This is a fishing story written to a friend that I took to where
I thought would be a great spot last summer. It wasn t... but
yesterday it was pretty good You should have been here yesterday
etc....


HI Bob
This is psuedo time, somewhat similar to tricos but more
difficult due to the weather. Usually we have calm mornings to fish
the trikes but psuedo s come off between 1 &2 and so does the
wind. They are definetly a size 22 and the fish get pretty keyed in
and it s hard to catch them. Also they re less likely to go for a
cluster as you re fishing the duns rather than the spinners.. I
had good success with them this week fishing all over the river.
Yesterday was going to be an iffy day but I decided to try anyway.
The winds from Great falls which is probably the most accurate
weather, were calling 15-25, Helena 5-10. When I left around 12
the winds at wolfe creek were 3 and here not at all. It was cloudy
and overcast so I figured what the hell. There was no wind until I hit
wolfe creek and then I could see the trees blowing. ****!!! I got the
the WC bridge and while the water didnt have actual white caps
there was a definite chop and way to much for fish to come up for
psudos. I almost turned around...

But after sitting for awhile I remembered the spot I took you to the
nite we didn t do ****. It was a bend down river with cliffs at our
back and an island in front. I figured that was probably the most
protected spot on the river. I headed to the Dearborn Inn and parked
there and went in from the South rather than the North as we did.
FIgured it was an easier walk and no barbed wire fences to cross. The
flow is now 4000 and I was also hoping there might be fish in that back
channel which was very low when we were there. I crossed over to the
island and did a tour a round it. Still was a little low for fish to
be in that channel. Bu the time I got around to where I started the
bugs were like tiny sailboats coming down the water an there were
fish rising at the end of the island in the slack water. I fished to
them and while they were n t real big , at least it was fishing,
mostly 12-14. I kept my eye on that back channel hoping for some
there. I started noticing fish to the left of me where the channel
dumped out along the bank. Not as many as to the right but bigger
fish. I caught a couple in the 17 " range that looked like they had
just spawned very skinny docile fish. But what the hell !

So I fished to the right and left for a couple hours. I climbed
back on the tracks and walked down to the bridge where we got in.
There were lots of back eddys along the rocks in deeper water but
no fish along that stretch. O well....

I walked back to the Dearborn and then up river about 1/4 mile
Mostly saw some small intermittent fish and here the wind was blowing
pretty good. I t was pretty decent by the island. Protected enough I
could smoke my pipe. It was about 4 by now and I headed back to Craig.
The wind if anything was blowing harder there. I went to the cliffs
and the bridge of death but only some fish rising in the middle of the
river. I started to back up river and from the car spotted a pod up
river from the Bridge of Death where the river makes a bend working
in a large back eddy. This is where the cliff is the highest. but I
slid down it and had some fishing. I immediately hooked a very large
trout must have been close to 20 " and heavy. He took off , dispersing
the pod aftyer a mighty jump and ran thru a weed bed dislodging the
fly.All I got back was a clump of weeds....

I headed up river and came upon some small pods but with the wind in
my face and bad light on the water it was almost impossible to fish
them. After a few hundred yards I headed back to the orginal pod.
Which by this time had grown larger and more frenzied! There must
have been 75 fish in front of me and they could care less that I was
there as some got almost close enough to kick. The light was still
bad and they were really keyed on something that either I didn t
have or couldn t see. They were in the slop ,of dead or dying
pusedos , some weeds and general scum. I fished for about an hour
and a half. Everynow and then hooking one but not being able to hold
for more than a few seconds as the strikes were late as I could nt
see my fly also so many fish were rising it was impossible to time
it . The pod could have cared less. I went thru every fly in a box
Mike just tied up and as it got dark put on a size 16 baetis . I
had used this before with no luck, but it was the only thing I had
even a chance to see. After about 10 casts and no takers I was ready
to give up. It was getting a might chilly and dark. On the last cast
as I was pulling up I finally hooked one! As he splashed around in the
water , tail up, I realized I must have hooked him in the ass. This
cracked me up, 90 mins of fishing and the only one I was going to land
was foul hooked. I got him in quickly and lo and behold he was fair
hooked and I had a spunky 16 " bow. OF course I couldn t quite
leave yet. I ran down and looked uner the Bridge of Death, nothing
there, down one of the side channel in near dark it was truly
over...

MT