Okay. So Montana is not Maine, but hear me out. There are a lot of big Cutthroat Trout out there in the fast-flowing, ice-cold creeks of Yellowstone. The action can be fast and furious, and an angler can’t help but learn something.

I brought back a trick this summer. If you’re a serious fly fisherman, you might want to include this tactic in your repertoire of fish-fooling tactics.

It was July 15th, opening day on the world famous Yellowstone River. Fred Hurley, Maine’s retired deputy commissioner for Fish and Wildlife, and I arrived on the river early, hours before the mid-morning hatch and crush of eager anglers.

By Western standards, the Yellowstone River is a big, brawling river. It remains closed to fishing while the Cuttthroat Trout make their spawning runs from Yellowstone Lake down the river. (That’s right. Cutthroat Trout spawn in the spring.) Every year, after the spawn on the 15th, the river opens to fishing, catch and release only. Most years the river is full of big trout, most of which aren’t leader shy the first day. You expect crowds. At some of the river’s most popular runs like Buffalo Ford and Nez Perce Ford, anglers are almost elbow to elbow. It’s not quite as bad as the infamous “combat fishing” for fresh run salmon on the Alaskan Rivers, but close to it.

The year before on opening day, Fred had the time of his life hooking into dozens of fat “Cuts.” Two years before that, I hooked into more total poundage of trout in two hours than I had caught in a lifetime of fly fishing. Needless to say, our expectations that morning were running almost as high as Mt. Washburn that looms beyond Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley.

By mid-morning the hot sun had spawned hatches of mayflies and caddis flies. From where I watched waist deep in the fast flowing river, there were fly rods flailing the water up and down the river as far as the eye could see. But by 11 a.m. it was clear that it was not to be. Hookups were rare. Opening day on the Yellowstone River was not going to live up to its fabled reputation.

Before the morning was over, I did manage mostly by accident to “skitter” my way into two gorgeous, girthy trout that pushed three pounds easily. In fishing, a fluke that just happens to catch fish becomes respectable instantly, and is elevated into a technique or angling tactic.

Let me explain. As you might guess, on these fast flowing creeks and rivers, dead drift is the Holy Grail. These Western trout have been caught and fished over so much that they have doctoral degrees in insect identification. On moving water, the slightest drag on an artificial fly will turn a fish away every time. As the Montana guides say, “Presentation is everything.”

But this particular morning, for whatever reason, the usual formula did not work. I dead drifted a No. 12 Parachute Adams until my arms and back ached. No hits. Fred, a fine fly tyer and patient angler who carries on his person more flies than a Cabela pro staffer, tried a variety of artificials with no luck.

Out of frustration, I decided to get “creative.” I read somewhere that in angling, it sometimes pays to get outrageous. I have seen Smallmouth Bass and Atlantic Salmon that were uninterested in my feathered offering, but nonetheless susceptible to provocation. That is, throw a fly enough times at a lackadaisical fish fanning the current and you may antagonize it into hitting out of sheer anger.

So on the Yellowstone that morning, I decided to zig while most of the other anglers were zagging. Instead of dead drifting the No. 12 Parachute Adams, I skidded and skittered the fly diagonally across the current, intentionally creating the always- forbidden “vee-wake,” or telltale drag. In between skittering, I put out slack line, let the fly free drift for a second and then skittered again. I took two fish in this unconventional fashion. Go figure!

Back in Maine while catching up on my reading, I came across an article in Gray’s Sporting Journal by Editor James Babb titled “Skittery Skittery Skoot.” Babb writes, “Skittering isn’t a universal method that will always take fish everywhere, but on … heavily fished rivers where pretty much everyone is fishing pretty much the same way … it may well catch good fish when nothing else does. That it will brand you an iconoclastic crank is simply a nice bonus.”

But what angler cares what he looks like as long as the rod is bending in the current, and a big trout is at the end of a 4x tippet shaking its head like a mad Chihuahua?

The skittering tactic. Try it the next time the fish get stubborn, or you think that you’ve used up your bag of tricks.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal.He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is paul@sportingjournal.com.

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