Madison Fork Ranch June 26, 1975 Today we stayed on the home ranch and went after the wily brown trout. These fish in South Fork of the Madison are highly sophisticated and touchy about taking a dry fly. Most of the time they lie safely under a cut bank and keep out of trouble. Only now and then is there a good rise with lots of fish feeding. Today there was a desultory rise in the morning with an occasional fish coming up to feed. Carl hooked a nice brownie but lost him about noon. After lunch and a nap I located a rising fish about half mile up the river and hooked and landed him — 17 inches in fairly good condition. Didn't have the camera to do his portrait. He went out to the ford after supper but didn't hook a fish. Light rise. Several pairs of sandhill cranes apparently also resting in the big meadow upstream. From time to time during the day they blast forth and fill the valley with stinging calls. Also we are hearing winnowing jacksnipes somewhere up creek. We see mallards frequently — mostly here, presumably nest or broods. Just seeing a group of geese came our high and I would suppose they were drake gathering for molting. Forgot to say, yesterday about 7:15 PM we noted our little female gopher who's nest is just below our porch, bowing about in the grass. Janed out she was fighting off a mole that was headed toward the nest. Carl went down and encouraged the mole to keep going, away from the nest.