Big Hole River 3920 cfs—Maidenrock
In the past years during the salmon fly hatch I have seen some pretty stupid things and it seems to be no different this season. Todaywe were down river at one of the launch sites and this guy had just backed his trailer to the water. It looked like a pretty new drift boat, probably too new. He stood on the hitch and gave the boat a good hard push into the river. The boat went into the river and current and promptly floated down stream. He had unhooked the winch line and had no painter attached to the bow so the boat just took off. He yelled “oh shit, my boat’s floating away” and indeed it was heading right out to the middle and down stream. Lucky for him there was another boat anchored nearby and they climbed in and gave chase. Last we saw the empty boat going down around the corner with the other boat in pursuit.
There was a guy who stopped in the shop today and said he salvaged a sunken drift boat down near Glen. If you have lost your boat to the depths of the Big Hole, give us a call as he gave us his name and number and I guess is willing to give it back if they describe it.
A couple years ago during the salmon fly hatch again another outfitter and I had just gone under Silver Bridge when we saw this guy heading for Kambich’s irrigation ditch. We yelled and waved at him and the more we yelled it seemed the faster he rowed toward the ditch. It was as if he was going to get into this hot little channel before we could. Well he got into it and turned his head toward us and was smiling as if to say this channel is mine. We kept yelling and pointing downstream and he finally looked ahead and saw the head gate rapidly approaching. He frantically tried to row back and finally dropped the oars and grabbed a arm full of willows and was hanging on for his life. We rowed over and helped him get his boat over the dike and back in the river. We both had the same thing to say to him, “there just ain’t no cure for stupid”
There are a few of the big bugs down river but the fish don’t seem too interested yet. Best fishing today was with streamers. A hail storm came through this afternoon and kind of shut things down for awhile.
More rain tomorrow.