Clark Fork Float

Cody, Garret and I headed to the Clark Fork today to do a float. We stopped in at the Kingfisher to ask advice on a good float. We decided to head to Frenchtown(below Missoula) and do a 9 mile float. We got in the water by noon. After rowing down a slough only to find it was jammed with ice we found another slough that led right to the river. We finally hit the main river and I immediately started working some nice looking water below a riffle. I started with a white and tan streamer and stuck to it. I had fished most of the riffle/run when I saw a fish trailing my fly pretty quickly. The fish turned away from the fly right in front of me so I let my fly drop. My line tightened up immediately and I set the hook. It was a nice chunky cuttbow of about 13 inches.

Not a bad way to start the day. By this time Cody and Garret were way downstream so I rowed hard to catch up. Cody had lost a very big fish that had made a big run. Garret had also missed a fish. The rest of the day was alright. Cody landed 2 fish, one of them being a bow of about 16 inches. It was a nice day on the river and I liked this section of the Clark Fork because there weren't many houses and we had all the water to ourselves.  We saw a few deer, and eagle and beaver along the way also. Some of the water was very nice with lots of deep runs and riffles, and some was frog water. The river here is much bigger than above Missoula so it is a little harder to hit all of the hot spots.. We didn't see too many more fish for the duration of the float.

Tomorrow we'll probably be floating the Clark Fork again and possibly even the same section. Stay tuned for the report.