Just a little off my game

Today we honestly intended to get an early start, but after sleeping in and a good breakfast, it was 10:00 before we knew it. We were happy to not have any wind - at least compared to the past few days. And it was cool out. Long sleeve weather. Two layers of long sleeves. Yes, we're still wet wading so we can try to keep our upper half warm. We'd seen a couple guides 'put-in' or launch their boats with clients and knew we needed to get going. The fish had a day off from us yesterday so they were rested.

We walked down to the river and rounded the corner of the river and wouldn't you know it, there were 2 guys fishing in our spot! (you know I'm kidding) They had beat us to our current favorite spot! Rick and I spotted fish rising just downriver from them and we waded across. We didn't want to crowd the guys, but we were pretty close to them. Rick didn't fish right away, but let me try for the couple fish we could see. The guy right up from us was catching fish after fish. (Or so it seemed to me. When you're not catching fish and someone else gets one, it seems like they are getting all the fish.) One fish came up to look at my fly, but no takers. I seemed to be a little off my game. Things just didn't seem right today. I tried to hook 'em, but after a bit I stopped and told Rick to give it a try. I gave the thumbs-up a couple times to the guys catching fish and sort of envied the number of rising fish in their area. I gave Rick some room and moved a little bit away. The guy near me must have seen me eyeballing 'his' fish because he said he was going to take a break and I could fish towards 'his' area. He said he'd be back, but he would share the area with me. How nice was that! Really nice! I didn't want to crowd him, but I wanted to try for the fish I could reach. I asked him if he was using spinners and he said no, a midge. I was using a spinner and soon caught a fish and said to the guy "Now I'm a happy woman!" He said, "Good! That's all that counts!" Smart man! I brought it to me and it was one of those elusive Montana white fish! And it was big! And smelly! I released it with Rick's help and regrouped. I checked my fly and my rod and discovered that the front section of my rod was twisted out of alignment from the bottom half. That will definitely cause your casting to be off. The 2 sections need to be aligned and straight so the fly line shoots through the ferrules. After straightening things out I caught a brown trout. It was probably the smallest fish I'd caught here, about 14", but it jumped out of the water 3 times and the guys upriver gave me a couple of congratulatory hoots and a thumbs up!

We must have fished for a couple hours like that, just the 4 of us in that little section of the river. When the guys were ready to leave they wished us luck and started off. I asked the guy nearest me, the one that invited me into his space, if I could see the midge fly he'd been using, so successfully. He pulled out his fly box and handed me one of the little midge flies, probably a size 22 tiny tuft. He put it into my hand and said it was mine. I didn't really have anything like it, close but not exact. I thanked him and told him my name, his was Paul, from Pennsylvannia, and that was his last day on the river. His fishing buddy lived nearby in Dillon. What a nice guy!

Rick volunteered to go back to the motorhome and tie up a couple of the tiny midges. We tried them, but the fish had changed to a different menu and they weren't feeding on the same bugs. Rick and I caught a couple fish today, not many, but what a wonderful day on the river. Nice weather, nice fish, and nice people. Even if they were in "my" favorite spot. I'm glad they had a good day, too.