FUBAR

Cody and I made it to Craig, MT at about 8pm last night. Made a visit to one of the 4 fly shops in the small town mostly composed of a bunch of trout bums. There were literally drift boats all over. The people in the fly shop were very helpful in suggesting patterns and telling us a good float to do. We camped the night at wolf creek access. Sleeping in the truck pretty much sucked and I don't think either of us got much sleep. I woke up a bunch of times to the sound of some pretty fast winds. When we woke in the morning at 6:30 we could tell it was going to be a tough day. The winds were howling. We ate a quick breakfast and then we were off on our float. The first half hour was slow but as the sun began to rise the fish began to also. It was clear to see why the Missouri is one of the most famous streams for large trout in the country. Every fish that I saw within the first hour came fully out of the water and they we're not small at all. The river itself was a lot bigger than I had imagined. The Missouri(as we discovered) is basically an over sized spring creek. Lots of vegetation that provide trout with all of the food they need.
Tricos were first on the menu. There was many of them but Cody and I found a nice braid that looked perfect for nymphing. Cody fished the run first why I had some equipment problems. The seat back on my pontoon boat snapped right off when I was rowing. While I was making a temporary repair to my seat, Cody hooked up with some nice fish nymphing.

I managed 1 fish in the same run after Cody went downstream. As we continued our float we found lots of fish rising. It was very difficult though, due to the wind gusts over 30mph. The wind seemed to be non stop and I was having a rough day with tangled leaders and being blown to the bank again and again and again. I also ended up breaking 2 nice fish off, one of them had crushed my hopper. It was a very frustrating day for me. About 3/4 the way through our float we found a nice pod of fish rising to tricos. The wind made it difficult to present our flies but Cody managed to get a very nice bow of about 17 inches to take his fly.

The rest of the float was pretty tough and the winds seemed to be even stronger. Neither of us hooked up again but it was still a good day (at least for Cody it was). Had it been a calm day, I know we would have done a lot better. We are planning to come back to the Missouri again this fall.