Livin' The Dream . . .

  . . . On the MO, where else?  OK, I am weak.  I saw a Craig forecast for last Sunday of a 90 percent chance of rain and a high temperature of 71.  I hadn't even seen a tiny cloud since running away from home. I pointed east and put the hammer down, leaving cool, green western Montana and the Idaho panhandle.  When the best fly fishing river in the country calls your name, you answer, at least I do.  Its Montana after all, four or five hours of driving is just around the block, especially on the longest days of the year.

The story is the flow.  Three Fucking Thousand!  I've been bitching, moaning, whining, and complaining for several seasons now about the high water.  I've been wishing for the "catastrophic" drought year more than anything in the world.  Now I have it, and I'm loving the shit out of it!  I forgot how enjoyable it can be walking around this great river just about anywhere I want.  Don't even need the boat.  There's so much fishable water that I haven't hardly fished the same run all week.  But I have fished nearly everything between Bull Pasture and Stickney at least once.  Well, maybe half of it, on river right.  There's so much wadable, fish-filled water.  Its been great fun re-learning what's really been under all that high water.  Seeing islands that are really islands again.  And wading to them!

The fish, well, they are a bit more spooky.  Approaches have needed to be stealthier.  Full heron mode.  But that ain't too tough at 3,000.  They're not always rising steadily, or in the same lane.  There's groups of a few together at the peak of the hatches.  Its just challenging enough that each eat is earned  and satisfying.  No gimmes.   And are they loving the low water?  It sure looks like it.  They're all footballs.  I've caught a couple that are shaped like damn largemouth bass.  

The crowds?  Well, somehow not really.  Its the least crowded I can ever remember seeing it in June, but maybe that's because everybody can actually spread out and fish most of the river.  Sunday was rainy, so that took care of the weekend splash and giggle crowd.  The rest of this week has seen fishermen at nearly every spot, but only one or two it seems.  I've had mornings and evenings with prime water all to myself.  Sometimes I see or visit with one other person.  That, and 3,000 cfs, has left plenty of room to find a soft spot to land every fish after they peel 150 feet downstream of where I hook 'em. 

The sunny days have been typical with morning hatches peaking before noon, and fishing tapering off until the good evening rise.  The caddis are not cloud-thick like last year, and neither are the PMD's for that matter, but there's enough of both to get fish rising.  You still gotta hunt the right heads.  I never saw a fish eat a dun the whole week. 

Sunday and Wednesday were the perfect days, with overcast skies and showers, cool temperatures, and bugs.  The fish rose all day.  I tried to fish nearly all day both days, all but 3 hours or so, and have pretty much killed myself in the process.  My back and right shoulder are shot, and no amount of Advil and Tylenol puts a dent in it, but this opportunity doesn't come too often anymore.  Fish through it.  

Thursday was an off day for some reason, despite increasing clouds and afternoon showers.  The evening bite was breezy and showery, meaning non-existent.  Friday morning was ok again, but just ok. PMD's fading, or waning, or just pausing?  Anyone's guess.  A hot weekend will bring back the splash and giggle crowd, so I will go for now.

Three Fucking Thousand CFS!!!  

So we have the wonderful, weed-free river, at 3,000!  We have caddis and pmd's on the menu.  And we have a bunch of hot, fat fish in the restaurant.  Without further ado, in that order:

THREE FUCKING THOUSAND!

No fish behind that little rock this year, or in the eddy.  

No fish behind those rocks either, but the crossing is easy.

Who says I'm a fair weather?

PHD Island is back!

In all its glory

Upper Sterling

Still pigs below the riffles

Another island back

Thing of beauty

"My" island.  Fish doin' it every time.

I want to build a tiny cabin here, on stilts, for the high water years.

D-Gate trail to the promised land

Still fish in this little sheltered channel

They liked the lower end in the lower water

California Island

You can wade across to California Island!

Entire Bull Pasture island is wadable

Both islands below high bridge dry and easily wadable, with fish!

Only a couple fish in this skinny channel

Last year's "killer" channel with no water flowing through it

This is where the evening caddis blizzards brought up countless fish.

PHD Island from across the channel

PHD Island at sunset

View from the camper!

And then there was food.  Breakfast consists of PMD's.  Best served spent, with a sprinkle of cripples. Caddis for the very early risers. Lunch is a Caddis combo platter, served downstream on a bed of spent PMD's. Caddis may also be served upstream if you like it spicy.  Supper is the fluttering caddis special in the main dining area, and PMD spinners in the smooth room.  Both available nightly.  No duns are on the menu.  On sunny days, lunch is served earlier and we close at 2.  On Sunday and Wednesday, we open at 8am, and breakfast is served all day.

PMD Soup (Lunch and Dinner)

Cut down Last Chance Cripple.  Less is more.

Beginning of the hatch

Preferred

Lighter preferred

For the pickiest eaters.  Takes one to know one.

The caddis stand-out.  CDC and Hare.  So buggy.

Softy that never fails

Corn Fed

Translucent

For a caddis, or a PMD.  One fly would do it.

And now . . . drumroll. . . the meaningless porn at the end . . . like all the other porn on here.  With a few gems.

Nice truck

Only a few brown ones

Soooo fat

Too big to hold

No spots?

Last too-big-to-hold

Ranch Crowded

I've never sees so many campers/trailers/fifth wheels at the Gravel Pits.  Millionaires parking lot is brim full.  Last chance lot brim full.  Cars/trucks at every pull-out in Last Chance.  Yes, its opening week for the river at the center of the fly fishing universe, but still.  Forecast is for no clouds, sunny and warm, and the hatches are limited.  Haven't seen many PMD's lately.  Drakes sparse, waiting for clouds and rain.  Lots of evening caddis, like most every other river in Idaho and Montana right now.  Five days, and now time for a change of scenery.  Cooler, quieter, maybe even a bear or two.

I'm headed for cold crystal-clear water, in a shady canyon, where I probably won't see many fishermen, none at all on many stretches.  No phone, no internet, no lights, some average trout in good numbers, and mosquitos.  Not in Alberta, but up north a little.  And West.  Considerably off my usual route.  I may post a picture or two when I come out next week.  Until then, a couple of parting porn shots from Last Chance today. 

Ranch Open

But not much at Millionaires this morning other than the two pigs I hooked.  They're different down there.  No bugs though.  Green Drakes at Osborne mid-morning, but hardly any fish on 'em.  Last Chance is fishing the best of the places I've been.  Pissed away 5 big eats at the Log Jam yesterday, as I had it to myself.  Big winds the last couple of days after mid-morning.  Still HOT in the afternoons-high 80's.  Not a cloud to be seen.

Really liking it on the Log Jam flat

Lipless Wonder

Partridge Caddis

Evening caddis blizzard-Last Chance

Last Chance Low

Knee high 'bout everywhere.  Yee Haw!  It sure as hell makes a difference.  The "catastrophic" drought year I've been waiting for is here.  Looks like I'm going to get some record-breaking heat with it soon, and I could do without that, but I'm all in on the low water, at least for now.  Forecast says 101 in Craig in a couple days.  Pass.

Caddis and PMD's are on the menu here.  Best I've seen this stretch in quite a few years.  Some nice fish too, not just dinks.  Crowded, but fish up literally everywhere.  Float it to 'em, and they eat it. 

A good start to what will probably be a too-hot June, but nevertheless a perfect morning going into a windy mid-70's afternoon.  Fished 'till I was wobbly, light headed, shoulder was shot, and the wind came up.  I need to have spring conditioning before getting into this!  The shoulder was hurting a week ago though, so I hope it holds up.  Not sure how, probably lifting stupid 40lb. lake trout.  My left-handed reach cast isn't so pretty, so bring on the anti-inflammatories.  

Wind was howling at the little spring creek in Wyoming on the way over, so missed that one this time.

Partridge and Hare

Partridge and Peacock

CDC and Hare

Lotsa Hare and Partridge

Evening Caddis in the House

Paradise

The difference between a fairy tale and a fish story, "Once upon a time," and "you ain't gonna believe this shit."  

The trip began on a familiar bank, where the water was low and the fish were happy.  Five for five on Gurglers when we moved.  We knew we would never keep that up, but that was our sign.  Seven days of mostly calm to gentle breezes. Low morning tides, both a help and a hinderance, but mostly a help once we got to the grounds.  More sun than clouds most days, and not a drop of rain.  The fish were outside the mangroves in droves, a long boat ride from any sign of civilization.  Sometimes stronger winds pushed us into creek mouths for a few hours, but we caught multiple fish in those every time.  It was the most consistent week I've ever had in Campeche.  

The typical morning started out with our guide Juan putting us right where we needed to be.  There were flashes of silver, the sound of the textured lines shooting through the guides, Juan's excitement, and the rattling of gills after every blow up.  It frequently went something like this.  

"There's a bunch of tarpon coming.  Too far, hundred meters.  Wait.  You see?  School!"  "OK, cast eleven, 20 meters, you see?"  "Ya ya, good cast, strip, strip.  He's coming, he's coming.  Got it!  Oh, geeze.  No pull on the rod. Pull on the line!  Cast again, cast again!  Now.  More far, two more meters.  More right, more right.  No step on the line."  Geeze."

Never a dull moment with Juan, he still has the full enthusiasm he had 10 years ago once we get on the fish and its show time.

"Back cast, back cast, two o'clock, 20 meters.  Oh, big tarpon!  He's coming, he's coming!  Got it!"

We'd get it right often enough, and it helped that we were often surrounded.  Blow a cast or spook some fish, and there were more within range or coming.   Sometimes, we just got it right on a single or pair that were sitting ducks.  The babies we came for, 5-15 lbs, were near the mangroves.  ON the outside grass flats were the "juveniles" of 15-30 pounds on this trip.  We spent most of the time on those.

There were enough fish offshore for both of us to cast together, one from the bow and one from the middle of the skiff.  We'd alternate the timing of our casts, each waiting for the other to start stripping before making our own cast.  The bow caster would hook up, we'd trade places with the fish running and jumping, and then double up.  Beautifully orchestrated, if I might say.  We had doubles every day. 

Surface fishing worked every morning.  White, yellow, and black, all with some red and/or some flash, worked equally well.  It didn't matter too much.  We jumped 30+ fish daily.  Juan apparently counted 70-something "landed" at the boat.  He does that, I don't, but it sounds in the ballpark.  Nobody could have really kept count when we were on 'em and it was mayhem.  You wouldn't have believed this shit!

Floater, slow sinker, and faster sinker.

When the wind would come up and make visibility harder, Juan would pole/drift from yellow spot to yellow spot, clearings on the bottom with no sea grass.  The fish were easy to see, as was the direction they were facing. We spent several afternoons getting ate on every light spot, for hours.  

Typical of the fish in the mangroves.  Fun size.

Bride of the Sea statue.

Wind and Tides

The great Stu Apte wrote a book about some of his half-century of flats fishing called Of Wind and Tides.  That title continually ran though my head as both of those vital variables set up perfectly for an entire morning and into the afternoon.  Light wind and low tides.

I'm not sure where I first heard the term "fantasy fishing."  Probably in the early 80's guiding in Alaska or something.  I've used it for 35 years, but rarely is there actually such a thing.  It doesn't mean really good, great, amazing, fantastic, or any such lesser description.  It really means stuff dreams are made of.  What we think of when we think of paradise, perfection, wouldn't change a thing.  What we fantasize about.  I rarely see it, but it happens every year or two.  Usually around a hatch, for trout.  Sometimes for a few hours down south, on a flat.

This time it was day 5 of a 7 day trip last week.  We were completely alone, somewhere along the Yucatan Peninsula a couple hours from any sort of civilization.  There was a slight breeze barely moving the surface of the water, just enough to easily see any target near or far, yet assist us into great double-hauls to 50-70 feet.  Hero casts.  There were close fish too. Light clouds covered the sky to help conceal our presence and mask shitty fish-spooking casts.  The warm sun was filtered just enough to prevent overheating in the 80 degree air and shield any bright glares.

The morning low tide ensured the fish were looking up from the 2-4 feet of clear water they were basking in.  We could see them all, and they could see anything on the surface and take a closer look.  They rolled, "finned" slowly on the surface, and just laid up motionless hoping a Gurgler would come blurping by.  We obliged. Our guide Juan had us in the right spot for it of course, well away from the everyday fishing grounds.  

This fantasy happens on the occasional morning with similar conditions, but not all day! One stop maybe.  This time though, it went on and on, and the realization set in after a few hours that we were right in the middle of the dream.  Perfect wind and tides, surrounded by the perfect number and size of 15-30 pound "greatest sportfish on earth."  And they wanted to eat.  Fantasy Fishing. 

Dry, wet, and deeper.  Today it was the dry.

Fish came after it!  I don't know how the head is tied.