Squeeze'n it in

Recent travel - like any time I stray further from home than my mailbox - caused me to analyze where during the day I might squeeze in some time on water I would be passing. I had a meeting to attend in the field a couple hours north. Then I had another site to visit an hour east of there. Like so many day trips for work, travel and fieldwork combined would exceed a normal eight hour day. Working some fishing into the mix would be bonus. I decided to leave early and stop along the Missouri before the day got started. It was windy and somewhat bitter. Miserable, but always worth it. The few diehard boats on the water were rowing hard to keep from blowing back upstream. My kind of people.....

I only had about an hour, so I walked the bank tossing jigs. I picked up a pretty decent rainbow and one brown. 

After the work for the day was complete several hours later, I found myself driving along a stream I'd seen several times but never fished. It was before the small stream 'opening day' in Montana, but I was intrigued enough with the idea of new water that I dug through the reg book to see if this creek was a listed exception. I was in luck. Water was high with spring melt, but it was amazingly clear.  Being new water and high water, I opted to sample the local aquatic wildlife with my long

rod and light jigs. I picked my way along the bank, looking for pockets and eddies. Right off the bat - literally along the rip rap of the highway where I parked - I hung a decent fish that I didn't get to see. A couple hundred yards and seemingly as many casts later, I came across a very nice hole that was out of character with the rushing, shooting water I'd been making my way along so far. The opposite bank

had a strong back eddy against brush and undercut root mass. The depth was fantastic, and in lower water the entire hole would be prime. Right now there was just too much water to work a lure or break through to a fish holding depth, except on the opposite bank. Nine and a half feet of graphite lifted the line and bridged the distance between me and the opposite eddy without any drag being created from the rushing water in between. An underhand toss would place the jig on the current seam, a drop of the rod tip would feed line for depth to be achieved, and then the jig could be worked with finesse and next to no influence from the raging water between me and it. In short, I was high-sticking jigs. A long rod excels in these conditions.

I started picking up good fish. First some browns, then some rainbows. I lost more than I landed. I fished until I was satisfied that I'd spent some quality time on new water and had a good feel for what it had to offer. I began to mentally scheme a possible third stop for the day on the way home. It would be back along the Missouri, but the weather was improving and there were likely to be some thick hatches that evening. A quick tally of remaining daylight found that I'd have about an hour and a half if I left right then. I wrestled with the idea of using daylight to drive another hour or so when I could just fish right where I was, but the thought of some topwater action won out.

 

Some time later, as the day was 

drawing to a close, I stepped out of the truck along the banks of the Missouri. The wind was gone. The chill from earlier in the day had lifted. I was 20 miles downstream from where I'd pulled off in the morning. I'd chosen this pullout for a couple of weedy current seams I'd noted on previous floats. I figured they'd be full of fish feeding on top, and I had a hankering to float some flies. I was still in my waders from earlier, so I all I needed to do was string up a different rod and take a short hike. I stood in the tall grass and watched one of the current seams. Fish were feeding all right. Smaller rainbows were nailing blue winged olives like bluegills taking bread crumbs in a duck pond. Occasionally a big broad dorsal would rise and fall, or a slurp most likely made by a fish with some heft would interrupt the surface.

The day ended with several scrappy rainbows coming to hand. My fly would drift along the seam lost in a sea of the real thing. It was hard to keep up with which one was mine. But I had several takes. I missed as many as I connected with, and landed half of those. The other half flew off in fantastic leaps or overzealous runs.  I captured some pictures of a few and an action shot or two. 

I started the morning looking for some size as I worked big jigs at depth. In the afternoon I sampled some new water. I finished off the evening targeting pods of surface-feeding fish for some visual-take thrills and fly rod fighting fun. Leave a little early, come home a little late, and turn a normal day into a fish-finding day where zinging drag still rings in your ears as you drift of to sleep.

Streamers, rain, and snow

To kick off spring my family loaded up the camper last weekend and headed over the mountains to one of our favorite spots. April brings the sandhill cranes back to Montana, and this place is alive with them. Their croaking, shuddering call fills the valley.  The weather forecast looked clear. The cooler was stocked with good foods. The propane tanks were topped off. Cranes were everywhere. We arrived at dusk on Thursday after work. We'd taken Friday off of work and school, giving us three nights and most

of three days. We set up camp along one of my favorite smaller-water brown trout streams. On trips like these I generally sneak out of the camper in the dark, fish the dawn hours, and return after everyone else is up and ready to do whatever is on the list for the day.  I took my son with me on this first morning. He wanted to go, which isn't always the case.  Naturally we were slower in getting started than I would have been alone (by a lot), but no matter, there were two more mornings to go.  My son views fishing as a harvest - he's there for the picking.  It never fails that after a fish is caught, he is ready to go cook it right then and there.  I slid our first catch onto a stick and he happily carried it for a couple more holes, but it was obvious he was ready to take this brown back to the camper and get it into a frying pan.

We spent the rest of the day exploring some mountain roads and trails, returning to camp in a spring rain shower.  There were a couple of prime time daylight hours left, so I suited up in waders and rain gear and strung up a fly rod.  I'd seen some variety of stonefly hatching that morning, so I started with a stonefly nymph under a high-riding stonefly dry.  The dry was more of an indicator than anything, but I'd be happy to generate some surface activity if I could.

The shower passed over and behind it the brilliant evening sun broke out, washing the valley in a golden hue that covered everything.  The cranes called from all around and flew in from surrounding fields, maybe to feed in new puddles that now seemed to be everywhere.  An intense rainbow followed the backside of the rain shower as it drifted off to the east.  The stonefly set up drifted untouched through hole after hole.  The sun was becoming less brilliant.  The clock was ticking.  I wasn't seeing the hatch I'd seen that morning.  I really wasn't seeing any hatch at all.  Nothing.  A switch was in order.  With nothing to imitate, I decided on an experimental rig.  I wanted to fish a mouse pattern.  I've just been itching to lately.  But I didn't trust it was the right time to fish it and really felt like a streamer

was a better choice.  So, I did both.  I tied on a foam-backed moorish mouse pattern and trailed it with a cone-headed olive blossom special.  Both seemed over-sized for the little water - but nothing is oversized on a brown trout stream.

Neither fly fished at its peak performance.  Each was a bit inhibited by the other.  But I pressed forward with the experiment.  The mouse rode a little lower than it should, but the action was fairly true and it skirted across the riffles just fine.  The streamer swung behind it, perhaps not as deep as it otherwise may have gone, but a decent swing nonetheless.  There was a "jigging" retrieve I could produce with the streamer because of the mouse, where I could hop the mouse out of the water and back in again, essentially letting the streamer jump and then free-fall like a jig along undercut banks.  It was an action I couldn't have achieved with just the streamer alone.

The first hit came on the streamer, and in mid-swing near the center of the stream.  I didn't notice the mouse disappear, I just became aware of the dead weight.  The hookset brought heavy head shakes, a flash of gold beneath the surface, and then my double fly rig sailing back at me through the air.

The second hit came a couple casts later, from the same hole but across to the opposite bank.  This one took the mouse in a satisfyingly explosive strike that, quite honestly, caught me off guard.  The line came tight on a solid fish that appeared to be doing a gator role on the surface.  Again my double fly rig came flying back at me through the air.

My heart was pumping now.  The experiment was a success, and no way was I modifying the rig now.  Not

with less than an hour of daylight remaining.  I lost a third fish that took the streamer again.  Ahead of me was a hole against a sandstone cliff that forced the river to make a 90 degree bend.  I've encountered fish stacked along that wall in the past, so I decided to skip what was in front of me and hike to that hole to finish out the day.  After all, I had tomorrow and the next day to refine my methods and hit more of the stream that I was skipping over.

I had action right away in the hole along the sandstone ledge.  The stream hits the wall in about the middle of its length.  In years past it has flowed along the entire wall, hitting it further up. Right now that makes for a deadwater backchannel, the mouth of which is separated from the stream by an eddy rotating rapidly back upstream.  I launched the mouse and streamer into this eddy and missed two browns that aggressively chased the streamer from the eddy to the main flow.

I finally hooked up with a fish that stuck on the streamer when I skated the mouse down the main current till it hit the wall and started its parallel course to the rock.  After I landed that brown I repeated the drift and immediately hooked up with another.  I landed three fish along that wall.  All on the

streamer.  The last hit hard and took off downstream without breaking the surface.  It took all the line I had out and then peeled more from the reel.  I actually had to chase it, reminiscent of running along behind a steelhead.  The fish hadn't felt that large at first, but now I was beginning to wonder.  It was really getting too dark to see much, but the first glimpse I got proved it wasn't any giant and I speculated that it was foul hooked.  When I finally got it under control in the tailout of the next hole down, I found that it was hooked neatly in the jaw.  It may have gone 19 inches.  I didn't measure, but it wasn't 20.  It wasn't a bad fish, but it had fought way beyond its actual size.  Pound for pound (or inch for inch maybe), this has to have been the hardest fighting trout I've tied into this spring.  Even a brown I caught in the Missouri back in February, or another back in October in another river, either of which could literally have swallowed this one whole put up such mellow fights  that it wasn't until I saw it that I realized how big it was.

I hiked back to the camper utterly satisfied with my experiment.  It'd been fun to find some bigger browns and to catch them on fly gear.  As I hiked back in the dark, my mind circled back to the larger fish of the evening that I hadn't hooked, and I thought that perhaps I'd pass back over them at first light with some big plugs, or maybe the streamer again.  At this point it was a toss up.  Either way, I felt like the morning had some awesome potential.

Back in the camper and playing a card game with my family, the rain began to drum on the roof.  It drummed and drummed.  It fell heavy and it fell steady.  It continued after lights out, and was still at it any time I woke up during the night.  I began to wonder what the river would look like in the morning.  If it would even be fishable.

Dawn light brought the end of the rain, but the river was certainly up.  It was stained but not so muddy that I didn't try.  Sometimes browns, and particularly big browns, will be out on the prowl in a freshly rising river.  But there was no action, and the river muddied further as a walked along it.  By evening, after returning from another explore into a neighboring mountain range, the river was trashed and logs were floating down it.That evening the only fishing was done by my daughter who was absolutely thrilled to intently search all the puddles and fish the earthworms out.

On the last day, we woke up to a blanket of snow.  The clear forecast had completely deteriorated.  We packed to leave in heavy, wet snow while the swollen river continued to rise from the rain that had ceased falling 24 hours earlier. 

Spring is always an adventure.  Sure am glad I got the couple hours in that I did, but it left a big, unsatisfied void in my appetite to fish that river. At least there was good food, a warm camper, and fun times had with the family in the outdoors of Montana.

Change of plans: a carp and the high water mark dance

Even the best of planned fishing trips can result in the need for spontaneity. A couple weekends ago my family took a trip visit some friends. Naturally we (er, I) stretched it as long as we (I) could and worked in some fishing (of course!). I towed the MiniFly down with the expectation spending a couple days floating the lower portion of the upper Yellowstone. I went so far as to spend half a day exploring put-ins and take-outs. But despite having been fishable for a string of several weeks, recent warm weather brought a surge of meltwater and sediment to the stream as low elevation snow faded from mountain flanks. Sampling a few spots on the bank while exploring resulted in only two or three hits.

Yellowstone backwater brown

One of those was a fine 19-inch brown that fell to a 3-inch plastic jig - the only fish I landed from the Yellowstone when originally I had planned to spend the entire weekend on that river. So after conferring with my fishing buds Mark and Travis for the following day, a 'plan B' was developed and we took the Stealthcraft out to the Bighorn.  The warming trend abruptly ended - bluebird sky, icy wind, and high pressure took over as we arrived. The fishing was probably about as slow as you'll see on the Bighorn.
There were three of us in the boat, and over the course of the day we each managed to land about five. There were a couple big fat rainbows just shy of 20 inches and several skinny little browns. One of the treats of the day was a hatch that took off in the afternoon which resulted in the first several dry fly catches of 2015. The surprise fish of the day was a carp that picked up a marabou Zig Jig where a beefy

Mark's dry fly monster

brown should have been. For about 20 seconds I thought we had beat the odds and connected with a trophy brown. The first glimpse I got flashed the right color, but something wasn't right proportionally. An awesome battle ensued and lots of grins were had. It was the gear-testing drag-peeling break in the non-action that we needed to help finish out the rest of the float. And with none of the urgency present that's always hanging in the air when a large trout is on board and ready for release, we took our time for some pictures, passed it around to guess the weight, put it on some scales, and then send it back to where it had come from. Poor fishing or not, what better way to spend the day than floating a famous Montana river with good friends.

Mark Johnson's photo of the Bighorn carp

As anticipated the Yellowstone was in no better shape the following day. If anything, it was probably worse.  This time, down to just two anglers, Travis and I left the boat in the driveway and headed toward a favorite stream of ours. A quick glance at a USGS hydrograph showed its flows stable and unchanged over the past few weeks. It is a river that does not receive much pressure, but could, and rightfully should, but for whatever reason remains largely undiscovered - or maybe just undesired. The scenery is fantastic Montana backdrop. In my opinion better than the Bighorn. The stream itself the kind of water that really appeals to me
sometimes. Typically deep and sluggish, the earthen banks often

tube sock brown as seen by my gorillapod tripod

vertical, the water somewhat silty. Baitfish are probably as common a forage as insects, and rarely do you ever see fish feeding on top. It certainly has its classic gravel stretches and rocky reaches, but for much of its course it doesn't fit the classic picture-definition of a freestone trout stream, although it is one in every sense of the word. It is not unknown by any means, and I've even seen it featured on a TV show. Like many Montana streams, access to it is hard due to surrounding private ownership. We planned the trip between public access points and spent the day doing the "Montana high water mark square dance" (keeping it between the lines and connecting the squares of public ownership).

"Hike your waders, cinch your belt. Come on now let's use your felt. 

Crossing here must be done, jump on in lets have some fun. 

To walk the bank would break the law, but gotta hit that hole I saw.  

Grab your partner and swing him round, quickly now he's going down.  

Cast on in and hook a trout, while he's a-workin' gettin' out."

Stream access law in Montana is a beautiful thing. So many other states have lost access to valuable natural resources which are our nation's waterways.

typical solid fish for the day

Weather conditions were on the mend from what we'd fished on the Bighorn but were not yet perfect. Being a smaller body of water, and therefore not as subject to the whims of weather, we hoped for more action than the previous day.  We hiked down a fishable tributary from a bridge through a patch of state land and dropped onto the main river. The hole where this tributary enters is one of the largest on this stretch of river. It has produced well on previous trips and was therefore the natural starting point. But on previous trips we had never had the time to explore all the way through to the next bridge crossing. So despite this being a favorite river to fish, we spent the bulk of the day fishing new water to both of us. The action could not be described as hot, but it was coming fast enough that you anticipated in every hole. I started the day off in that very first hole with a 19-and-a half-inch brown. Not to be out done that early in the day Travis proceeded to land a 20 inch brown from the opposite bank of the same hole. Those were the two biggest fish of the day. We only caught a few small ones, most were solid browns in the 15 to 18 inch range. Whatever Travis did with his presentation was appealing to whitefish. He landed half a dozen of those while I never hooked the first one. The browns picked up jigs and swiped at  Rapala countdowns. Two of them even came up and took a big number 11 floater off the surface like a summer time bass. That stream is begging to be moused....

Another fine brown

Two days of Montana fishing. Neither day was spent on water that had been planned originally. Fish came on nymphs, dry flies, jigs, and plugs. Four species of fish were brought to hand. Dirty water was avoided, clear water was found. Miles were logged across prairie and over mountain, by boat and on foot. What more could be asked?

Great fish to end on

Jigs and dry flies

Some recent travel resulted in an opportunity  that I’d been looking for to hit a particular prairie tailwater that I’m fond of.  Like several prairie streams, it supports a lot of fish and a lot of species variety.  It just happens to be six hours from home and not available to a guy's regular weekend daytrip.  The fieldwork I was doing actually involved three nights away from home, and I fished each evening, always hours of travel away from where I’d been the previous evening.  The first was on my tailwater, the next was on a fairly remote little stream I’d read holds walleye and pike among other things, and the third was the lower Yellowstone before it enters North Dakota.  I had only one fish on in the little creek that was off before I got to see what it was and I landed a few goldeye on the Yellowstone.  The tailwater was really it for action.  But I knew it would be my best shot, and I arrived itching to jump in my waders and get started.  It’s always a race against daylight on opportunistic trips like this where fishing was not the primary focus of the day.

I snapped my phone to the Gorillapod, stowed it in the chest pocket of my Simms for easy photo access, jammed the cork of a second rod into the waist belt of my lumbar pack, and took off toward the water with the first rod in hand.  This is a creek that holds nice trout. The population is by no means high, but they are there.  And when I catch them, they always seem to be exceptionally mature. But it also holds walleye.  And smallmouth bass.  The catfish in this stream tend to be more prone to take a lure than elsewhere and it always seems that I’ll pick a couple up while jigging for trout and walleye or tossing to a likely smallmouth haunt.

My first fish of the day was a walleye, followed by some catfish.  The flow was half what it usually is this time of year, and the holes were few and far between.  There were lots of dead stretches where ankle deep water

stretched bank to bank.  Sometimes when water is like this, the good holes seem stacked with fish.  On this day they just seemed stacked with carp.  I was a little discouraged, and honestly, if this had been my first time on this river, it likely would not have ranked among my mental list of favorites.  I passed over holes where I’d done well in the past and didn’t see a fish.  I was speculating that the low flow had sent them on a downstream journey.  The hiking was easy with no flow to fight and I was covering lots more water than I had anticipated.  In a likely looking bend with a few boulders scattered about I drew a follow from a smallmouth bass.  He probably would have gone a pound and a half.  He followed the next cast too, so I let him alone and went on.  A few minutes later I swung back by his boulder and gave him a couple other things to look at.  I drew one more follow, but not the slightest hint of commitment.  Honestly though, mid-April in Montana is a tad early for smallies.  In the smallmouth’s native range, or at least the portions I’m familiar with, they’d be on fire by now.  I wish I could have connected with it, just to add it to the list for the day.

After popping out on the road again at my next legal access point and hiking back to the vehicle, I decided to mosey back upstream to hit the places where I’d actually had some action.  Daylight was fading and I didn’t have time to explore new reaches.  I went around a gorgeous bend where the sunset was reflected just right on the water for seeing the little dimples of some feeding trout even though the river was well below the road and in shadow.  The stream touched the road’s right-of-way just ahead, so I pulled right in and started digging in the back seat for new gear.  I hadn’t seen a trout all evening and this little widow of opportunity was too intriguing to pass up.  I stood on the bank blindly stringing up a fly rod as I stared at the water to map out the “where and what” as quick as I could.  There was one distinct pod of fish feeding on a slight eddy created by a piece of exposed bedrock along with a few others scattered around.  The exciting part was that several appeared large.  One turned sideways as it sucked in something subsurface as if to prove my hunch.

I crept through the bushes in the waning light and sat 20 yards from the little eddy trying to determine what to tie on.  The hatch wasn’t thick, which was kind of nice really, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was.  They were definitely feeding on the surface, taking small baetis or something.  I opted to go with a tiny parachute Adams (16 or 18).  Similar size and color, easy to see.  Plus, I like them…
First cast drifted through untouched.  Second cast brought a big wide snout out of the water followed by a lazy dorsal as it rolled back in.  The water boiled with a girthy fish when I picked up the line for the hookset.  He quickly took my loose line and was on my reel as he shot across the hole and shattered the pink reflection of the sky.  At the first sign of me being somewhat in control I pulled out the tripod and set it on a decent looking rock.  I brought the fish alongside, lifted him for shot, popped out the fly with a push of my thumb, and back it went.  What a fish to find feeding on the surface!  Right then I noticed that the feeding hadn’t stopped.   Despite the low water and the thrashing the fish had just given the hole as he’d done his best imitation of a tarpon, the feeding resumed as if nothing had happened.  It was a little more spread out now, but that may have simply been the onset of darkness.  I picked out another one and laid out a cast to drift into its lane.  I spooked it though, by lining a fish above it I wasn’t aware of and both fish moved off.  I few tries later and I was hooked up with number two.  He took at the extent of my cast and was instantly on the reel.  But the drag wasn’t loose enough for the kind of surge he made and the tippet popped before I could do anything about it.  Number three came off in a jump and number four straightened out the hook – or did number three straighten me out and number four just slid off as a result….  who knows.  I failed to check to the fly after number three came off.  But that was it.  The feeding abruptly ended and as darkness set in.  That didn’t keep me from trying a few more things, but no more action.  Still, that had been some of the best dry fly action I’d had in a while, and certainly the longest string of big fish I’d tied into on top in a long time.  It had been more like hitting a sweet run in September when big browns are slurping hoppers.

Three for Three

Yesterday was an awesome day to be spontaneous.  I had a good route to follow for work and fantastic weather.  Of course the fishing I do is rarely 100% spontaneous. Looking for a chance to go is my regular state of being. I carry gear in anticipation of jumping out at any bridge crossing. My day started as a day in which I would be traveling more than three hours from home to visit some sites for work. One site was near a stream I have fished in the past but don't get to fish often and so I was looking forward to finishing the field work up and taking some casts before returning home. I left early in order to allow plenty of daylight to hit it. But as I was driving in the dark I realized I was going to pass another stream about an hour or so into my trip.  A stream that I like very much, one of Montana's unsung trout fisheries that holds

quality browns, and one that I fully expect to get a bruiser out of some day. I chuckled at the thought of being able to hit two streams in one day separated by many miles. And then it occurred to me that along my route home I would also pass the Missouri. A plan was forming in my head, a challenge I couldn't pass up. Simply the travel alone was nearly an entire eight-hour work day. Add in the time I needed to evaluate the future gravel resource sites and I was into overtime as it was. So I figured there couldn't be any harm in stopping at the first stream to cast at dawn, followed by spending what could be considered a lunch break at the next stream once my site visits were complete, and then finishing up at the dusk hour along the Missouri somewhere on my way home. The challenge as I saw it, was to fish three major Montana streams and catch and photograph at least one fish from each. I wasn't going to have loads of time on any one of them, but I figured I would have just enough to locate some fish, and quite possibly achieve the goal. These streams are all separated from each other by a lot of miles, and would normally never be fished in a single day by one person. Perhaps some other people have done it, but it sure can't be many.

I used a designated public fishing access at each stop. Mostly just for convenience. I swung into the first one just after daylight. I pulled my waders on as quickly as I could and spent some time fishing the holes immediately adjacent to the parking area to get a feel for the mood of the stream. It took more time than I expected but I managed to stick my first strike and land it for a picture. First stream - check. I could have left right then.... na.

I missed the next two strikes but felt I had now dialed the fish in. I pried myself off the creek and walked back down to the car.  But instead of just leaving with the first goal accomplished, I made a beeline for a hole downstream that I anticipated would hold fish based on what I had just learned. Although the high for the day was headed into the upper 50s, the stream banks were still lined with ice and the water was cold. All three of my strikes had come from the deepest and slowest of holes that I had passed, so I was headed to the biggest, slowest hole I could think of on that stretch of river.

The first cast into my chosen hole resulted in a heavy hookup.  I had fired my cast directly downstream into the confluence of two currents in a deep, slow moving pool. I simply let the lightweight jig flutter downward while it essentially held its place in the stream. A couple of twitches to add life to the illusion of a minnow holding in the current and the tip of my nine and a half foot light action rod sunk sharply towards the water.  It was the same presentation that had drawn all three strikes back upstream near the car after cycling through half a dozen or so others.  A beautiful 19 inch brown rolled to the surface and then shot all over the hole, tearing the top up. I figured he'd just trashed the hole, sounding the alarm like a beaver slapping his tail.  But I was beaming inside, now fully satisfied with my decision not to have driven on and to have spent some more time on this stream. It felt so good to have a fresh and wild trout peel drag like a steelhead wannabe, then come to hand and smile for the tripod I had pulled out of my pocket and set on a log during the fight.  I didn't anticipate what would come next, I just mechanically and naturally as could be resumed the hunt after I watched the fish swim away. I took four more browns from that same hole. One on the smallish side, but the other three were just as quality as the first, each measuring 18 or 19 inches. One more came from smack in the middle where the first had been, another from the head, and another from near the tailout.  Easily one of my best days ever on that stream, and I had only fished about an hour and fewer than ten holes.  If only I could cancel work and spend the day! I had captured my photographic evidence, gone above and beyond the requirements of my "catching goal" - and so I reluctantly peeled the waders off and hit the road.

It was early afternoon by the time I was done with my work and crossing over the second stream that I was going to pass on my way home. Again I pulled up to the parking lot of a designated public access, didn't bother with waders this time, and started fishing right away, working my way downstream tossing the same jig. I mimicked the same retrieve from earlier, but found these fish in more of a chasing mood, preferring to swipe the jig as it hopped more energetically along the bottom and traveling with the current.  Again I had what felt like a slow start until I dialed the

presentation, but after landing my first rainbow and getting a picture of it I was pretty sure I was going to be able to pull off this "three for three" challenge I'd given myself. After landing another brown and a second rainbow I headed back to the car and started homeward, barely an hour since I'd first arrived.

A couple hours later I exited the interstate and headed down Recreation Road, paralleling and occasionally crossing the Missouri.  I came to a stop at a public access I had not used before, although I'd floated passed it a few times.  I knew from those floats that there was a gorgeous eddy right above it, so I slipped down the bank and went straight to it. I tied on a heavier jig and within the first couple casts I had a solid fish on, only to lose it. Daylight was waning and I really wanted that picture showing a landed fish on a third stream. I missed a second some time later and began to wonder if I was going to choke.  But on a cast to a current seam next to a raft of weeds and foam, I connected with a healthy17-inch brown that smacked the jig as it dropped.  I set my Joby tripod up on a rock behind me

with my phone clipped to it, hopeful this fish would stay hooked.  I took a peek at the screen to see roughly where I should stand for a photo, and teetered on the rubbly steepness of the water's edge, trying to steer the fish to a place I could cradle my hand under it.  The tense moments of gaining control of the fish at the landing passed and I lifted the brown for a shot and yelled "Shoot!" to my phone - one of the words that will trigger the voice command to take a photo.  I yelled it three or four more times just to be sure I'd gotten a picture, and then let the fish go.  I saw no one around, but if anyone was in earshot they must have thought me a very benign and methodical swearer, someone who had just lost a fish or broken his rod but could only repeat "shoot" over and over.  At least I didn't yell "Cheese!," which is another built in trigger word.  I don't know what the casual observer would make of a man repeatedly yelling "cheese" to a rock.  At least "shoot" seems explainable.

As the last "shoot" echoed back off the canyon walls above and the flash fired at my command, I knew I had sealed the deal - I'd caught fish on three different rivers during a trip spanning well over 300 miles and had managed photos of each.  I'd squeezed fishing yet again from what would have been just another work day and even managed to turn it into an all day event with more accomplishment associated with it than a regular day on the job or even a typical fishing trip. To me that is what 'always traveling with fishing gear' is about.
Make it happen.