A Weekend With Corey and his Pops

Day 1- corey does some website stuff for different

shops and outfitters so he gets some perks with

that. as luck would have it he invited me to meet

up with him and his dad garret and stay the weekend

and fish with them and a guide. hell yea i was up for

the challenge. corey had bought a drift boat over

the winter and this was the first time it was getting

some river action. there was actually 3 boats that

were in our little group, corey and me in his boat,

garret and the guide in the guides boat and then

and then the other boat was another guide, a friend

of corey's, and 2 clients. i offered to take over for corey

on the sticks, since i had rowed once or twice, so that he

could fish as well but he just wanted to row and get a

good feel for the boat and mimic what the other guides

were doing. corey did a great job on the sticks but

unfortunately the fish were not cooperating. i missed

1 or 2 fish throwing different dry patterns before

the guide rowing garret gave me a small pmx pattern

that was producing for garret. i landed a beautiful

brown on the pattern and then the rest of the day

was spent landing a few dinks. garret landed a few nice

fish and the 2 clients in the other guide boat were not

doing so well. we stopped about mid-way for a shore side

lunch and surprisingly the guide with the clients fed all

of us, which to me was very unexpected. after lunch me

garret switched boats so that corey could row his dad.

as i said, the rest of the day for me consisted of dinks

but garret managed to net a couple more nice fish. as we

neared the take-out i was more then ready to be done.

i am not used to fishing off of a boat and when you don't

row, all you do i fish and my wrist was absolutely killing

me. it was a double digit float and all that constant casting

really did me in. you can't beat being guided for free though.

on the drive from the take-out back to the shop corey heard

something, looked out his side view mirror and says....what

the hell was that? he saw something bouncing down the road

wondering if something came off the boat or if he ran over

something. he pulled over and ran back to where he saw it and

then came back with one of my loop reels. i had left it on his

truck bumper and it came off at about 65mph and bounced

down the road like a basketball. guess i'll take it to work this

week and smoothed out all the high metal. it's got some nasty

scars now but is still round and reels just fine.

Day 2- we were supposed to fish with another

guide on saturday but he had some issues going

on and couldn't swing it so we ventured on our

choosing some smaller water and staying on foot.

we started lower on the ruby where i nailed a nice

brown on my 3rd cast. garret chose to fish close

to where we had parked and throw some sub-

surface stuff, coming up empty handed, while

me and corey fish our way up delivering meat

to the doorsteps of many trouts. me and corey

only landed a couple in that section but turned

a lot of heads. we all met back at the jeep for some

lunch then drove to the upper section. the fishing

was quite slow. i did land a really nice rainbow but

as i was holding my leader with one hand and

reaching for my camera with the other the 'bow'

starting flopping around and spit the hook before

i could snap any pics. i took my first whitie on a

streamer and had a big bastard explode on my

fly as it hit the water, had him on for a split second

and gone. about that time a nasty storm rolled in

and we made it back to the jeep just as the wind

and rains made their presence known.

Day 3- corey and garret decided they were going

to head home in the morning since the fishing was

less then stellar and i decided i would hit the ruby

for a few hours before my drive back to missoula.

i got to the pull out and i was fortunate to be the

first on the water. it was a no brainer for me as to

was i was going to throw at the fish. streamers of

course. i threw white, olive and a yellow pattern,

all moving fish with white being the least productive.

i switched area a couple of time, coming back to

almost where i had started. i only landed 3 fish but

i sure did move a ton of fish. 12:30, 12:45 and i was

on my way back home.

Creek Cutts

I hit the creek solo today. i was several miles into the drive and still wasn't sure where i was going to fish. i stopped off at a small creek and made just a handful of casts into it, didn't see anything. drove down the road some more to a creek that i've been eye balling since i arrived in montana but until recently was victim to the lengthy run-off. i fished it lower at first only moving 1 nice fish on a double bunny. i only fished a short section there before driving up river to a bridge which i parked at then walked down about a mile before fishing my way back up. i started with streamers getting into a few then switched to a sgt slaughter in cicada colors and get into a few more. at this point i couldn't decide if i wanted to drive further upstream or fish something different. after some grub i chose to stick with this creek and drove a few miles upstream. the creek took on a whole new look up there. it's much smaller with a lot of washed out trees littering the banks and water. i switched to a grumpy frumpy and started by catching either juvenile brookies or juvenile bull trout, at that age they look very similar. i was casting to this one hole and on my forward casts a small bird flew right into my loop and took the grumpy frumpy to the wing. catching a bird was a 1st for me. not only is it catch and release for bulls and cutts, but also birds. the further i walked up the bigger the fish seemed to be. i ended the day by putting on a sgt slaughter in green with yellow rib to simulate a small green hopper. the last hole that i fished i landed a nice 14" cutt that had positioned itself below an over hanging tree. as i got off the dirt road and onto the hwy there was an ambulance and fire truck crew tending to an over turned truck. over all today was a pretty good day. the weather was great and the fish action was steady.

Provo North

Myself and tirko ventured to some new waters today. it is a well known creek that actually looks more like a full fledged river and it's crowds reminded me of the provo. it seemed like around every bend there were people, in almost every pull off there were cars. it just plan sucked to see. i threw streamers and dries with most of the action coming from the streamers. i only landed 1 fish but sure moved a ton on a olive/white double bunny. there was to many bugs coming off but did see some tricos and what looked like a small few green drakes. i raised a few fish but didn't connect with any. i fished one section where there was a small pile of logs stacked up from the high water and under one the these over hanging logs were thousands of, what appeared to be, dead flies.....house fly type. i only say dead cause i touched a couple and they didn't move, but most of the bottom of that log was just solid flies. crazy, i'd never seen anything like it. the creek was beautiful and so was the weather but the crowds really kind of killed my spirits.

Camping/Fishing With the Misses

Michelle was able to get a few days off of work so she made the drive up here thursday evening. sunday night michelle wanted to camp and fish so on the way to our campsite so stopped by another lake and hiked behind it to the falls just for the scenery. after that we headed for our campsite, which was nothing more then a trailhead. once there i backed the jeep up to the lone fire pit and got us a nice camp fire going. i laid down the back seat of the jeep, spread out a couple of sleeping bags and our makeshift tent was set up. i had brought up a couple of nice seasoned salmon fillets that i could've swore i put in the cooler, for dinner, but michelle found them still in a plastic bag and had been sitting in the heat all day. what a waste, into the fire they went. so dinner consisted of potato salad, cashews and beer. the next morning we made some sausage links and scrambled eggs. after breakfast we cleaned up the mess, geared up and starting hoofing it. the hike was very peaceful and enjoyable. being a monday other people were almost none existent. we fished the lake for a few hours, catching cutties on a black spring creek special and a couple of dries. the fishing was not as good as the weekend before but we each got into our share of fish. at 5 o'clock we ventured back and when we got back into town, capped the trip off with a really nice steak dinner. it was a really nice time with my wife.

Pike Diver

On Golden Pond

Only minus the goldens. intel told me that at least two of the lakes up there, including the two we hiked to had golden trout. well pond number one was full of beautiful cutts but didn't get a look at any goldens. after we fished it for awhile we hiked back up to lake number two and didn't even feel a fish let alone see any sort of gold. even a small one would've been a trophy for me but no dice. if there are truly goldens in those lakes then maybe next time i'll have better luck. the first lake did fish really well though, especially for tirko. he is a spin fisherman at heart and sometimes tries to dabble with a fly rod. this day i got schooled by him. we found one particular spot on the lake where it seemed tirko was hooking up almost every cast for quite awhile while i was trying to switch my fly but i kept having to net his fish. i think he landed 4-5 before i even got a new fly tied on. i was outfished somewhere in the vacinity of 9 to 15 or somewhere there abouts. we both lost double our catch counts. the hike was great, but exhausting. man, it is so peaceful in the mountains, i absolutely love it each time i get to get up away from the people. my wife is coming out this week and wants to do some hiking/fishing so maybe we'll head up there so i can get her, hopefully into some fast action and maybe we can run into a golden trout this time.