The Wind Wrecked Havoc.......

On me. what the heck is the purpose of wind anyway other then to upset me and get me spun up? the wind kicked my butt all day up and down the river.constantly blowing me into trees and in my mind causing me to miss a few fish. the water was running at a perfect flow and i did manage to move quite a few fish with the streamers. between chases, hits, lost fish and a few to hand i moved roughly 20-25 fish. i hit a new section of river and then another that i have only fished maybe 4-5 times. until my normal stomping grounds come into shape this area will do just fine. a storm loomed over head for most of the day but at least the rains managed to stay off of me.

Chris Putting on a Clinic

so chris takes me to an area i had never fished before and for some reason on the drive over i felt amazingly lost. we arrive at our location and it is a beautiful, remote and peaceful area. as we make our decent down the ravine towards the river i couldn't help but periodically stop and admire my surroundings. out in the middle of no where and not a soul around. it's hard to beat that. we make our way to the top of the canyon and decide to start fishing our way up from there. the first really nice hole the we come to is full of feeding fish. we could see them holding on the bottom, then rising, then moving side to side and it appeared that they were feeding on either the small amount of caddis or mayflies that were coming off. chris was throwing a hopper/dropper set up while i was sticking with just a hopper, for the most part. but after not much love from either i went with a deer hair caddis/comparadun combo and it was at least paying off a little. i took a couple of fish on both patterns, all nice little cutts. after we thoroughly worked these fish over we continued fishing our way up hitting every little nook and cranny. i eventually swithced back to a hopper and when it proved to have not picked up much more business then before i went to a beetle which i had never caught a fish on before. i ended up taking 2 cutts on the beetle and then chose to re-tie another hopper on and stick with it through thick and thin. we continued to pick up fish the rest of the day, actually i should say that chris continued to kill the fish with his furry fucker all day long. that dropper was on fire. it was a clinic for sure. i managed to pick up a few more here and there but chris was lights out. it was a long walk back up to the vehicle with me taking to spills on the trail. wet felt and grass do not mix. it was a fun day catching my favorite of the trout species. one thing that we did notice is that all of the few rainbows that were caught appeared to have some sort of disease, which we were assuming was whirling disease. i did get a pick of 1 'bow' that clearly had whirling disease.

2 For 1 Sunday

Fished a small creek about a 30 minute drive from the house. i hadn't fished it in a couple of years. took my #3 and hopper box. as has been my theme for awhile now, the fishing was slow. i fished up till i started running into fences strwen acrossed the creek. i got under the 1st one but the 2nd was a challenge so i decided to bag it. there were 5 barbed wired fences in about 150 yard stretch with no other portage. i caught the only 2 rises that i had so it made my decision to bag it easier. i did check out another little creek but it didn't look appealing so i drove over to my usual haunt on the weber but there is still minimal water flow going through it. until the water levels are raised the fishing there will continue to suck. i moved 3 fish but no hits.

Blame it on The Storms

Spent the day fish with chris on the south slope. the weather was looking bleek from the time i got up and had hoped that once we got over the pass the weather would change for the better. it did not. all day long we had clouds, winds thunder, some rain and some lightning. needless to say i think the weather kept the fish in active for the most part. we did manage a few small fish and chris did catch 1 bigger fish but it was far from eventful. i did stop at the weber on my way home to check out a new section. there was to much water flowing through there so wading was tough and because of flows and depth i was only able to stay right around the bridge. sunday elsewhere will hopefully be better.

3 Days in Montana

took on a shit load of insects on the drive over

daves fatty brown

the pimp ride






decisions decisions




in hot pursuit


joes 21" jefferson brown

ruby moose




storm coming on the ruby



small beaverhead brown



dave getting it done


every once in awhile

the goldmember



joe on the sticks



the chubby



the pelicans are out of there



joe keeping a watchful eye




joe willauer

Well my 9 days on the road was shortened due to an unforseen event at home but shit happens. spent 3 days with a buddy who guides up in twin bridges and we hit the usual stuff in that area. day 1 we floated a section of the beaverhead during the firast half of the day and the jefferson the second half. 3 of us on the beaverhead only took 2 fish and five of us on the jeff only took maybe 10 fish. day 2 my buddy joe had to guide so i ventured to the ruby on my own. i started with hoppers only pulling 1 small brown and fished up until i caught up with another angler. fishing back down i switched to streamers and moved a good number of fish and only had 1 committ be it came unpinned. day 3 myself, dave and joe did a 14 mile float starting on the big hole and floating into the jefferson. this day was nothing to write home about but it was much more productive then the previous two. all 3 of us threw hoppers although i did chuck streamers for a bit, catching a couple of moving many. in all 3 days most of the fish were small ranging from 12-16" with joe pulling a 21" brown on the jeff the first day. i was on my way to oregon when i got bad news from home and decided it best to come back and take care of things. this past week there had been a number of storms come through and apparently put the fish down for the most part. after each night of fishing we would go back to the shop, drink and b.s. with the other guides and nobody had been doing worth a shit while i was there. although the fishing was pretty shitty it was still fun to fish some differetn waters and get guide service without the guide price.