to come there and try the fishing. Turns out, she has a very large, nice home on the Madison.

Out of an abundance of caution, I deleted photos and specific site references.

[ronnie_mckee]

Beautiful view! It's great to be able to meet other fly fishers and what a awesome place to live. Looks like another fly fisherman was having an enjoyable day on the river also.

Ronnie

[AlanB]

It always pays to take the position of your "generalisation". Given the chance to be people often will be very pleasant.

Cheers,
A.

[Byron haugh]

The somewhat disturbing thing, to me, is that cattle are allowed access to the stream bed.

If you look at the upper left portion of the picture, you will see cattle grazing with open access to the stream bed.....

[AlanB]

I've been looking at your photo there Byron trying to work out why it feels so wrong to me. I don't mean wrong in any absolute sense just it struck me that there is something very strange about it to my eye. Then I realised the river isn't in a valley. We don't have wide flat planes like that, especially not with rivers crossing them.

Cheers,
A.

[Byron haugh]

AlanB,
The Madison is formed by the confluence of two rivers at Madison Junction in Yellowstone Park.
It flows out and into Hebgen Lake and then through Quake Lake (formed by a 1959 earthquake) and then on for over 150 miles to eventually meet up with two other great rivers at Three Forks where they become the Missouri River.
The area in the photo might be considered high plains which the beautiful river traverses until reaching Enis Lake and then beyond, to Three Forks.

[stcroixguy]

Nice pictures, good story. BUT:

If I were the person that lived there, I would NOT want pics of my house and directions to get there posted on the web.

[John Rhoades]

Byron -

I met an elderly man and his wife here in Montana a few years ago that was somewhat like your encounter with that woman on the Madison. He was very unpretentious, and I remember that he wore a plaid flannel shirt with a tattered collar. He invited me to his home to see what he called some old wagons stored in his barn.

However, I soon learned that this wasn't just any old man with old wagons stored in a barn. He had a 29,000 acre ranch that included a lake with very large rainbow trout, and those "old wagons" were used by his grandfather in an historic cattle drive from Texas to Montana.

[Joe Billingsley]

Couldn't agree more, Byron. I've been in the golf business for many years and have attended a number of PGA conventions. IF a bigger named golfer would show up at them you might get a "Hello" from a few of the nicer pros, but mostly they are surrounded by their "people" and they don't stay there long at all. At the few large fly fishing and tying conclaves that I've attended the biggest names in the industry - A.K. Best, Joe Humphries, Taylor Streit, Lefty Kreh, just to name a few (basically all of them, actually) - have gone out of their way to spend lots of personal one-on-one time with me to show me tips and tricks and just spend time talking with me. I've always been extremely impressed by all of the fly fishing industry's "big" names and their courtesy.

Joe