The Dub.F.B.

Not much to say today fished a new piece of water, the dub.f.b. and it was less then stellar. a few small fish to hand, although i did lose a nice fish in the rocks. my leader to a beating on the rocks and it busted my tippet. good looking water that just didn't produce for me. threw a variety of dries but it didn't matter to the fish.

Different day.....different result

Myself and scott headed to the same creek and same section as i had fished last thursday. i figured the fishy would be just as fast and furious as it was last week and i wanted redemption on the big cutt that took me to school. 1 out of 2 would have to do. the fishing up to the point where i got schooled last week was less then stellar, in fact, it just really sucked. it fished so well last week and today with the same types of flies, we were lucky to even see a fish move. it was disappointing to say the least. i had caught 1 dink and a small 10" or so cutt. i think that was a bout it for the both of us. we did come acrossed some pretty fresh bear tracks along the shore and some more bear shit. when we got to the hole of my schooling i made one cast with my deer hair caddis/spruce moth and it was on. the hole is pretty small so i am assuming it was the same fish. that made my day right there, getting that nice cutt on only 1 cast this time. as we continued up the fishing started to heat up. scott was finally tagging some fish including the fish of the day. i had actually spotted the fish rising but could not tell it's size due to how far back from it i was. i called scott over and told him there was a fish rising at the bottom of that run so go ahead and hit it. 3 casts and a couple of minutes later and a really nice fish pushing the 18" envelope came to the net. a few pics and off it went. scott said that was the biggest cutt he had ever caught. the journey continued and as we approached another log pile i saw a fish rising in about a 5ft area pool right behind a 1/2 submerged log. looked like a decent fish but not huge. i made a couple of casts and my caddis got sucked down. i could tell right away that it was a lot bigger then expected. it darted towards the middle of the creek and into shallower water, really big fish. it headed straight for a snag structure, swam past it on the upstream side then darted downstream eventually busting my fly off. scott got a good look from his vantage point and we figured something in the 19" range. remember that all these sizes are just guesses. that one was tough to swallow. we continued up hitting a few more fish before finally reaching our take out spot. we made the 1 1/2 mile walk back to the jeep and decided to head over to another stream and chuck some streamers. scott had never really fished them and hadn't taken a fish on them. we weren't there very long but scott got his 1st fish on a streamer, a small brown and i ended up losing a really nice fish after having him for about 10 seconds. today definately did not give us the same kind of fishing that we had last saturday but we got a few quality fish, so i will definately take it. also the pics with what looks like smoke is from the local forest fisre that has been burning all week.

A couple of small ones

I had a golf tournament this morning, getting done around 1-1:30. headed home with thoughts of fishing higher on the clark fork. tirko wanted to go so off we went. fished it for about an hour and a half catching a small cutt-bow. i wasn't feeling it so we drove to rock creek which is super low. fished that forabout an hour and caught 1 small brown. not much of a fishing outing but it was better then sitting at home. tommorrow should be killer.

Product Review.....Floatant

When my buddy corey k drove up with his pops a few weeks ago. we fished a saturday with some guide friends of corey's, one of which owns the sunrise fly shop in melrose, montana. he introduced me to this floatant that he carries in his shop. when i was on the boat with him we soaked the fly once and that was it. never had to dowse it again, even after constant water time for a mile or so before the fly was changed. i usually use frog's fanny and still do for flies tied with cdc but this stuff outperforms the fanny. the downfall, to me anyway, is that it smells like solvant and i hate to get it on my fingers. you just take the lid off, put the fly in, screw the lid back on and tip the bottle upside down. the reservoir fills up and soaks the fly. the lid does not seem to affect the integrity of the tippet. just make sure you make some fast faulse casts before use to dry it off. the other downfall is is that is the only place i've seen carry them. you can order it on-line from shops in the UK but haven't seen it anywhere else. if you can find it i would certainly recommend giving it a try.

Backcountry Fly Fishing

Yesterday was awesome but today was phenominal. the morning drive consisted of a lone cow elk walking acrossed a field, a lone coyote just off the road in another field and in yet another field were 3 whitetail bucks of equal proportions chilling along a fence line till i drove by then they galloped to the woods edge. i love to see wildlife so this was a good start to a tremendous day. just like yesterday i was fishing a section i had not seen before so didn't really know what to expect. once i had hit the river and started my journey upstream, it didn't take long for me to notice one thing, how pristine this river is. other then a couple of fences and some ranch/farm structure, there was hardly any sign of man. i mean i got used to fishing waters in utah for the past 6 years and although i will truly miss some of them, there was no trash what so ever that i saw. no beer bottles, cans, wrappers, worm containers, etc. i started with a brown streamer which only lasted about a half hour of fishing before i changed to an olive and yellow one and once i did it never gave me a reason to change it. i think today was the only day that i have ever fished the same exact fly the whole day. never even had to re-tie the knot. i think if today had been jack dennis's one fly contest, i would've won. i stopped several times along the way to just sit and look at the river, the large piles of logs caused from the high waters, the trees, the mountains and watch the occasional fish taking a helpless insect floating by. it was awesome just to sit and soak it all in. in some ways it reminds me of some of the rivers back home, particularly the s.f. nooksack where the family property is located. when it floods and recedes it leaves piles of debris/logs and sometimes very large shorelines and always a new look. rivers that aren't under dam control tend to do that. i had fished way up once before and only landed cutts and i had fished down a ways once before and landed mostly bulls. today was filled with strong, thick and aggressive cutthroat, with a couple of cutt-bows mixed in. quite a few of the fish were extra thick and in the 17-18" range. i really don't think that any of my pics do the fish justice. the over all health of these fish was incredible, at least better then i for some reason thought it would be. i ventured quite a ways up stream to a point where i though one more good hole and i think i will call it quits. as it turned out it seemed as though each time i thought i was done, the water up above look enticing and it was hard to not to go and check it out. i got to one spot where i thought i would be done after making a few casts in it when on my 2nd run through my fly got nailed and right away i could tell that that fish felt even stronger then the others before it. it raced to the other side of the river, it's nice to actually have a fish rip line from my reel once in awhile. once i managed to get the fish back on my side i noticed that the fish didn't look like the others then i saw what i thought were white tipped fins and i started to think. right on this could be my 1 bull trout for the day. sure as shit, it was an impressive bull, at least to me. tapped at a solid 19". a couple of snaps and off it went. i thought about ending my day there but i wanted to get into a few more fish so i kept going, each hole seeming to be my last. a few more fish down and i was truly done. i was getting hungry and had a helluva walk back to the jeep. i picked up a couple more fish on the way down and after 6 hours on the water i was finally back at the jeep. man, what an awesome day and an awesome river.the only regret i had was not packing my floating line and a few dries. it's always fun to take nice fish up top as well and it only would've, if at all possable, made my day that much better. on the way home though i was passed by an ambulance and when i got a ways down the highway, traffic came to a stop for about 20-30 minutes. i was stopped just shy of the crest of the hill, when all of a sudden a life flight helicopter arose from the middle of the highway and shortly after traffic was finally moving. unfortunately a motorcycle and car collided. i'm assuming the motorcyclist is the one being helo'd out since his bike was demolished. to many times that's the cost of poor decisions and/or not paying attention.

Yes, a bear does shit in the woods

As tirko would say when we encountered the several different piles of bear shit. but, in between these encounters were some sweet little holes and a lot of willing finned participants. tirko hadn't fished here before and i wanted to check out a new section since the other 2 times i had fished this creek were done so higher. the weather was perfect although early in morning the water was painfully cold, to the point that my wet wading feet were burning from the cold. to me it's always fun to hit different sections of water to see what kind character it has. this section did not disappoint. within the first hour and a half or so i caught my biggest fish out of the creek and then further up i caught even a bigger fish to top the earlier one. my biggest before had been about 14" but my best today was an impressive 17" that had the kind of girth that would make ron jeremy proud. ok, it was girthier then that. the stretch on my fingers was maxed. we were watching these fish pick off spruce moths by the dozen, which of course i had no moth patterns, who usually does? the closest candidate was a deer hair caddis. first cast and i landed a solid 15" class cutt and 2 casts later i land the prize of the day, an absolute tank of a buck. that's the most excitement i've shown on the water in i don't know how long. on the way up to where we eventually got out, we encountered several other mid-teens sized fish, including a real nice fish that we watched sitting in front of some fallen trees ease his way up to my green drake when out of nowhere this damn smaller fish beat the bigger one to the punch. the smaller fish raced pace the bigger one, smashed my fly and in the process came completely out of the water in acrobatic form, then tangled me up in some branches. it was cool to watch but i was bummed cause i wanted that much bigger fish. our day ended in a hole where i spent the longest time i have ever spent in a hole, trying numerous different patterns to coax a fish that was eating like it hadn't eaten in days. it was a tough fish to figure out cause it would never eat in the same spot consecutively. i'd watch him eat, so i'd think, ok, there you are, i'd cast there and while my fly is drifting he'd rise 7-8 feet away. after watching this enough times i just felt that it was the same fish and not a different fish. the colors were always the same and so was the size. i rose him twice to a green drake pattern but he didn't take. i would then switch after a bit to something different and come up empty handed, then threw on a deer hair caddis, he nailed it but was only on for about the count of 2. couldn't get him to come back up, meanwhile he is still engulfing moths with reckless abandon. i switched 3 more times but couldn't get him anymore. tirko tried with a couple different patterns with no luck. i think my determination to outsmart this fish had me in that spot for about an hour. i left feeling like i got kicked in the nuts. can't wait to face him next week. what a fun day!