Rock Creek, Bitterroot

The past couple days I've fished with Riley, once on Rock Creek and today on the Root. Rock creek on Friday fished alright. I spoke with  few other anglers who had a tough day. I was able to find fish in some slow moving back eddies. The fish really seemed to key in on moving stonefly nymphs and I found the most success by crinkling my nymphs slowly through eddies without a strike indicator. Weird technique but it seemed to work well. The water levels were up from a few days before.

Today Riley and I made our way to the upper Bitterroot in search of some skwala eating cutties. We found them, but not in the style that we had hoped. Saw one fish rise the entire time. We stuck to nymphing and had a pretty successful afternoon of fishing. I nymphed up 4 trout and a few whitefish and Riley landed a few cutties as well. It was a beautiful day in the Bitterroot valley.

Riley's cutty

Halfway through the fishing I spooked a goose off of its nest. I've never seen goose eggs before, and let me say, they are freaking huge.

Tomorrow is just the weather that I've been waiting for; NOAA is predicting cloud cover all day and a 50% chance of showers. This can only mean one thing....

!!!S T R E A M E R S!!!

Can you tell that I'm excited? Hopefully the big guys come out to play tomorrow. A big fish is much needed.

Paradise

Got out on the Bitterroot the other afternoon to go chase some pike. Could I finally catch a Montana pike? The answer was no. I found some awesome looking pike water, including some cool back braids. I threw big stuff and some trout streamers as well. No takers. I was sure I was going to see a pike somewhere in that shallow slow moving back braid but I surprisingly didn't.

Got a call from Trevor a while later telling me that he was up near Hamilton. I headed south and we nymphed up quite a bit of cutties and a few bows too. Temps were in the low 70's and it felt great. This T-shirt weather really brought out some hatches. Cody and Garret found some great dry fly fishing upstream of us. March Browns and some skwala action. Unfortunately, the fish were not too active for dries on the stretch of river Trevor and I fished. We still each managed to land close to double digits of fish. No big fish but it was a great afternoon in paradise.

A pretty Brown landed by Trevor

A fish is a fish, is a fish.

The school grind has been tough and yesterday was one of the busiest days I've had in a while. It was also my birthday! With classes all day, my advising meeting in the evening, and needing to schedule classes for fall semester, there was little time for me to do what I love on my birthday. Sadly enough, I did not fish.

This weekend looks pretty nice with temps in the mid-upper 50's and mostly sunny. I'm thinking about switching it up and heading north to fish. We'll see...

The Beevahead 4/7

After a couple days of recuperating from our Missouri adventure, Cody, our new fishing buddy Trevor, and I decided to make a day run to the Beaverhead river near Dillon, MT. The beaverhead is known for its great brown trout population and I was very excited to fish some new water. Trevor owns his own drift boat (which is awesome), and I'm surprised that we haven't fished with him prior to this month considering that we've seen him over at the Mo several times and he is also a freshman at the U.

We stopped for some food in Butte (MacDonald's of course), and returned to the car to find we had a flat tire. Just our luck. It reminded me of the False Casts and Flat Tires crew. We quickly hit a Les Schwab and they repaired it for a small price. We were on our way in a little under an hour. We were in no rush.....It was 7 degrees in Butte.

Dirty Boat

Got to the river and in the water around 11. The river was smaller than expected but I liked the small riffles and slots where we knew fish would be. Cody immediately hooked up with a few fish in a nice run.

Nymphing was hot to start but as the day wore on, some cloud cover came in and it was time to switch to streamers. I had been fishing streamers all day and had only landed one brown. When we began fishing some rip-rap on the lower sections of the float, we started getting grabs like crazy. Only one problem; the fish would not fully commit to the flies we were throwing. We tried different colors, we tried different sizes.....the fish would simply not grab our flies.

Trevor with a nice Beaverhead Bow

There's no need to make a long story short because the story was that not one of us managed to land a fish on a streamer for the entire rest of the float. It was quite frustrating. We did find some rising fish during a heavy BWO hatch. Trevor presented perfectly and landed a nice brown.

Overall, I really liked the Beaverhead. The water was just the type of water that I like to fish and its small enough so that you can find fish easily in the defined slots and runs. I really wish the fish would have cooperated with streamer fishing because I probably missed about 50 grabs on the day. I'm sure as the water warms up the streamer fishing will continue to improve which leads me to believe that we will be back to the beaverhead very soon.

Melcher nymphing the prestigious Beaverhead

On the way home we saw a huge heard of elk between Dillon and Butte. It was pretty cool to see, for I have not seen elk yet since I've been to college.

Thanks to Trevor for rowing most of the day. We experienced dead mans rapids (as Cody calls it), and Trevor had no trouble in maneuvering us through the narrow fast stretch of river. He is pretty experienced with the drift boat deal. We are glad to have another fishing buddy join our amazing group of friends.

Easter Trout with Kelsey

Yesterday my girlfriend Kelsey returned from Washington and we decided to hit the water for a while. She's been dying to re-learn how to fly fish so I promised I would teach her what I could. Little did I know she would be such a pro. My ultimate goal was to have her land a fish. We drove a ways up a crowded Rock Creek in search of our own water and finally found an empty stretch that I've fished before.

With a bit of practice, Kelsey was casting really well, especially with roll casts. We walked downstream and found a small pool where there had to be fish. It wasn't long before she hooked up with a bow, fought it, and landed it, all by herself. I was pretty surprised at how well she played the fish and kept it from running down some faster water. Needless to say, I've never seen Kelsey that excited before.

We headed downstream further and Kelsey immediately picked out a soft pocket of water that she thought would hold a fish. After drifting some stoneflies through the pocket, she was hooked up again with nice bow.

Happiness

It was a great afternoon and an awesome way to end spring break. I was glad that Kels caught some fish. Now, unfortunately, it's back to school for all of us. I cannot believe that there is only one month left of school. This whole year has flown by.

Spring Break Mo Madness

On Saturday we headed off to the Mo for spring break. Not the usual college style of partying. For the next few days we aimed to live like hobos and fish all that we could. And that is exactly what we did.

We arrived to the prestigious Mo on Saturday afternoon and went out to fish a few hours. The streamer fishing was alright but the fish were picky for dries. I managed a decent sized bow and 2 other smaller fish.

On Sunday we woke early to fish. Chris and I headed to one of our favorite runs on the river. We were not disappointed. It was a crazy hour and a half of fishing. I streamer fished and landed close to 20 on black streamers. The fishing was unbelievable.

Fighting

Monday we floated. The Trout Shop was super generous and let us borrow a brand new clackacraft for the day! The fishing was unusually slow but we still had a great time. Having the drift boat for the day was a luxury.
Tuesday the fishing was back to being great. Cody and I headed out early and found a pretty awesome little run that produced some nice fish, including my nicest Bow of the trip.

Melch with a nice bow

It was a great afternoon to fish due to the fact that there was literally NO WIND. That's right.......no wind. Such a rare afternoon and evening for the Mo could not be passed up. We fished all afternoon and then went back out later to fish the evening.

Chris Choosing wisely

Paradise

Walking back through the fields of the Mo while the sun went down, I realized that I would rather be fishing than doing anything else in the world. I felt as though I was in paradise and for me it was. The fishing had been tough that evening, the trout being picky. I only managed one fish but I was still happy as one can be. I returned to find Chris and Cody still chasing some picky rising fish. Chris had missed a big fish and Cody had found a pattern that the fish really seemed to key in on.

Wednesday, we decided, would be our last day on the Mo. We were tired, hungry and were now running out of food. We definitely needed to get back to Missoula to recharge.

My Home

We all woke early to calm winds. We headed out for our last few hours of fishing. I went it alone while Cody and Chris fished a section downstream of where I was. The fishing was good, as expected.

How now brown trout

Despite fishing our asses off for 5 days, we had plenty of time to act stupid.....

"I like fish slime"

"I'm so cool because I wear a Buff"

"There's a midge on my apple"

It was a spring break to be remembered! Operation MOBITE was a huge success. The weather was beautiful and the fishing was awesome. A big thanks to the Mike, Jerry and Chris at The Trout Shop for letting us take out the Clacka. If you are ever fishing the Mo, be sure to stop by at The Trout Shop. These guys are some of the nicest guys I've met and run a beautiful shop. I'd also like to thank Cody and Chris for being such awesome friends. I couldn't of asked for a better spring break!

It was tough to say goodbye to the Mo but we are now living a healthy lifestyle back in Missoula (for now). Today is a chill day and we are all relaxing and recovering from the trip. The effects of the trip are shown on our faces as I ate breakfast with Chris and Cody this morning. We look like zombies. The next few days we will be fishing again. Stay tuned for more reports.