The adventure begins!

I have been antsy as hell for the past two months, stuck in central Pa. I just got out of my last final, accounting uugh, and i'm getting on a train in Philly tomorrow morning headed for Montana.

Two friends of mine, one from Allentown, PA and the other from Oakland, neither of whom have fished before, are riding out with me to the Big Hole River. We are going to put my raft in up near Wisdom and float 153 miles down to where the Big Hole meets the Jefferson. I have floated several sections of the river numerous times, but i've never seen the whole thing. Can't wait! I look forward to teaching these guys how to fish, and hopefully get into the salmon flies.

Talk to you all in a week!

Kick ass! Have a good trip!

man that sounds like a great time. i'm hoping you get lots of salmon flies and no runoff!

It's been spitting goo for a bunch of days now. Cooler weather over the past couple days though....

Have fun and take lotsa photos of fish.

Well, we made it out alive! In short the fishing was tough due to frigid weather and high water, but the scenery was spectacular. I tried to teach two newbies how to fish but the only thing the fish could see was a huge streamer. They had trouble getting the timing down; had a few on but never landed any. I caught a couple rainbows and a brownie, and we had a great time over the last four days. It was in the 70's yesterday and 80 today so a lot of the snow in the pintlers and pioneers released causing chocolaty, fast water. The salmon flies won't start for at least another week, and the caddis were going crazy but the fish couldn't see them. We totaled 130 miles from squaw creek bridge on the upper big hole to hell's gate on the jefferson. Here are some pics: (more later from my buddy's camera)
The starting point
http://photos-450.ll.facebook.com/ph...99931_8182.jpg
Camp site, day 2
http://photos-450.ll.facebook.com/ph...99932_8501.jpg
Little brownie
http://photos-450.ll.facebook.com/ph...99933_8755.jpg
Pretty bow
http://photos-450.ll.facebook.com/ph...99934_9022.jpg
Pioneer Mtns, need to be skied this week
http://photos-450.ll.facebook.com/ph...99935_9290.jpg

Great float. Glad you brought a few to hand.

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Originally Posted by schwerty

Great float. Glad you brought a few to hand.

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Yeah so was I, those guys were starting to wonder if there were any fish in there! Tough time of year for beginners.

More pics to come soon, one guy has a really nice cannon and took about 600 shots this week, including quite a bit of wild life, so i'll have to get that from him and put em up. The golden eagles were migrating and we captured several nice shots.

those spring floats that have to be planned in advance can be such a crap shoot for the fishing. but at least a couple days floating down a river is always fun!