Posts from — July 2008

My friend, Bert Gildart, an accomplished writer and photographer recently told me the story about a friend of his who was fishing in Saskatchewan and hooked into a 40+ inch Pike on Black Lake and the ensuing linguistic expression of appreciation of the fish by his guide.

A funny story about how fishermen, in the heat of the battle, choose to verbally express the excitement of the moment. Nice Pike too.

After the fourth of July fly fishing orgy I am home grounded this weekend by commitments and yard work that the kids (who were off fishing) should have done this week. The worse part about the yard is that I can’t really jump them about it because I am just as bad, if not worse, when it comes to mowing and weed whacking.

This all leads to a lot of daydreaming, the occasional rock thumping me on the shins after being thrown into orbit by the weed whacker brings me unfortunately back to reality. Of course one of those out of body experiences involves the “one that got away”. Its useless to even say how big, how long he was on, what he even was because everyones been there and no one will believe you anyway. You get the usual smiles, some people will give you the benefit of the doubt and say, “oh really- no kidding, wow, and finally- to bad”. They know you probably added a couple inches to the length, a couple minutes to the battle because they do the same thing. In the end its just you and what we’ve come to refer to as the “ghost”. All I can say is that I hooked up with the biggest Rainbow I’ve ever had on the end my line. I might have made the eight count with him before he headed downriver leaving me shell shell shocked and unable to settle down enough to rig up again for ten minutes.

Ruminations aside, waters are subsiding and clearing. The upper Clark Fork at Warm Springs was as clear as it gets Friday. I did not go home through Missoula so I did not see it that low. The Blackfoot is still a bit high but looks like it won’t be long till it comes into shape. The streams at the upper ends of all the drainages I saw were clear but still a bit high. The Flathead river is dropping and clearing and should be in fine shape for the Federation of Fly Fishers conclave in Whitefish, Montana, July 24-26. If you are in this part of the country be sure to check it out and stop in at Lakestream to get up to date on local conditions or hire a guide. Lakestream as well as Arend’s Cast and Gas (Arend’s also guides the Flathead) in Columbia Falls can set you up for fishing the Blackfeet Reservation Lakes also.

I will unfortunately probably miss the FFF conclave but I will fortunately be out fishing, hopefully the Missouri and beyond. Probably rivers and lakes in the southwestern part of the state. Ten days and no weed whackers in sight!

Well, work issues got in the way of one of my top priorities for the week, fishing the Bighorn River. I did stop off at Bighorn Fly and Tackle during my stay in Billings and got all the gory details. Flows are still high but word is, the fishing is great. I ran into a couple of other chaps who, with glazed over far away glances recounted their good fortunes there also. So, if the Bighorns on your list for the summer it sounds like there should be plenty of water and fish.

Fishing on the upper Clark Fork was good. Other good news for that river, biologists doing studies on Osprey chicks at the upper end of the Clark Fork found very low levels of Mercury and other contaminants from the years of mining in the area, further indications that cleanup along the river is working. While a certain troutundergrounder was preoccupied with Gin clear mountain streams and counting boats on Georgetown Lake we had a great time fishing the “superfund site”.

While looks can be deceiving along a river, its whats in it that really tells the story.

I didn’t notice any extra fins or see strange glowing aquatic life in the twilight hours. As a matter of fact these fish seemed perfectly healthy and only to happy to be passed over by other more discriminating fly fishing enthusiasts.

After several previous break offs and a fifteen minute chase downstream this happy fisherman finally got his prize in the net.

On the way home yesterday I stopped and fished the same area again for about a half hour and managed to tag one nice Brown and his little brother. The flow has dropped substantially from five days ago. My guess is that in two weeks the best fishing for the year will be done.

There were a lot of these little guys climbing around and I did find them in a Brown that I checked although the fish were less than enthusiastic about my imitations. #18-20 BH Flashback Pheasant tails, Scuds, Copper Johns, Ray Charles and soft hackle Caddis did the trick. No one seemed to have any luck with drys. There were a few Caddis about.

Damsels will be a hot item on Georgetown Lake, check out Tom Chandlers recent Montana road trip over at the Trout Underground for a report on how it fished and a boat count.

I finally found a spot along the road to get to a few lines off. I don’t have all the sexy gadgets to haul along other than a camera, fishing gear, and stuff for the working side of life.

Over the 4th we fished the upper Clark fork and although it was high and murky from thunderstorms it was fishing great. Several really nice fish, mostly Browns on small, #18-20 nymphs. The real challenge was keeping big fish on them. I also got a chance to use my new Sage SLT (I know, old stuff- but new for me) 4 weight and it really is just a great rod. It got a great break in on fish pushing the 25 inch mark. A big thanks to the folks at Lakestream for setting me up. I will post some shots when I land back at the hacienda this weekend unless I come up with a location I can load some editing software.