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 More than every once in awhile, I get the opportunity to “disappear” in the pursuit of piscatorial adventures in the name of work and adventure. Oftentimes, the justification for the journey has to do with photography or investigating new water for future guiding destinations or hosted trip locales. Rarely is it O.K. in my mind (or that of my wife) for me to just go fish with some friends during the height of our season. I just returned from one of the latter adventures and beside the mountain of crap that I returned to at work, it was well worth the trip.

Where did we go? I’ll never tell so let’s just get that out of the way now! What I will tell is that once again I was reminded of the reality of the experience rather than the hopes for what might be in my head.

After driving several hours to the middle of nowhere, we were rewarded by an absence of humanity on a trout stream in Montana. The downside of these types of places usually involves few fish, lots of logistical difficulties, and general disappointment in terms of the fishing. What we found here was good fishing, good fish, and enough of a good time to not worry about the problems that could arise and enjoy what it is while it is.

Rising fish were found everyday and the bobbers were utilized for about 10 minutes out of 3 days of fishing. We had a two-foot brown in the boat about 100 yards into the first float. I had an 18” Rainbow in hand on a dry after pretty much calling it quits the first night. Hoppertunities were found a plenty on day two with good numbers of 15-16” bows in fats water. A Pike was even netted. Sure, there was a nasty upstream wind both floating days, but my “bros.” more than pulled their weight on the oars and I was able to spend more time fishing than wishing I were fishing!

The fishing was great, but the things that will stick with me the most include a lost wager or two, an ambien-induced WWF style beat down, too much fired food, a very fat man hanging out with the daughter of Miss Piggy, barflies, fly infested hotel rooms, questionable boat ramps, a few too many butt cracks, and the sight of a double gonga cast into the rising sun.  Once again, I am reminded that there is more to fishing than just fishing.