A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That

Jack Mauer from Wapiti Waters Montana was in town and wanted to smallmouth and gar fish on Friday.  The river had bumped up 200 CFS and had a little stain to it.  Anticipation was good as always but most of the fish didn't get the memo that a guy flew all the way from Montana to see them!  

Jack guides in Montana with Wapiti Waters, is one hell of a good guy and he fished the river really well.   

I stuck this funny lookin pole in the water and pushed the longboat around.

Jack was actually in town visiting family, so, we'll give the smallmouth a break on the guilt trip bite.  This is an average fish for the day with most of them holding on structure out in the channel.  No bank bite to type about.

The best success came on jigged flies like the Plateau Fly Shop original pattern the "Daddy Issues" in orange.  Chartreuse & White was also good.  

 Jack is a bear of a man and his hands are at least 8" wide.....

The gar hole held gar but they had other things on their mind as they're getting ready to do the dirty dance.  And, sight fishing gar usually takes time.  These fish were porpoising and go straight back to the bottom.  We would have caught one if we had time to dredge the hole, but, the 10 mile float had us pushing through some waters. 

Oh well, we'll stick with the smallmouth.

We found 10 fish that wanted to commit to eating and about that many who just wanted a little taste. 

Thanks for going Jack!