Intermission

I've been working on getting together the last few entries from our Western Trout Extravaganza, but decided to take a break today to stalk some Carpon. Brought my Old Lady's wheels with me and was rollin' in style.

Bagged a carp triple...

The Magna in all her glory...

So, thought that was all pretty cool, 'til I got home and saw the vid JFabes had sent me. Rediculous footage that makes me want to book a flight back to Mexico tomorrow...

Playing the Back 9

For our last day on the ranch, we decided to play close to "home." In all my previous visits to see Brett at the HF Bar, I'd yet to fish the ranch property. With miles of classic mountain trout water on two forks of Rock Creek, there's plenty of exploring to do. So we had a leisurely breakfast at the clubhouse, jumped in the cart and headed out to play the back 9.

We didn't get far though. Headed up the mountain on a 4-wheel drive road we passed two riders leading four horses... not a good sign. To make a long story short, turns out 73 year-old Bronco (yes, the riders name was Bronco) had gone down and banged himself up pretty good. Luckily, our friend Alex is a volunteer firefighter and EMT, a good guy to have on the scene. We administered a little wilderness first aid and executed a pretty clean evacuation, delivering Bronco to the ambulance that'd been called for him. Despite the broken hip, and wrist, and forehead contusion, I have a feeling Bronco will be back in the saddle again at some point.

Since we'd done our good deeds for the day, we decided it'd be alright to have a beer and go fishin'. So we did...

The next day we'd hit the road in the direction of Victor, ID where The South Fork of the Snake waited for us. The question was, could we find some trout inbetween...

Bighorn

The Bighorn River is one of fly fishing's most fabled rivers, a place where the sheer number of trout per river mile (not to mention the average size of the fish) is enough to boggle the mind. This is no secret of course, so you'll not be having the river to yourself in August any time soon, but rest assured that on this river, you'll have your chances at fish.


There was some very brief discussion at the beginning of the day about the "fly du jour." It is afterall August in Montana and if I know anything about trout fishing, that should mean hoppers. Coupled with the fact that our "guide" had said the hopper fishing was on, we started our day throwing big foam...

We didn't have to go far to find out that we were on to something.

W dropped "anchor" for a quick river lunch...

Then went back to harassing the locals.

A wicked Thunderhead began chasing us down river around mid afternoon. With the cloud cover, we switched over to streamers and had fast and furious action on just about every bank we fished.

And managed to coax one more specimen to the dry fly.

Things got ugly for a while as the rain started coming down in sheets and wind gusts were blasting upwards of 60 mph. As we approached the boat ramp with a steady 40 mph wind blowing us downstream and across river I started having flashbacks to that fateful day on Lake Erie last December. But all's well that ends well...

Not a bad view driving home either, but the traffic was lousy...

The following day would be our last in The Bighorns and our first chance to get the micro rods out.

Let's Play Two

We rose early on our second morning (much easier to get up early with a big sky sunrise knocking at the window). After a quick breakfast we jumped in the truck for the first half of a cast-and-blast...

A great start to the day. Broke some clays and got a much needed tune-up from a top-notch instructor just in time for early goose season. Bad news for NEO's waterfowl. To top it off, we were on the water just as the big brown trout were starting their morning routine...

After putting a few butter-bellied beauts in the bag early, fishing slowed. I took a nip from the flask and sat on the bank, watching Don Juan fish an enticing run with my rod (which he'd been carrying for me whilst I toted the lunch cooler) . I contemplated asking for the rod back so I could move upstream, but decided to keep my mouth shut and grabbed his rod from the bank instead. I turned the upstream corner and made a cast, landing the size 6 hopper in some soft water adjacent to a grassy bank. Just as I looked back at John, I heard a toilet bowl flush and instinctively set the hook.

We stuck a few more after that, but it was without a doubt the fish of the day. The Whiskey went down easy that night.

Day three would bring my first foray on The Big Horn and a taste of Montana at its best...

Deliverance

After living in Alex's Jeep for approximately 24 straight hours, interrupted only by periodic sight-seeing at the various truck-stop jamborees endlessly dotting I-90, it was a bit surreal when we finally stepped out of the car at the foothills of The Bighorn Mountains. Before we could get too carried away taking in the scenery, we adhered to fishing trip protocol and made our first stop the fly shop.

Going to bed early would've been the smart thing to do, so naturally we partied past midnight. But nothing cures a hangover quite like mountain landscapes and trout on dry flies...

Our first day's destination was a remote canyon section of one of The Powder River's Forks, water that screamed "trout" and hosted a few to boot.

If Mars had trout streams, they'd probably look like this...

We also discovered the "next big thing" in Fly Fishing: Trout Safaris

Nothing quite like fishing to rising trout with tunes bumpin' and AC blasting. Keep an eye out for my truck in your favorite steelhead run this fall...

With day one all but in the books we headed back to The Ranch. The following day would be a rendezevous with old friends...