Tuesday, August 03, 2010

New Scenery


Went to the Upper Madison today hot on the heels of some smokin' reports of big fish going nuts on hoppers. Whatever man...come on it's the upper Madison we're talking about. Had lots of fish come up to the hopper, swat at it, reject it, laugh at it, fin us, and a few even eat it. Sporadic periods of brief flurries of a quickly fading bite would be more appropro to describe the UM bite these days. I remember when it was smokin' good up there, but it wasn't yesterday or any day this year or last.

Typical UM day. Start off drifting sculpins with a nymph, hoping for the bite to be on. It never is so you switch to stonefly and bh, catch a few then nothing. Try dries, miss a few, get one, think it's on. Go a mile with nothing. Back to nymphs, this time smaller tippet, get one, go half a mile, get one, then miss 6 in a row 4 of which were actually the bottom. Eat lunch. Dries again, get 1. Go a 1/2 mile and add dropper. Lose rig on rock 50 yards later. Nymph, get on, get one get one, lose both rigs on rocks. Try dries go 300 yds, get one, miss one miss one miss one, stick one. It's on...nothing for 2 miles. And it goes on and on. In the end, you get some fish, see some pretty scenery, and all in all it's a good day but it just doesn't make sense how you got there.

Now for important stuff. I'm rowing the "pink boat" in support of rowing for the cure. I've got the boat on Aug 5 and 10. Check out this article in the Bozeman Chronicle and the facebook (search rowing for the cure on Facebook)site for all the details about the boat and the cause. Briefly, it's a pink drift boat that some ff industry folks and RO Driftboats are using to raise money and awareness for breast cancer. The boat spends some time in different areas with different guides/outfitters using the boat with the intent of "rowing for a cure." All money goes directly to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation of Montana. Donations can be deposited directly into the boat or mailed directly to the foundation. I'll put more info up on this tomorrow.

Quick bit of "what's in it for me." My mother in law, Carol Foreman, passed away a few years ago after battling this insidious disease for well over a decade. She truly was an amazing person and I think of her often when on the river. I took her floating once on the Yellowstone, it was too high and dirty to fish, and honestly she was probably to weak to do it at the time anyway. She enjoyed life, brought happiness to everyone around her and smiled all through her life. So, I'm looking forward to spending some time on the water in the pink boat and hope to do a little bit to help raise awareness and money for the cause. I will be donating my guide fees to the cause for these days as well as pestering my clinets throughout the day to throw some coin in the lock box. I'll post more details about how to donate tomorrow

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