NO MO MO

Just got back home and my MO season has wound down and its time to get back into the groove of fishing lots of different water full of character and non-fungus infected trout. The MO has been fun this spring with the lower flows allowing for a lot more fishing than the standard spring thing of eggy sowbugs and worms. Don't think I ever really fished worms more than a few minutes the whole month of May. I love worms, but God it was nice to fish little stuff, little weight, and even find some heads coming up most days. We got to do a lot of sight fishing in skinny water the last couple of weeks which was really fun and just different from the standard deal.
Some not so good things about the MO this spring include seeing a crapload of dead fish and catching a bunch of rainbows with fungus and crap all over them. There are differing opinions on the dead fish in the river ranging from it happens every year but you don't notice it because of the high water to a catastrophic die-off event. As with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Average size of Rainbows seemed smaller than the last few years but overall I'd say everyone was pretty thrilled with the fish on our lines. The bad thing about the water levels right now is that the river is going to turn into a weedy mess in a few weeks if they don't start running some water. This wont effect things for the dry fly folks with some skills but will jam all the mediocrity of the fly fishing world up to the dam for the bulk of the summer months. So, I'm glad to have the Yellowstone, Madison, Gallatin, Jefferson, and many other places to fish around here the coming months.
I've got a busy week ahead that takes me to Idaho for a few days this weekend, back here to close on our new house late next week and then Christine and I are heading to Belize for a week of chasing Tarpon and Permit for me and acting like a fish for her.

And another example of why holding them by he gills works better.