Category — Photos

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.

So after of week of lousy weather and almost no fly fishing opportunities time was running out, I had to do something- fast. So I got out the spin rod and went Largemouth Bass fishing. To be honest I didn’t really expect much, but I got one hell of a surprise. I guess the gods felt like it was time to cut me some slack after raining and snowing all over my vacation parade.

I recently picked up on a post at the The Caddis Fly, some guy was giving himself a wedgie because a particular fish was caught on something besides fly fishing gear. So, just to nip any similar comments here in the bud, don’t waste our precious time pontificating about spin fishing vs fly fishing here because no one’s listening. Yes, I realize thats a plastic worm and chunk of lead big enough for a black powder rifle, but at this point in my Bass game thats what I’m using. I’ll redeem myself with a fly another day.

Borrowing from Trout Predator’s Yarn indicator tutorial I made some foam indicators using the same techniques for the most part, with my own tweaks for a couple things.

1) Starting with some sheet foam, O rings, and scissors…

2) Cut some foam strips about 1/8 inch wide and 3 inchs long.

3)Using scissors or some needle nose pliers hold open the O ring…

4)Insert the foams strips by opening the scissor jaws (needle nose pliers work well too) and slip the ring over strip ends and then rolling it up a ways and then pull the scissors out.

5) Fold the strips over and use a larger O ring and repeat the first O ring step.

A finished indicator.

That’s the quick down and dirty way to do it. An alternative and probably more durable way to do it is to use thread instead of the last O ring and tie it off and seal the thread with head cement or something similar. I prefer these because when you cinch up on the thread it spreads the foam out more.

I used a carpenters quick clamp to hold the foam together to get my first wraps of thread started.

After that I held it in hand and made a few wraps and a couple half hitches then sealed the thread with head cement.

Two weeks ago the Bureau of Rec decided it needed to cut flows in the Bighorn River to 1500 cfs, a knee jerk reaction I suspect to water skiers not being able to access the Horseshoe Bend launch on Bighorn Lake for the holiday weekend.

Today the Bureau woke up to the fact that they are still sitting on a 135% snow pack that is getting ready to roll out of the mountains, probably within the next month. So now we have another knee jerk reaction, the river is now cranking at 4500 cps. One can only hope this years fry found someplace to hide the last two weeks while the water politics ran its course. Somewhere along the way there will be enough water for everybody at least for awhile.