Lol, yeah, I hardly ever wear one, especially when I’m fishing, lol. I don’t wear one at work because I’ve scratched a few patients with it in the past and I don’t want a repeat of that. And then I just never think about it when I get to the weekend.
I never noticed your watch, just your fish…and the flies dangling out of their mouths, lol.
TT.
Oh, man…it’s raining! I can’t even start to tell you how glad I am to see rain instead of snow, although they say it’s goint to change to snow tonight. It was almost 60 here yesterday. I badly wanted to head out for a few hours last night, but couldn’t. I’d love to be out there today with this light rain coming down. I bet it would be incredible fishing on the stream right now. Oh well, only two more days till Saturday and I’ll be out there doing it again.
TT.
Well, this weekend wasn’t exactly “stellar”, but it wasn’t a bust either, mostly because the weather didn’t cooperate very well. It rained all day yesterday and then started to snow in the evening. I went with a friend of mine to a reservoir known for big fish, about 40 miles away, to see if the water was open, which it was. I fished from shore with a stripping basket, gotta love them, and Mike fished from his float tube. It was so stinking cold that I was only able to make about 5 casts before I had to take a break and warm my hands up. I don’t know what the water temperature was, but I can tell you it was incredibly cold. Mike fished for as long as he could stand it and when he finally got out of the water he said the only way he knew he was walking was because his feet made a sound when they hit the ground, lol. I caught 2 small trout, and Mike, unfortunately, got skunked. After I dropped him off at his house I went back out to the mountains to try my luck a little closer to home. It was, I think, even more windy and rainy than it was where we were earlier in the day! I could only take about an hour of it, but did manage to land another 7 or 8 trout.
Today, being a new day, I got some yard work done after church and after the sun came back out I thought I’d give it another try. I cringed a little when I saw what the flags were doing on the way out. I did get a little reprieve from the wind though when I got down to the water line below the dam. It was still pretty cold though, and the fishing was slow, but it was fishing. I packed it up when I couldn’t feel the rod in my hand anymore. I did pretty well considering the 30+ mph wind that was blowing. I had a heck of a time feeling the strikes and setting the hook, and I wasn’t able to get pictures of any of the larger trout I had on because I didn’t quite land them, but I was close, lol. Still, I did take a few pics of a few that I did land.
The view from the dam
Oh man, what a view. That’s gorgeous.
Tim,
If I’d panned to the right you would’ve been able to really see the mountains in all their winter splendor. It really is a beautiful place.
TT.
Great report, keep them coming! I love fishing with my wife also. She is a poor caster, but seems to always out fish me.
Bilko,
My wife has really come a long way in the past 2 years. I love the fact that she is just fine with fishing on her own somewhere downstream. My dad almost couldn’t believe it when we took him fishing last year. She rigged up her rod and off she went. It about blew me out of the water last year when we were at Rock Creek for the salmon fly hatch and she was there in the water turning over rocks, actually looking for bugs and playing with them! I still giggle when I look at those pictures…just love it!
TT.
My last patient came in a little early today, which poured gas on the fire burning in my mind, that if given the chance, I’d go fishing this afternoon. It provided me the perfect opportunity. I invited a friend of mine, Tim, to join me. He had recently taken the fly fishing class that I put on at my church. It was a 6 week course, focusing mainly on basic casting, but I also covered equipment, fishing strategies, fly tying and watercraft.
I met him at his house, loaded up, and off we went for the 10 minute drive to the lake. I helped him set up, and then gave him one of my crystal muddlers to tie on, and I did the same. I think it might have been his second or third cast and he had a good strike, but his timing was just a bit off, and he didn’t quite set the hook quick enough. It wasn’t long though, and he had his first trout ever on a fly rod to hand.
I did pretty well too. I landed a beautiful rainbow that was as purple as I’ve ever seen one. By the end of our short outing, we had both done pretty well, and Tim was a proud convert who quickly agreed to another outing…soon!
TT.
P.S. How do you guys get your pictures so big. I look at all the other posts and there are nice big pics to look at. I’d like to be able to do the same.
Tim’s first trout on the fly.
stunning rainbow.
A view of the bay we fished for a short
while.
Hugo,
Great pics and report. Congrats on making a convert to the long rod. Your pics will enlarge when clicked on, and will go even larger when clicked on again. To post larger pics to start with, using Photobucket, I just put the cursor over th picture I want to post and a drop down menu will appear. Copy the Image code (IMG code)(last one on the list) and paste that where you want the picture to appear.
REE
Great series of reports TT! Keep 'em comming.
Thanks Ron, I might just give that a try. I know they enlarge when you click on them, I just thought it would be nice to not have to click on them, lol.
Thanks Jeff. I will certainly be posting more as the season goes by. Hope you and Mike post more pictures of that beautiful country of yours too!
TT.
Another weekend comes to a close. I’m beat. Dead dog tired. I spent most of the day yesterday cooking for a senior appreciation banquet, and then most of today as well, but I did manage to get out for a few hours each day.
Yesterday I went out with my friend, Tim again, and today my beautiful wife accompanied me. We did pretty well yesterday stripping streamers off the dam, and then I took Tim down onto the stream to teach him a little about dry fly fishing. The water was a bit off color, actually it was really stained, a result of the snow runoff from the beautiful weather we’ve been having…hope that doesn’t jinx us…
Today, it was much the same, stripping streamers off the dam. It was super windy, so we didn’t last long, but we did catch some fish, including a few doubles.
TT.
My 1 decent fish of the day for Saturday
It seems like it’s been a rediculously long week. The weather all week was wonderful…with the exception of the wind. I didn’t think I would be able to do much fishing this weekend, which turned out to be true, because of the spring archery shoot that our archery club, the ‘Bearpaw Bowmen’ hosted this weekend. It was a ton of fun, and I even shot pretty well.
After we set up the 3-D course yesterday, I got just a few minutes of fishing in on my way home. I fished what we call, second lake, for the first time this year. It’s been mostly frozen until this past weeks warmer weather melted some of the snow higher up and the warmer runoff caused the south end of the lake to melt off and open up. I tied on a trusty crystal muddler and gave it a few throws against what had to be a 20mph wind. I caught 3 or 4 small fish, and one that went about 16 inches, but I didn’t have my camera with me.
Today, it was much, much colder. I woke up to about 2 inches of snow on the ground which was not a good sign for the shoot. As I drove along the creek I thought it might be nice to take few pictures for a sort of ‘tour’ of the area for those of you who’ve never visited. I started with a picture of first lake as I drove past, and then took a few quick snapshots of the creek as it passed under the road. I also stopped at the place I was fishing yesterday to get a quick picture of the lake.
This afternoon I stopped for about 15 minutes to see if I could keep my lucky streak going. I got a pretty little 10 incher on the first cast, and had a few more on. I was fishing with gloves on though, and didn’t have the best line control, so I missed a few strikes. It didn’t take long for the guides to ice up, and to be honest, after being out in the cold all day, I’d had enough. I did get a quick picture of one nice bow I caught…just to prove that I was actually catching fish, lol.
The view of First Lake as I drove by.
Beaver Creek, small, choked with willows, but full of fish.
Second lake in all it’s springtime splendor.
Proof of my tale.
I regret to have to inform you all that I did absolutely NO fishing this weekend. No, this weekend was dedicated to tiling the upstairs bathroom floor, and easter at my in-laws. Not a bad thing actually, but I didn’t get to fish. On the other hand, I did get to shoot a few gophers and prarie dogs.
So, in lew of no fishing pictures from this weekend, I’ll post a few from other trips or fish-in’s over the years…it’s better than nothing, right?
Fishing the Au Sable River in Michigan.
Some float tube fun in Montana
My new Montana fishing hat.
A decent salmon from the Pierre Marquette river
in Michigan.
Me and Gill (Gills-gone-wild) at Rock Creek last spring.
Hugo,
That new Montana fishing hat is great, but does it get in the way when casting or do you side arm cast all the time? I really like the sun protection it gives the nose.
When I clicked on the last attachment I got nothing. John must have put the hex on it.
Nice pics and, yes, they are better than nothing.
REE
Thanks, Ron. I deleted that one and uploaded another of just me and Gill. The new hat allows me to blend in really well with the local fauna quite well.
TT.
Love it! I am so looking forward to meeting you!
Hugs,
Dee
I’m looking forward to it too, Dee.
TT.
They say that there are three constants in life; Death, Taxes, and the Wind in Montana. It’s not that the wind was REALLY bad, it was only about a 20-30 mph steady breeze, what was bad, is that I couldn’t get away from it. I went out yesterday for the afternoon with a friend and his wife, and my wife came with, just to get out of the house for a while. The wind was blowing straight up the valley and made casting…difficult.
Nevertheless, we still managed to catch a few fish. The water was also a little dirty from the run-off, which I’m sure didn’t help. Evenso, there were still a few caddis starting to hatch. A nice sign of things to come. My friends wife caught a really nice rainbow, and I caught one small rainbow on the creek. I’d had about all I could take and when I started walking upstream towards them, they yelled across the 10 foot wide creek that they were going to head home. I yelled back that I was heading up to the second lake to try floating around in my pontoon. I was actually wanting to try out the new anchor system I’d rigged up…only to realize that I’d forgotten the anchor.
After the short drive to the second lake I found a nice, sort of out-of-the-wind spot, parked, and rigged up my pontoon, just in time for the wind to pick-up. I did get to try out my new DC automatic pump. What an amazing little thing. I giggled to my wife that I wonder what I’d done before I bought that little pump.
I let the wind drift me down the shoreline, casting into the shoreline, catching fish. I caught some rainbows, and a few brookies. The first brook trout that I’ve ever caught in the lake.
I went out today with some of the guys that took the fly fishing class that I put on at my church in February. Again, the wind was relentless. We all caught fish though, and two of them caught their first fish on the fly. One of them, Jerry, released his before I was able to get a picture of it, and then stood there staring into the water as he said out loud that he should have had me take a picture of if. I did get a picture of Frank’s fish, and Bob, who’s fly fished before, caught a really nice smallmouth bass.
Well, that’s all for this weekend…enjoy.
TT.
Kody and his wife with her nice rainbow.
A pretty brook trout off my pontoon.
Frank’s first trout on the fly.
Bob’s smallie.
Frank, Jerry, and Bob…all set to hammer the trout.
TT,
Montana, east of the Rocky Mountain Front is the only place I know where 20-30 mph could truly be considered just a breeze. Nice report, as usual, and real nice to see your “students” seem to be picking up what you’re putting down.
Regards,
Scott
