Fishing WIth Priests

Rev Sean and I Have been fishing together for a few years now. The first year was with the late Fr. Bob and Fr. Charlie has joined Sean the last two years. They are a couple of pastors do the real Catholic deal in and around Philadelphia. It's always a treat fishing with them as they savor every moment of their vacation and remind me of the bigger picture in their subtle ways. Great clients become friends and friends are what it's all about...what better way to experience everything around SW Montana than with someone that is more than guide, but a buddy to reconnect with as well.

We fished the Yellowstone yesterday on one of my favorite stretches of any river anywhere, The fish were happy, real happy to be exact. Just get the bugs in the water and let 'em drift, the fish will eat. That's how it was pretty much all day on Midnight Stones with a size 12 Lightning Bug dead drifted under an indicator. Got a few fish on buggers and worms too, but the bite was good enough to where there wasn't any real reason to mess around with the recipe. Biggest difference from what I expected was that we did better fishing to the banks all day, I had suspected that we could find some good numbers of fish out in on the flats and drop offs...but did best just throwing em towards the bank.

We were the only boat on the river fro a variety of reasons. This is the weekend of the big float from Livingston to Laurel with jet boats, canoes, rafts, horse troughs, pool toys...you name it they float it this weekend. We were below the chaos of the day. Ironically, the only two boats I came across were FWP guys hauling ass right towards were I was anchored in the main river channel. I had to wave them off to keep them from running right by me, so they swerved a little and didn't cut their speed until they had gone past. Ah the joy of watching waves just come up to the gunnel's on an anchored drift boat. Needless to say I was pissed...shaking in fact...I calmly told them this as they pulled up next to me to check my licenses and made a nice apology for not seeing us parked in the shade. Whatever...it's all cool and thank God I had a couple of priests with me or who knows what I would've said.

That particular warden has always been a very good guy to me, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional or inattention. Just spooked me a little and then they pull up with a full on video crew filming interactions with the public...probably looked cool with my American flag buff wrapped up around my head and sunglasses on telling them they should be more careful and that I'm a little angry about the boat show. Ahh to be a kid again.