Part 1
You have to love hard times. As high bidder (make that the only bidder) on a lodge in MT, we quickly built a trip around the winning bid. This was suppose to be a big hopper year, but the late rains and cooler weather had us opt for plan B. The anticipation of hoppers had me tying a variety of patterns. So much for tying for the hatch. Anybody want some hoppers? I won’t be using them anytime soon. Stayed at and fished with Tom Smith in Dillon during rodeo days. Tom claimed the Dillon rodeo was the largest in the state. People spilled over and into the street at the bars located in the center of the otherwise quiet town. The night lights from the carnival even lit up the evening sky. Montana's brand new portable DUI processing trailer was on loan and in plain sight as a deterrent and a definite revenue generator for the town. The Patagucci Outlet Labor Day weekend sale had way too many folks shopping for my taste, much less my size. Lets focus on the fishing. The Big Hole proved productive up in the mountains. Dries, stonefly and PMD nymphs below to feeding pods of fish. My fish Identification is poor at best. White fish became grayling- doesn't grayling sound better when you actually hook up on a white fish? Afternoon thunder storms chased us down the canyon and only made casting difficult with the wind. The fish were cooperative, especially the browns. Hit the Beaverhead from Pipe Organ to the diversion in order to miss the crowds below the dam and skated adult craneflies off weed beds for some excitement. We even passed a spin fisherman along the bank and he was definitely happy with his report of "lots of fish on panther martins." I didn't even look for that pattern in my fly box, came close to asking the gude. We dropped by Winston and Sweetgrass shops for the sake of my compadres. Jerry Kustich was in his usual spirits as two of my buddies started talking bamboo rods. Jerry got philosophical and went into sales pitch mode when asked about the care bamboo rods required. Jerry even hinted that he just threw his rods in the bed of his pickup. Of course, it helps if you can repair your own rods. One of them might have got on Jerry's waiting list.
[img size=150][/img]
Favoured: 0
