Sunday, August 23, 2009
Gery with a nice brown taken on an ant pattern in heavy pocket water.
On August 20 we launched the raft at Jerry Creek and floated to Silver Bridge. The Big Hole River is low, the water is clear and stealth is imperative. Thus the raft is the ticket to some serious dry fly action. Fish are to be had in the shallow, repeat shallow, water close to the bank and also in soft pockets behind boulders in the fast water. We had continuous action from launch to take out and lost count of the number of fish we netted. We caught an even mix of rainbows and browns and landed a couple of nice cutthroats to add some variety. There are lots of bugs on the river to include big hatches of spruce moths. We mostly fished size 14 wulffs trailing a smaller ant pattern. The majority of the takes were on the ant but we also caught a lot of fish on the larger fly. When we got to Dewey about mid day we celebrated our Tight Line Adventure by anchoring the boat and taking a short break at the Dewey Bar. The Dewey Bar is a Montana experience in itself, nice people, good conversation, and very, very cold beer. The Big Hole is a special place this time of year and the dry fly fishing experience is memorable……that’s an understatement.
