Fish come to Blog Town

What do you say we get this blog kicked off????

It was suggested that we kick things off with a group wildlife report, since our anglers are also naturalists:

Osprey, bald eagles, 6'+ eagle next, pilliated woodpecker, mink, geese, merganzers, deer, skunk, snake (causing Sally Moratto to scream and flee!), elk, red tail hawk, jetski, sharpshin hawk, moose at the guest house in the morning, and the mighty herd of bighorn sheep on the drive home, with about 20 or so kid sheep. Doug Hamilton mentioned that he thought he saw a zipper on the moose, and it was wearing shoes that look a lot like my own sneakers, but let me assure you all that I was slumbering peacefully.

Well, the blog posts have been getting long as of late, and today saw some wild stories from the river, so let's jump right in to the Report from the Boats!

First up were Tom Thornhill and Tom Stallard. The first question was how does the guide deal with two guys named Tom in the same boat? They tried using 'Thornhill' for a while, but it takes too long and he'd miss the fish. They tried 1 and 2, but this binary Tom system was too complex for our anglers. Eventually, it was settled that Thornhill would be 'Tom' and Stallard would be 'Stallard.' An observant reader might notice that it takes the same amount of time to say Thornhill as Stallard... hmmm. But Stallard pointed out that for his fishing, time was not of the essence.

And the men did well! About 15 trout in the mid teen range, with the big one being a 17" Cutbow with osprey claw scars down it's back.

Stallard meanwhile earned the name "Whitefish Slayer." There were some murmurs from the crowd about this bad fortune but with unassailable logic Tom reasoned that "a fish is a fish is a fish," later adding "I wasn't complaining, it's everyone else who complains about the whitefish!"

But the true test of a fish's sporting worth came from Pesca, guide Carl's yellow lab. Pesca would get excited for a trout, but would just lay in the boat uninterested when a whitefish was snared. Way to bore the dog, Dad.

Next up are Mark Grassi and Dave 'Double Cast' Currie. Mark says Dave was on fire out there on the Bitterroot, pulling out 6 fish in a single run! They had a couple cold sections of river that were made up for by sections where they could scarcely put a fly in the water before they got a hit. The afternoon saw them pass through a cottonwood inferno, as a light breeze snowed the cottonwood all around them.

Fish Faces!

The day was briefly interrupted by a jetski blazing through, which earned a glare from the guides as the tranquility of the river was broken. However, the wake seemed to no scare the fish, but to churn them to the surface and awaken their appetites. The guys were reeling them in wholesale. At one point there was even some sort of convergence of natural forces, and while Dave was reeling in a big rainbow, a Voldemort trout tried to grab it and at the same time a couple beavers belly flopped off the bank!

Unfortunately, they had to wade out of the river at the end of the day through some unidentified biohazard. I'll have to save that excuse to use myself the next time I go a couple days without a shower.

Scott Vion and Rob Cooper opted to do more wading today than yesterday and it paid off with a 25 fish day. Scott landed 10 great rainbows and cutthroats, and both got some individual lesson time with their guide. The end of the day had them both on a rocky beach where it seemed the carnival had come to town, so that was the end of the fishing.

Scott wades in:

Doug Hamilton and Angel Perez had an unusual day in that nearly every fish they pulled out of the river was a brown trout, at one point 7 in a row! For the second day in a row, Doug came home with the big fish, a 19 1/4" brown today, claiming his second consecutive Yellow Hat. The fish was a big fighter, 4 times Doug had him up next to the boat and 4 times the fish pulled back and Doug had to give him line. But, I guess if the fish quit as soon as you set the hook, it wouldn't be much fun.

Angel had a smile on his face throughout the hot and dry day. So hot, he said he repeatedly had to resist the urge to take the NesTea plunge and jump into the Bitterroot to cool himself off. Wonder what you could land with a 6' Angel fly? Highlight of his day was hooking a double on his hopper dropper.

Doug got a lot of press yesterday, let's give Angel some face time:

Alex and Peter Narodny started out the day by driving out to the Bitterroot. There were already 6 boats queued up at the drop off, so they drove over and put in at the West fork, where they saw no other boats all day, and reeled in 30 fish! Sounds like the West fork was the place to be! Hard to pick a highlight for the day, was it Alex's 17 1/2" big cutthroat, or hooking Peter?

The Narodny men: A love affair with zee fishes

At first, Tim Moratto and Sally "The Marauder" Moratto, couldn't decide who would tell the day's tales. Finally Tim caved, moaning "She kicked my ass!" This prompted plenty of laughter and incredulity, it appears we have a new Marauder! Lori Ware did question this at one point, by observing that every time they saw Sally on the river, Sally was relaxing with her feet up without even a fly in the water? Sally caught and landed them all, with a memorable fight from a brown trout.

There's a new Marauder in town:

After the brown battle, Sally hung it up for the day. Now, this must have been anathema for guide Curt, who told her "You gotta fish!" Sally laid it out for him by replying "No, I don't." Not yet cowed, Curt told her again she had to fish. Sally drew a clearer picture for Curt that a kindergartner could understand saying "I don't have to fish today, or I'm not coming back tomorrow" which accomplished the rare feat of silencing Curt for the second straight day!

Nary a peep was heard regarding Tim Moratto's fishing day. It sounds like nary a peep was heard from Tim while on the boat either. Sally recalls that before the trip Tim promised that he'd be more excited than she would when she caught a fish, but that he was silent for much of the day. This competitive spirit earned Tim the Tie Dye Cry of the day, presented by Lori. Congratulations, Tim!

Tim dries his eyes with his Prize:

Well now. Things have been pretty tame up till this point, but we've arrived at Lori Ware and Shanna Rodger's boat. Lori delivered the report, and I swear she paused to spit out some chewing tobacco before launching into a jargon filled monologue that included red copper john on the dropper, which seemed to be working, and the 14" Noble Chernobyl, which the fish just weren't going for.

Shanna with a fine specimen:

Sounds like the highlight here was Lori tossing a great cast and a good mend, and then getting a fish on the line. Now, normally when the guide tells you to strip off line, you strip it down the rod the purpose being to bring the fish closer to the boat. But where's the fun in that? If you strip a mile of line off the reel, as Lori did, you can have a lot more fun with that fish out there! So she hands the rod off to guide Evan and in a role reversal grabbed the net. Somehow Evan figured out that this was amiss, they swapped back, and Lori landed the fish and planted a kiss on the sucker. Only, it wasn't a sucker, it was a whitefish, prompting Shanna to say "can you believe it, she kissed a whitefish!"

Pucker up!

An outside comment came from the Marauder (Sally Moratto) who observed that when they drifted by, Shanna and Lori appeared to be swimming and Evan was on the bank fishing? One can only imagine the stories that Evan shared with the other guides that evening.

Which brings us to that certain wager between RCR and Tim Rogers.

Now, it seems that the biggest fish on the day was a 19 1/2" Rainbow that Ron had on his line at one point. I say on his line, because it wasn't on his pole, which came apart as in a bizzare twist of fate, a loop of line wrapped around the end of Ron's rod. As the fish pulled away, the loop tightened, cinched, and yanked clear off the top two sections of Ron's 4 piece rod! So with the top two sections of the rod somewhere in the river, the remaining two in Ron's hand and about a half mile of line out, Ron and the guide began handlining the fish in.

But accounts vary on what happened next. Ron admits that the guide never held the fish in his hands, a requirement of the bet. Which begs the question, how do they know it was 19 1/2 inches? Seems a little fishy for an eyeball measurement, don't you think? But the hook got out of that fish's mouth somehow, so maybe it did indeed see the inside of the boat, the jury is still out...

Except that owing to the bizarre circumstances surrounding his fish, Ron gracefully bowed out and Tim Rodgers, nay, Terrible Tim Rodgers, took the prize! In a display seldom seen and unlikely to be soon duplicated, Terrible Tim had 60 fish in the boat that day, including the Grand Slam! Further, he lost at least 30!! A 90 fish day!! When pressed for a quote by this cub reporter, Tim allowed that "Even though everything I'm wearing is soiled, I'm wearing the same stuff tomorrow." This comment regarding his attire led to further speculation as the night wore on, as Tim never once removed his hat all day. Is there sonar in that thing? Hidden crankbait? Tim was catching fish when he wasn't even looking at his fly! He'd lose sight of it, pull back a bit and he'd have a fish on the line!

Congratulations Tim, on winning for the 5th year in a row, The Only Bet Ever Lost by RCR. Looks like Ron will have to tie 4,000 flies and work his associate harder so that he'll have more bribe money for the guide next year.

That's it for now, I've got to hotfoot it to the Grizzly Hackle to pick everyone up.

Someone is a real comedian, not sure who's fish this is!


Dave

Someone keep an eye on Lori, would they? She was rude enough to snap this shot of Der Blogger while I was resting my eyes. Blogging is hard work, you know.