A good time to return to fishing
It's one of those "good news/bad news" things. After spending most of June, July and August in an ankle cast, boot and brace, I'm finally back on the water and trying feverishly to make up for lost fishing time.
That's the good news. The bad news is it's September.
Sure, the days are warm and sunny and shorter, so you don't have to get out of bed so early, but for some reason, the fishing's great but the catching ain't that great. Some of the places where I've tried to renew my acquaintances with fish recently:
• Floated a couple times from Teakettle fishing access site to Pressentine. Lots of small cutties, but in two trips only fooled one fish over 16 inches. Never saw more than one other boat.
• A float from House of Mystery to Teakettle was also pretty quiet, except for that big black bear.
• An Essex-to-Paola float yielded a plethora of whities, even on dry flies, but no "wow" cutties. Scenery was awesome.
• Saw more innertubers than fish on the Blackfoot River.
• Had the entire Clark Fork just above Missoula to ourselves one day, but the fish were on vacation. Memory of the trip was daughter Melissa switching rowing chores with nephew's wife Katy, directly upstream from a sweeper. Next time Melissa, please look downstream before surrendering the oars.
• Several wading trips on Rock Creek, including one on the upper section the day the fire blew up over the ridge near Hamilton.
• My 2011 maiden overnighter in the moho to the Kootenai. Lots of ‘bows in the last hour of light, including the most beautiful, brilliantly colored rainbow trout I've ever caught.
As you can see, September's been pretty good to me. Add a few more fish and it will be great.
For traction, I'm still wearing felt soles and changing boots for each different river, unless I'm sure the boots have dried. And I use a Folstaff, folding wading staff. Occasionally while wading, I started spinning to the left.
No, I haven't got whirling disease. I'm just trying to regain my balance on those darned slippery rocks.