Sometimes It All Comes Together

Some people seem to have luck on their side when it comes to fishing. My friend Matt is one such person. Now that's not to say that he isn't a skilled angler, for he is, but he just seems to have a little extra river karma going for him. He's caught some very nice fish in my presence over the past year, none more so than the rainbow he landed on the Missouri River last week.

Unfortunately we didn't have a tape measure along, but there is no doubt that it was somewhere in the 23-25" range. As impressive as its length was, the girth of this fish is what really set it apart, it was massive!

I've really enjoyed fishing this stretch of the Missouri over the past month or so, but the fishing pressure is starting to pick up with the nice weather and influx of spawning rainbows. There are quite a few gear fisherman targeting fish on redds, not exactly my style, but it comes with the territory I suppose.

In other news, I fished Big Spring Creek on Thursday afternoon following a morning business meeting in Lewistown. While the creek looked great to me, the locals were complaining about it being off color from low elevation snow melt. There was 3-4' of visibility, which turned out to be plenty. I fished above town and caught good numbers of rainbows, and an occasional brown, up to 14". Most fish were taken on a shop vac/pheasant tail variation, but a couple fell for a small partridge and pink soft hackle. I also saw my first blue winged olives of the year...there weren't many and the trout weren't really looking for them, but it was great to see - spring is definitely in the air.

The weekend found me in Kalispell for the Great Rockies Show and although I brought my fishing gear, it wasn't until the drive home on Sunday afternoon that I had a chance to fish. The young lady that accompanied me - and who was essentially my guide for the afternoon - put me onto some great looking water along the upper Blackfoot. Karen was even gracious enough to leave her rod behind so that I could fish more, what more could a guy ask for? But it was to no avail, the water was cold and the fish were a bit lethargic. I did have one take in the last run we fished, but I must have been distracted...my hook set was poor and the trout slipped off. Even so, I can't remember a better couple of hours spent on the water in quite a while. It all came together on this day with beautiful weather and great company on the river.