“Uggh! I’m so tired. What time is it?” A quarter to eight and I was still in bed. For me, that is way over sleeping. Then again, I didn’t get in from work until twoish in the morning.
For the most part, the temps had been warming up all week; enough to see all the float fishermen come out in droves. Everywhere one looked there were vehicles towing fishing rafts. All I could do is admire and long from afar. “Sheesh, why does something as trivial as a pesky job always get in the way? Oh, I know, so that I can afford to go fishing.”
Rain was in the forecast for this weekend, again, but I was determined to hit the water before it started. Throughout the week I kept an eye on an area that had been flooded week before last. Over the course of this past week, I noticed how dramatically the water line was dropping revealing the small creeks slightly to the side of the Bitterroot River. I know from experience these areas can harbor large fish that were washed in from the main river.
“Damn! How am I going to get down there? that embankment is steep and goes down at least seventy-five feet.” After scouting about for a way down, I fortunately spotted a line someone had tied off to an old stump. “Sweet! I’m going to use that line.” After donning my waders and gathering my gear, I carefully made my way down the embankment. “Damn this line looks worse for wear. I hope it doesn’t snap on me.” The line had obviously been there for a while. I couldn’t make it out standing at the top of the embankment, but the line dropped down into the water below. I’m glad I decided to put my waders on.
I continued trudging through the water up onto an open dry area. “Wow! this place is great. I can feel it in my bones I’m going to catch something here.”
I already had a trout magnet attached from a previous outing so decided to give it a few casts into the slower moving water. Nothing, nada, not even a nibble. I then tried a white trout magnet a few times. Nothing, zip, zilch, phooey. “Screw that. I’m going to use that gold spinner I caught two a couple of weeks ago on. First cast, FISH ON. “Holy crap that fish just smashed the lure as soon as I turned half a revolution on the reel. Oh damn! This is a big fish.” I carefully played the fish to keep it out of the undergrowth. “There it is. Oh wow nice fish.” I reached for the net attached to the back of my vest and carefully brought the fish closer and scooped him up. “Got’em. Damn nice Brown; twelve to fourteen inches, at least.”
I hit a few more spots, but the weather was starting to turn and decided to head out. It’s a good thing too. As soon as I started driving down the road, it started raining.
“Alright cool. Time to get home and write about the experience.”
