Big Hole River 172 cfs Beaverhead river 356 cfs
Just for some thing different I took Robert and Holt to C. C. Dam . It was a bit slower than last time I was there but with the high tech approach we used we managed to boat about ten rather large trout. We watched these ominous dark clouds getting near and the lake was like glass. This was an omen that it was time to get the hell out of there and we did. We just got back to the old road when the wind started blowing at mach 2.
Later that day we floated the upper Beaverhead where we encountered a pod of very finicky, very large fish. We tried trico patterns, tiny nymphs (we did get one on a #18 MRE—-Meal Ready To Eat) small hoppers with #20 zebra midge on a dropper and still nothing. After about a half hour of this frustration I told the guys these fish are really starting to piss me off. It was time to bring out the big guns. I tied on a #4 wooly bugger and swung it through the pod. A big fish nailed it and immediately broke off—-tippet too light, my fault. I tied another bugger on but using 2x this time. I handed the rod to Holt and told him it was his turn. He was watching in awe and I’m sure was convinced it was just a fluke with that one fish taking such a big ugly fly when they refused all the tiny ones. He swung it through the pod as directed and the biggest fish in the herd broke ranks and hammered the fly. He could not believe how hard that fish hit and this time the tippet held. This was another first for him with the bugger experience and for the remainder of the trip he threw nothing but and hooked 3 more big ones.