Thursday, November 8, 2012

Back To The Blog

Like I say after swinging flies for 3 or 4 hours and finally hooking up with a fish “It’s about damn time!”. It has been a while since I wrote in this blog and I don’t have any good excuse except I just didn’t feel like it. Since I last wrote (or posted if you want to be more in tune with modern terminology which I don’t) a lot has gone on around here. I have been at my new job since August of 2011, our rental property was jacked off the foundation and a new basement put under it, my daughter and two grandson’s lived with us from January through August since they are our tenants and needed a place to live while the new foundation was being put in place, I spent a lot of time on the MO fishing of course, numerous boxes of cigars have been consumed along with numerous bottles of bourbon, my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary by fishing the Yellowstone river and playing golf in Livingston, MT. which was incredible since we managed to be present for the first stone fly hatch on that river in seven years, and I went on my fourth steelhead fishing trip after not being able to go the last 3 seasons which resulted in catching my second steelhead (a thirty one inch fish).

Fishing on the MO this year was incredible since we finally had a normal water year after four high water years. It was a stellar dry fly year. The drift boat is still going strong, and I haven’t used my Watermaster kick boat since I bought the drift boat. The fish in the MO have regained their moxy with their return to making long powerful runs when hooked as evident by two fish taking me into my backing and several others taking me to my backing. We’ll see what next year brings. I didn’t spend as much time as I was planning fishing the river below Craig but did make several floats below Craig. I met a new fishing partner and we have fished together twice.

This weekend we are going elk hunting together. We’ll see how that goes. He has proven an excellent fishing partner (which means he rows at least half the time and does a good job of it). However I am suspicious of his willingness to share his elk hunting honey hole with me. I think he may just want someone to help get his elk out. That’s a small price to pay though if I also get an elk. At the least maybe he will share some of the meat. I consider hunting season a pain in the ass since it starts in October and occurs during some of the best time to fish the MO.

I am contemplating another steelhead trip maybe in February or March. I ventured to a new river for steelhead this year. Instead of fishing the Clearwater River I drove another eighty miles to the Grande Rhone River in Washington. A couple of guides I talked to at Headhunters fly shop recommended it saying that the catch rate would be better. I only caught the one fish, but it took me three years to catch my first fish on the Clearwater so I can’t complain too much. I met some great guys there and saw a lot of new country.

My cigar is almost done and the coffee (no not bourbon it is morning and I have to go to work soon) is getting cold so I will call this good for my first post in a while. I do plan to start posting again on a regular basis but no guarantees. Here’s to hunting season ending and a return to winter fishing.