October 1, 2014. I drove up to Missoula in the dark this morning with sunrise not happening until after 7:30. I met up with a guide from the Missoulian Angler – Travis Craft – to fish the Clark Fork River. The Clark Fork meanders over 300 miles under Interstate 90 in a northwesterly direction. You wouldn’t know it when floating in a drift boat that it encompasses the largest Super Fund site in the US. Wow, what we do to our rivers is unbelievable…
However, for me it was a good fishing day. The rain finally stopped, although it was cloudy all morning. When we pulled up to the boat ramp, low and behold, I ran into one of the guides from our Smith River trip last summer – Jason (sorry, I can’t remember your last name.) You can read more about our Smith River trip in my book! Jason and I shared stories about our great trip and fly-fishing in general, with no apparent rush to start our day on the river. It was a great beginning.
About 2:00 the sun came out intermitently, but the wind picked up to 30-35 mph gusts, making for some difficult casting. We fished with dry flies all day and I caught some really nice rainbows after I finally got my rhythm. I fished with my relatively new Hardy Zenith 4 weight rod, and I must say, that rod really suits me well. When I switched over to my Sage VXP 6-weight later in the day, I had quite an adjustment to make.
Travis and I will fish the Bitterroot with Peggy Stevenson on Saturday. Peggy is also coming to Hamilton for the Casting for Recovery (CFR) fundraiser. Peggy is the volunteer director of the CFR events in Colorado and is a new friend. Looking forward to the one-fly event. Any suggestions?
