Big Hole River 438 cfs Beaverhead River 472 cfs
Yesterday Dave and I took a trip down to the Beav just to try something different. My old Jeep has been sounding like there is a bunch of chipmunks under the hood and about half way to Dillon it gave up the ghost. There was some smoke, some noise and all warning lights were on. We were just at the Glen exit. That morning for some reason I packed my cell phone which is a rare thing for me to do. So not to spoil our trip I called Roger at the shop to bring down the van and called Lisac’s to come and tow it and fix if possible.
We finally got to the Beav and it was a bit disappointing. There was lots of grass and moss floating down the river. Since it was cloudy we were hoping to use streamers. We tried them but almost every cast they were fouled up with grass. There were about four nice fish that did chase em but never hooked. Dave and I both agreed we just might get our butts kicked today. There were no bugs coming off except for a rare caddis. Finally I said let’s try a hopper for the hell of it. Actually it was a chernoble ant. We tied it on and the second cast he had a toilet flusher. For the next hour it was fantastic fishing on top with this chernoble. Then as if the switch was turned off they quit. We tried for quite awhile with different patterns on top and nothing. The clouds rolled back in and there was less grass floating down the river so we went back to a streamer and for the last mile the fish attacked it. So it turned out ok regardless of the first half trip.
The Big Hole still remains excellent fishing—tricos, ants, mayflies, hoppers.
Good news—the old Jeep is back up and running fine. The water pump froze up was the only problem so a $500 bill for the tow and repair and she’s just like new.