Big Hole River 1240 cfs Jayne and her guide with a nice brown.
Wow is right and where do I start?
Thursday should have been called black Thursday on the Big Hole River. There were a total of three boat wrecks that day. One was a guide boat in the Maidenrock Canyon. Nobody was hurt but they lost all their gear.
Second was a guy who walked into the shop and asked to post a missing rod. He seemed kind of shook and he finally said he and his wife dumped their canoe just above the Dewey access where the river narrows and goes through those big rocks. He said he just screwed up paddling and was not paying enough attention to the rocks. Anyway if you find a 8 1/2 foot G Loomis IMX with an Abel reel please call Steve at 605-881-8137.
The third was a kick boat near Notch Bottom access and this one almost ended in tradgedy. A guy was going down the river in this craft when he tried to negotiate a turn by pushing on the oars. A guide boat was behind him and saw him being swept into these logs. The current flipped the boat and pinned the guy between the boat and the logs. Luckily the guide was able to free the guy. Had he not been there this guy would have been in big trouble.
On August 1st, Complete Fly Fisher lost one of their boats. Apparently it fell off the trailer. I’m waiting to get all the details as to where etc. It most likely is an Avon raft. So if you see this raft along the road some place where it looks like it doesn’t belong, call Steve at 406-267-3346.
Top water action last week was tough. Yesterday it turned around for us and we hooked three browns over 20 inches. We also got several nice bows and most of those were in the middle of the river. We also got the Big Hole grand slam getting all five species. The standard mayfly patterns that normally work during this time did not work at all. The fish wanted big like size 6 and 8 stonefly patterns. I tried a s maller one thinking they would really hit it but they would not touch it. Big fly’s like Fat Alberts, Chubby’s and Gypsies were what they preferred.