TR - Finally done!

Warren wrote:
I have had the opportunity to fish with Mark three times in the last
week. I went up to Helena last Thursday and came back home Friday.
Monday I went back up because several storms are supposedly moving
in, my local rivers are all blown out and unfishable and it looked
like this was going to be only chance to fish for the week. I am
glad I went Monday because today was full of rain, snow and frozen
rain; sometimes all three at once.

I put all the nasty details and pics up at:
http://www.geocities.com/troutbum_mt4/page1.html
--
Warren
(use troutbum_mt on either yahoo or earthlink to respond via email)


Great report Warren.

Where were you fishing if it isn't a secret? Big water especially
considering the water levels were low.

Interesting mix of sizable fish. Some were fat vibrant footballs, others
skinny and long and one kinda beatup.

You mentioned fishing a Girdle Bug as a streamer. I always thought it
was a stonefly imitation. Did you dead drift it or strip it?

Willi

Warren wrote:
wrote...

The flash always goes off. The problem is that it doesn't show with
the wide angle lens because the lens covers the flash. What I need
to do is take off the wide angle lens more often. Being such a
small lens, I rarely do that because I am afraid of dropping it or
losing it. Thanks for the tip though. It is further proof that I
shouldn't be as lazy and/or scared of taking off the lens. :-(

Fortunately my flash stiicks up enough to avoid this problem until I
put on the macro lens andmove up to 1.5 inches from the bug I'm
shooting. I don't like changing lenses on stream, so I usually decide
at the car which lens to use, and leave the rest there. I find it
makes ma take different pictures, and even see different things
depending on the lens I'm working with. Much like deciding to take the
3wt and dries or the 6wt and nymphs effects the way you look at the
river.

BTW, I am glad you guys enjoyed the TR and pics. I really enjoy
sharing them with you because it causes me to really analyze the day
instead of just mucking through it. I find myself taking pics and
enjoying the scenery more than just concentrating on the water and
fish. Sometimes just stopping and looking around is a wonderful
thing because I notice something beautiful that I have probably
missed 1,000 times before. When rowing, I concentrate on the water
up ahead and while fishing I concentrate on the water I am trying to
fish. Looking at it from the perspective of a potential TR causes
me to pause now and then look for a picture, which causes me to just
look at the scenery that I so often take for granted. It has
brought me a new appreciation for the area I live in and the beauty
that surrounds me. I just wish that I had the tongue of Wayno,
Jeffie or Wolfgang to put these feelings and appreciation into
words.
Well said.
Possibly the language is less flowery, but the feeling is full strength
and that's a better quality to aim for.

Unfortunately the TR may have been my last for awhile. After this
weekend, my fishing time may be drastically reduced. I'll be
working days full time and nights part time in an effort to afford
the new "toy" I am buying. It really isn't a toy, but a necessity
for the business I am trying to get going this year.

I was beginning to worry that you were gainfully unemployed again. In
a way this is good news.


Chas
remove fly fish to reply
http://home.comcast.net/~chas.wade/w...ome.html-.html
San Juan Pictures at:
http://home.comcast.net/~chasepike/wsb/index.html

I

Great report Warren.

Where were you fishing if it isn't a secret? Big water especially
considering the water levels were low.

Interesting mix of sizable fish. Some were fat vibrant footballs, others
skinny and long and one kinda beatup.

You mentioned fishing a Girdle Bug as a streamer. I always thought it
was a stonefly imitation. Did you dead drift it or strip it?

Willi



Willi these are my spots on my river and warren is sworn to OMERTA or
will be garroted with a fly line. But if you ever come out to
Kamachata I will show you G MT

"Willi" wrote
Interesting mix of sizable fish. Some were fat vibrant footballs, others
skinny and long and one kinda beatup.

i noticed the same thing. wonder if mark, or anyone else, could offer
an explanation for the different body shapes.

You mentioned fishing a Girdle Bug as a streamer. I always thought it
was a stonefly imitation. Did you dead drift it or strip it?

a few years back, i got into the habit of fishing a yellow girdle bug
once summer really settled in. very successful, even on our relatively
small native rainbows. never tried black. i would fish them dead drift,
upstream.

yfitons
wayno

A word about fishing with Warren
He is truly a fishing warrior!

Yeah, right. He just takes pictures.




He understates conditions on May
10. The wind was between 20 and 30 all afternoon. I had my four weight
over lined with 6 wt weight forward. Perhaps I would have done
bettter with a DT line but.....

It was very cold and much of the time the wind veered at about 9
o clock into your face. After awhile I gave up making 5 foot casts
and went back to the car and slept having been exhausted with
fighting the wind. Even tho he had a 6 wt it was still a lot of work
casting and just staying warm. The thought of exposing fingers and
trying to tie on muti flies to find what they would hit is
staggering. Kudos to a true fishing warrior!
MT

-pw
remove astericks (*) from e-mail address
(use paulwilliamson at spamcop dot net)


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In article ,
wrote:


A word about fishing with Warren
He is truly a fishing warrior!

Yeah, right. He just takes pictures.



Yes but good pictures ! G
MT
PS

When s RW coming back ?
Fishing s pretty good up here but they re starting to get edje
cated....not as easy now

I sure am enjoying your trip reports with all the photos.

Thanks,

Big Dale

ospam wrote...
I sure am enjoying your trip reports with all the photos.

Not as much as you are going to enjoy being a part of them though.
G I'm looking forward to seeing you again BD and getting you in
the front of the USS Gink. Do me a favor though, for old-time sake,
can you bring me up some Lonestar and killer BBQ? g
--
Warren
(use troutbum_mt on either yahoo or earthlink to respond via email)

wrote...
Great report Warren.

Sorry for the late reply. Been gone, fishing and working two jobs
while still fishing. :-) Been to Washington and back without much
to report other than I got a new rig, Johnny H's son in law caught
most of the fish, everybody caught pike but me, and I didn't catch
anything other than a damn good buzz. Note to self: don't work the
night before the morning departure of a road trip, try to find a
place to crash in your vehicle at Coeur D'Alene at 10:30 PM because
it will basically take you 3 hours of valuable sleeping time, the
sun comes up wayyyyy too early and your biological clock will wake
you up at 5:30 am when it starts getting light because it is a
"fishing trip" even though the entrance to the "lodge" that Johnny H
was staying at doesn't open until 9 a.m. and their license machine
will inevitably be broken so that you have to drive 20 miles to get
a ****ing fishing license and then drive 20 miles back to the launch
to get the boat on the water during which time many beers can be had
quite easily since your body doesn't know WTF time it is due to a
lack of sleep, etc..... And then you go fishless. g

I really wish I would have researched this trip more. The lake we
fished had smallies, bucket mouths and pike. I had a few pike flies
that Chas donated to my cause and didn't bring any of my bass stuff
(crank baits, worms, jigs, etc) other than a few dozen flies that
Big Dale had given me for smallies/bream. The conditions didn't
allow me to use any of Big Dale's flies; although I *KNOW* they
would have worked had conditions been right. Basically I went with a
6wt rod, very few pike flies, nothing that I that I *KNOW* would
have caught bass but I enjoyed the hell out of the trip. The lake
sucked in terms of cover, but every place we found cover yielded
fish. I was too far gone to really do anything and missed a few
fish, but it did bring back some damn good memories I had of my
learning how to fish in Texas and then applying those principles
when I moved to Californica.

I came home and was glad to be home. ABC world news played AC/DC
during their weather listings and tonight followed it up with some
Kid Rock. The rain and wind we found in Coeur D'Alene followed me
to Bozeman and there has been more moisture than I have seen around
here during this time of year in the last seven years. I got home
Sunday and there was rain/heavy mist from Coeur D'Alene to Three
Forks (about 30 miles from home) the whole damn way. It has rained
several times here since, thunderstorms were the norm for today and
we had some heavy downpours. Everything is getting that shade of
green that we have lacked for the last five years, nobody knows what
the hell is going on in terms of the hatches even though the
salmonflies were predicted as being several weeks early this year.
Now it is anybody's guess and I plan on being there to find out. My
boss and another employee will be floating very soon (I gave them my
discount rate of them buying the gas and beer and me rowing), Kevin
Vang should be hitting the area soon and I am trying to convince
Mark Tinksy, Paul Williamson, RW, Johnny H and Brian Nelson to get
off their collective asses and come out fishing as a crew. Damn,
life is good!

Where were you fishing if it isn't a secret? Big water especially
considering the water levels were low.

Yeah, it is secret. I can tell you this though: it drains east of
the divide. g Check your email.

Interesting mix of sizable fish. Some were fat vibrant footballs, others
skinny and long and one kinda beatup.

Some of those were hold-overs from the spawn. The fish are
basically migratory and move from the lakes to the rivers to spawn.
This stretch sees spawning browns, rainbows, kokes and suckers. I
think there might be some whities in there, but I haven't caught any
in that particular stretch yet. What is odd is that the rainbows
seemed to pod up. You could catch browns above or below the
rainbows, but I can't recall catching any browns from *within* the
rainbow pods. I *saw* suckers cruising through, but the trout never
seemed to pay them much attention. Lost eggs aren't worthy,
perhaps? Even the bigger spawned out fish were hard to land. The
big ones knew all of the tricks and used them to their complete
advantage and made them next to impossible to actually land. I saw
one "active" redd that didn't have any fish on it. The only fish
that seemed to be associated with that redd seemed to move in and
out of the area, would hold on the redd for a bit and then take off
and return within about 30-45 minutes.

You mentioned fishing a Girdle Bug as a streamer. I always thought it
was a stonefly imitation. Did you dead drift it or strip it?

No, I didn't say a girdle bug was a streamer. What I said was that
I keep them in my, and I quote, "streamer box." You know me and
streamers; remember the Battle Cry of the Beaverhead? ;-)
Basically my "streamer box" is a collection of large flies that I
don't fish often and some streamers thrown in; which I don't fish
[streamers] much either. My "streamer box" is basically a
collection of flies that would probably catch a helluva lot of fish
if someone else were fishing them, but that I can't fish worth a
crap because I haven't had enough lessons from Peter Charles. Last
year's trip to Penn's taught me a BUNCH, but I wish I had a month to
spend fishing with Peter. Since Peter's lessons, the average age of
flies in my "streamer box" has gone from 5 years old to about 1 year
old on average. The hold-outs that are skewing the average are
starting to become fewer and fewer. :-) Kelly Gallop contributed a
ton, but I still find it hard to place my faith in streamers. Large
stoneflies are okay at times, but streamers are flies that I know
eventually will catch fish but have a hard time fishing faithfully.

The trip to the *w*h*a*t*e*v*e*r**y*o*u**c*a*l*l**I*t* basically
taught me something that I feel is very important. Matching the
hatch and catching fish is great, but antagonizing the fish when
they are in a funk is better. Over the years my patterns have
shrunk in size because those smaller flies seemed to perform better.
These past trips taught me that big flies not only deserve a place
at the table, but that they can sometimes be seated at the head of
the table because of their brute force. While not a streamer
fisherman, I think I could be heading down the path of the dark,
evil, destructive side of the Force. Streamers aren't too damn bad!
:-)

Warren
--
Warren
(use troutbum_mt on either yahoo or earthlink to respond via email)

wrote...
amazing tr, warren. kinda reminded me of a brief afternoon fishing
thunderhole creek... not.

Should you ever find yourself with the time, I would gladly drop
everything and give you the opportunity to experience what I am so
fortunate to experience here. Consider this an open invitation with
room, board, shuttle service and rowing as all inclusive. You buy
the booze and chip in on the gas; just leave the rest up to me. You
will be forever...changed. g
--
Warren
(use troutbum_mt on either yahoo or earthlink to respond via email)