The Truth of Today

 Awoke to a steady reminder of why living in Montana and working outdoors isn't always as fun as it  seems on paper. Rain and wind and coldness. Boohoo me...I know. It had been pouring up here in Craig for about 24 hours and the wind was blowing 20 or so.
The Dearborn came up a bunch, have no idea what the MO did...haven't even looked. There's about 9000 boats around Craig right now and I'm sure tomorrow will only bring more. Stay away...just one more day please.
Had a great day yesterday from Mountain Palace to Pelican on double wire worms. Fish were hungry and sitting where they should be...visibility was about 2' or so. Went back to the well today to try to avoid the crowds at the Dam and get on some fresh fish. The river was dirtier today and I probably should have paid more attention before getting on it as there was only 6" or so of vis today and the Dam would have been a fine choice.
So, about 100yds into it I realize this and think "oh shit" to myself. It's pouring, blowing, 42, and the river looks like something you're more likely to catch a sturgeon in than a trout - and I've got a full day ahead of me. We got lucky a few times but the honey holes were full of trees, shrubs, and dead cows (not literally). I was getting worried about 11 or so and decided to make a run to the truck and do an afternoon float up at the dam to salvage the day. I had a feeling that my clients would probably resist all efforts to try to get them back on the water after they dried up felt their toes again, so I was hoping for something.

I decided to pull over into Sheep Creek to take a leak and get out of the wind, while there I though we'd do a quick row around at the mouth. Bam and then Bam and then Bam and then Bam. It was gold. We worked it over pretty well,  landed 15-20 fish out of there, one Brown that went 22" maybe 23 if it's tail hadn't been partially chewed off by an otter - either way the biggest so far for me this year and the biggest for George. After that, we actually did well in the main river down towards Pelican and ended up with a pretty great day thanks to the gallon of coffee I drank this morning.
Why tell this? I'm sure others do this all the time but never have I and I can't imagine making a day out of the mouth at Sheep Creek as there's usually not much water in there and rarely ever enough to get a boat in. Plus, I won't be doing it again anytime soon so go get 'em. Anyway, it helped pad the day and we found a great fish in there too.

Some interesting things about it. I had a felling that there weren't really that many fish in there and that what was there would probably be spooked out pretty quick by the boat or hooking a few fish. When we first got in there we got a few fish on worms and firebeads and then nothing. We let it rest a little while and than ran a natural sowbug with the purple jujubaetis and picked up some more and then nothing. Let it rest and ran a golden stone, got a few. Let it rest and ran some worms and got a few. Don't know if we were getting the same rainbows on different bugs but I don't think that were that many fish in there. We got the big brown on the purple thing after fishing for an hour or so. It was interesting...and fun.