We’ve already been reminded how quickly the fishing can go south when the weather gets so hot. First of all, fish need water, of which we’ve had precious little until just recently. Warm water is another thing. How often do you find yourself in an intolerably sweltering situation thinking, “Hmm, I think I need a big plate of food.”
But at its worst, summertime in New Mexico teaches some of the best fishing lessons. Aside from the above, – fishing is bad when the water is slim and warm – fishing on a bright clear day can be pretty slow too. The old fishing adage of thinking like a fish holds true again: sane people seek shade when the sun is high overhead and blasting. Well, trout feel the same way.

I recently had a chance to fish in Montana, a welcome relief given how sad New Mexico’s drought situation. As we all know, the state and trout are legendarily synonymous, and I was excited to be reminded of what my favorite fish looks like. Montana never disappoints.

It turns out they’ve had a pretty crispy summer up there too thanks to a dry winter and spring. Due to its water and heat woes, the state has been closing its trout streams to fishing by 2:00 in the afternoon (a super idea, I must say). Fortunately, however, the heat had broken by the time we got there, so our spirits were super high.
We fished Madison the first day, the famous fifty-mile riffle, one of the three rivers (along with the Jefferson and Gallatin) that join to form the Missouri River headwaters. It’s an imminently wadeable stream in spite of its size and uniformly strong current. Near the town of Ennis where we fished it, the Madison braids into multiple side channels that all hold rainbow and brown trout. A tentative wader can feel perfectly at home.

As expected, the fish were in a generous mood, lying below drop offs and smacking our grasshoppers enthusiastically. We trailed nymphs below the hoppers, and the fish hit them too. Both rainbows and browns had a silvery sheen and sparkled like diamonds when going airborne in the bright morning sun. They were fat and Madison strong.

But they were small, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Like in the town where you live, you want small ones running around. It means the town is making babies. But on Madison that day, I definitely started to wonder where the adults were. A couple decades ago, my non-fishing wife caught a 22 inch rainbow at the same area only ten yards away from the parking lot. Where was that guy?

We fished that afternoon over the hill from Ennis on the Ruby River, a much smaller stream running through a New Mexico-like canyon arrayed in pinons and junipers. There I managed to find a big fish. But just one, and unlike on the Madison, the little fish weren’t coming out to play. We quit around cocktail hour, right as the big sun was disappearing behind the canyon wall in the west and right when another fisherman, a local or at least someone who knew what he was doing, pulled into the parking lot.

The following morning we fished O’Dell Creek, a winding, meadowy dream I’ve been wanting to fish forever where I’d heard most of the fish have PhDs. Thus I was proud of myself when I started catching fish right away. I had it all figured out, stay close to the high grassy bank so as not to stand out against the sky.

But again, none of my fish were big. The only fish of any size were the ones I spooked from under the weedy shelves near the bank. At which point I realized what the problem was: I wasn’t catching big fish because the big fish weren’t there. They were chilling in the shade – to put a very fine point on it, out of the bright sunshine – like I should have been.

I finally gave up and headed back to the car, right when a cloud covered the sun. Two of my crew members were waiting by the car, The other guy would be an hour away from getting back. He apologized for being late, then said he was too busy catching big fish.