Big Hole 306 cfs Beaverhead 530 cfs
Two years ago Dr. Douglas brought his daughter Mariah along on a fishing trip here on the Big Hole. At that time she was 11 years old and her attention span with fly fishing was about 11 seconds. Last year her attention span increased some to about 11 minutes. Today was quite different, she stopped fishing on the entire trip for about 11 minutes. By noon she only lacked one species to get the Big Hole grand slam, which was the brook trout. She had caught brown’s, rainbow’s, a grayling, cutthroat and even a lowly whitey. There were a lot of fish feeding this morning and her presentation was excellent. At 13 years old she could show up a lot of wannabe fly fishers for the simple reason that she is very attentive, has no bad habits and listens to her guide. Her sister Makaela, at age 10 is another story. Her casting was quite good, but she would watch the fly for about 2 seconds and then point out to me how that a certain rock looked like an alligator head or what kind of bird is that over there. I can’t count the times a fish hit her fly but she was off in another world and enjoying it. These two young ladies were a pleasure to have in my boat today, polite at all times and almost made me feel like a kid again. They will be with me again tomorrow and if dad watches Mariah maybe he’ll catch a few fish too.
Spruce moths, tricos and hoppers.