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Foxtrot Hotel Creek (TR)
Decided to take the trailer out on a shakedown run to test out the new converter. Busted the old one on the drive down the east side road of Hungry Horse (a case to be made for installing shocks; even driving the 20 miles in 90 minutes, the inside of the trailer looked like it had been in a paint shaker). Here’s a useful SBS someone was nice enough to post if you ever have to install one; it helps to have the hands of a 10 yr old Persian rug weaver. Bottom line up front, success!
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Beeline out of the forest and onto the plains to see if we can find some cutts that don’t know their east from their west. First time in a few years where you can see the sky in late summer
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Deposit the rig and start soaking up all that free energy
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Off to the hills
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A good place to start. There’s been a nice one(s?) roaming the back end of the run the past few times I‘ve fished here; had a few refusals and busted off once or twice
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I’ve shown them enough foam; comes out of the water for this one, but misses connection
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Reload (found this on Ed Engle?s site; bulked up the head a bit with Ice Dub), wait a few minutes
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And Bob’s your uncle
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Lucky I got that one early on, ‘cuz things are a bit slow for the rest of the day. A few rises and I pick up a couple but the catching part of the day lags a bit behind the fishing part; pretty water and pretty country, though.
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On the drive back to camp I decide to take some back roads, hoping to do a little birding along the way. Not as big a variety as in August but in addition to about 25,000 Vesper Sparrows on the sides of the road I find a posting Perrigrine
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Nice way to end the day
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Next morning and it’s back on the gravel
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Same deal as the previous day; touching 90, but with a steady 25mph breeze it feels good. Move a bit farther up into the canyon; find some promising spots
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Show them some WOIGO
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And there you go
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They have a thing for lough flies
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This is why you take the road less traveled
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This is why you don’t. Something punched a pretty good hole in the tire
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Don’t think it was this guy (probably a burr on a cattle guard or some pokey piece of prairie)
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Into town in the morning to get it patched and we’re back in business. A few more hours of birding and it’s time to point it back the way we came. Don’t know if it?ll be the last trip of the year; tough call since this country has been very generous but I don’t want to get greedy.
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