Tuesday, January 19, 2010
A healthy fighting Brown taken on Poindexter Slough
The recent warm weather has strengthened my desire to catch a fish that the other day I grabbed my rod and hit the river. I couldn’t stand waiting around any longer and by the time I knew it I was wadered up, rigged up, and walking down a path to Poindexter Slough outside Dillon. The sky was filled with clouds and ducks were flying overhead, and I hoped I could avoid the buckshot that would be flying on the last day of duck season. To my surprise the only company I encountered was another angler who, like me, decided to take the opportunity to fish on this beautiful January day.
I started out throwing a black streamer with no avail. Upon changing colors to brown I was able to move a few fish and hooked and landed two nice browns. After a little dry spell I switched to olive as it produced three more browns eager to chomp on an unsuspecting sculpin. After about 45 minutes of throwing a streamer, I decided to tie on some nymphs and try my luck swinging an egg with a san juan worm. For the next 45 minutes I proceeded to land about 15 more browns in three different runs on a variety of midges, eggs, san juans, and soft hackles.
It was a joy to feel the throb of the fly rod in my hands after a two month lay off, and my itch to catch a fish was scratched as the wind started to pick up driving me back to the truck. In about 2 hours of fishing I was able to land close to 20 fish and now am bitten with the bug to go again as soon as possible. Living in Montana I take for granted how readily accessible a Blue Ribbon Trout stream can be, and am grateful for the opportunity to live and work in such a wonderful place.
This guy hammered an olive bugger.
