I arrived in St. Regis, MT on Monday afternoon and checked in at the Clark Fork Trout & Tackle fly shop to get a fishing report. Jackie was working as Brooks was out guiding on the river.

She said that Jack and Brad had been in earlier and were down at the campground. I headed down there and met up with them, like Brad said in his running account of their trip, it was good to put a face to the name. They offered me a nice cool one so we sat there for a while shooting the breeze then I left to get checked in to my motel.

Jack & Brad showed up at the motel at around 6 PM and we all got into my car and headed up to Quinn's to have dinner at the Harwood House, about 17 miles north of St. Regis. Great food!! They left Gnorm back at the camp, I guess to guard it against any possible bear attack.

Now it is Tuesday morning. I just finished cleaning, stretching and treating my fly lines, as soon as I put on new leaders I will be ready for the day. Looks like the weather will be cloudy with a chance of rain this afternoon. That is ok, as it has been very warm over here up to now. As long as the change in barometric pressure doesn't put the fish off, a little cloudy weather and rain will be good.

It was a hard day of fishing today. The fish alternated between really hitting or being very tight mouthed. I ended the day with only 21 fish to the boat, not bad but I know the Clark Fork can do better. The weather did play into the type of day it was. It was either sunny or very cloudy, no wind or lots of wind, cold or warm, that type of a day. But, I had fun. I got 21 fish to the boat and I probably had just as many hook ups with LLR's. There were lots of deer along the river, Bald eagles, Osprey, plus a few dozen ducks. We did the 14 mile drift today, from St. Regis to the 14 mile takeout south of Paradise. I fished nymphs and dries. When one style went totally dead I would switch to the other and pick up a fish or two, then it would die off so I would go back to the other style. For nymphing, lightning bugs and Pat's Rubber Legs were good. For dries, we went through a variety of colors of hoppers, plus a Royal Wulff, and a Mahogany Dun. Not much of a hatch today. There were tons of midges this morning but after that we only saw a few Hecubas (Sulfurs), one October Caddis, a couple BWO's, a Mahogany and one Spruce Moth.

But then, there is always tomorrow and Jack and Brad will be out on the river in a guided drift boat. I sure hope they have a good day. Come to think of it, I hope I have a good day too.

Wednesday morning greeted us with partly cloudy skies. I met Jack & Brad at the fly shop and we loaded our gear into the drift boats we would be in. I was fishing with Brooks and Jack & Brad were fishing with Drayton. Brooks and I went up to Dry Creek and did that drift down to St. Regis. Drayton took Jack & Brad up to First Creek and did that drift down to Superior.

Best laid plans of Gnomes and men?..today was yet another hard fishing day. Brooks had been talking to some people who had fished the St. Joe over in Idaho on Tuesday and they said that fishing there was also very slow, so I guess it is the weather changes that we are looking at as the culprit for the slow fishing days.

But, while it was hard fishing and you really had to work to catch fish, I did alright. I managed to get only 18 fish to the boat but the trout on that section of the river were really stepping up to the plate in size and girth. I caught 10 trout (Rainbows and Cutthroats) that were in the 17 to 20 inch range. All were very healthy and fat and sassy. Several of the Cutts were in full color, almost like spawning colors except they spawn in the spring with the Rainbows, so I guess you could say they were in full fall colors.

By being persistent and switching both types and sizes of flies and types of fishing (nymphing to dries to nymphing to dries, etc) I managed to have a fun day. Our biggest enemy on Wednesday was the wind. There were times when if Brooks wasn't rowing us down river we simply stayed in one place in the faster sections of the river, the wind simply cancelled out the force of the river. That made casting difficult and yes I managed to get some wind knots (yea, I know, wind knots are really poor casting knots, but it sounds better saying they were wind knots J). We went through a huge variety of hoppers for our dries plus a Mahogany. The most popular nymph was the bead head flash back Pheasant Tail as there were a number of mayflies coming off. There were more October Caddis out dropping their eggs along with some midges, Tricos, Mahoganies and BWO's.

That evening I went down to the campground and had a delicious pot roast dinner that Brad had fixed up and we snacked on huckleberry ice cream that I picked up in town at the ice cream joint. We sat around the fire and shot the breeze for a while, luckily the wind had died down, then I headed back to the motel to get packed for heading home. Brad and Jack were going to get ready to break camp in the morning and head for Hardin, MT.

It was good meeting Brad & Jack and I wish them well on their trip back to the mid-west.

Larry ---sagefisher---