Thursday was a day to be throwing streamers, and the Lower Beaverhead is a damn good place to do it. The raft was on its first trip with all the owners of Great Divide Outfitters since it was overhauled by our friends at Sotar. A drift boat would have a tough time in the shallow water, but the raft was excellent, and the fish were easy to get at.
If you haven’t fished the lower reaches of the Beaverhead river it can be described as a incredibly tight irrigation ditch. The corners are deep, the banks are undercut and muddy, and the hatches are limited. Personally, this stretch is one of our favorites. The lack of people, roads, bridges, and garbage makes the river feel a little more out of the way than it actually is.
We floated Selway to Anderson, starting at about 10 in the morning with three sandwiches and a cooler full of Rainier beer and water. After getting few chasers at the put in, we decided to chuck streamers all day. It was great to have three rowers in the boat, giving us all a chance to slap some fur along the bank. Lia and John started off fishing with myself on the sticks. We turned fish right off the bat, but the fish did not seem to be fully committed in the bright sun to come out of their hole and eat. After switching streamers for about an hour, we finally started to get some good eats on my fathers favorite fly, the black woolly bugger. Silver streamers also worked but the traditional bugger handled the bulk of the eats. The thunderstorms were swirling around the valley around 12:30, which caused the fishing to improve dramatically. Overall we probably moved 5 times as many fish was we caught, and we landed between 15 and 20 total. Here are some pics for you streamer junkies out there, enjoy.
