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My own father took me fishing exactly once, as part of a father-son camping trip when I was seven. The final morning, we ate scrambled eggs laced with brook trout. I’ve avoided fresh water fish, and fishing, ever since. Not so in my wife Alison’s family. Her brother-in-law Sam, a former guide, fishes at least 300 days annually. Her father has spent most of the last 19 summers fishing the Madison River in Montana. Lately, I’ve also found myself, fly rod in hand, on the riverbanks of the Northwest. Suddenly, a family fishing trip made perfect sense, so we drove from Seattle to Ennis to spend time together chasing trout.

The rivers slope gently through much of Montana. They slide across plains as steadily as the antelope’s gait, the banks shifting slightly each spring as water recedes from the floodplain. The Madison is one such river. Originating at the confluence of the Gibbon and Firehole rivers in Yellowstone National Park, the river cleaves the valley between the Madison and Gravelly Ranges. The quality of the brown trout and its gradual slope combine to make the Madison one of the best fisheries in the world.

The Madison River Valley draws fly fisherman from around the world for several reasons. Access to the river is unparalleled, with turn-offs approximately every five miles from Ennis to Earthquake Lake, numerous boat put-ins, and sixty miles of unspoiled river. The river is closely regulated: Long stretches are “wade only” and water flow, released from the Hebgen Dam, is monitored to provide optimal habitat. Not surprisingly, some of North America’s top fishing guides also work the Madison.

I understand the draw. Whether casting in the river or not, concerns fall away like the flurry of cottonseeds that settle upon Indian Creek, a divergent brook that runs beside the guest and main house at my in-law’s ranch. A belted kingfisher cackles above the stream, a black bear occasionally lumbers through.

Our first attempt at a family float is rained out. Undaunted, we travel down valley to Earthquake Lake, the site of the 1959 devastating temblor that cleaved a mountain, forming the eponymous lake and leaving 29 campers dead in its wake. The rockslide remains, looking ominously unsettled, just a few hundred feet away from the visitor center.

Back on the ranch, I cross a horse pasture to wade-in off the Madison’s banks. The unusually warm water has sent many of the “brownies” and whitefish “underground” into the shadows beneath the rocks where the cooler temperatures may mean the difference between life and death. But the warm water also invites wader-free wading, and I take full advantage, stepping gingerly into the river until its chortle embraces me completely. Does catching a fish even matter at this point, when thoughts stream past me unperturbed by audible distraction?

And then, there it is. A clear, discernable tug. I let my line out shortly, see a flash above the water, a splash this way and that. The fish relaxes and I reel in my first prize from this storied water, an eight-inch brown trout.

I rejoin my three sons, who receive a casting tutorial from their uncle, eager to lure one of the rainbows from the well-stocked pond. Three-year-old Malcolm soon retires to visit the horses with his mother, 20-year-old Taliesin naps on the grass, the Montana stopover a short respite from his cross-country drive back to college in New York. But eight-year-old Aodhan remains determined, and is soon rewarded with a tug, a pull and an eight-inch trout of his own.

Next morning, Sam and I travel Route 287 to Quake Lake for the “morning rise,” when trout surface to feast on the caddis fly larvae who hatch in response to the sun’s arrival. The growing rings of the rise suggest an impending rain