big sky joe
” The towels were so thick I could hardly close my suitcase”
-Yogi Berra
I just spent five days in my region watching water with a visiting friend. We stuck with one river because we kept locating trout. They were mainly on mayfly emergers and being very, very selective. As usual, as on most tail-water rivers, it was challenging angling. The more we watched the more we saw and learned. The drift boat anglers that floated by didn’t even notice what we were experiencing. They covered the water we fished in seconds whereas we did it in hours. They were probably thinking about what was up head; the promise of water beyond. We were thinking about what was right in front of us. There is something special about picking a small stretch of interesting water, staying relatively still, spending time and simply watching it for signs of life. We did that on two different short sections of the same river for five days. In total we probably only covered only 100-150 yards; however, we caught some beauties. It wasn’t “numbers fishing” although one day we did have that. It was more quality over quantity. Great trout on size 20 and 18 flies. All tiny stuff and all sight fishing. Sometimes the slower you go the more you see…and we went slower than stop!
Here are some images…
bifocal trout spotting
trout spotter extraordinaire
back eddy fins
the big wide open
cutthroat caught by Joe f.
the bonefish flat
trout on dries 