North of the Border - Day 3

Morning… it looked like it was going to be a great day, just not around here. We headed away from the storm towards Montana. Somehow we made it to sunshine and great weather but interesting enough, around us though were dark storm clouds. They stayed close to the mountain peeks as if they were forbidden to leave the area. The river that we just so happened to be fishing was in the "sucker hole". To clarify what a "sucker hole" is, just imagine a large storm; somewhere in the storm is a hole (one or more) in the dark clouds allowing blue skies to be seen and sunshine to pass through. It sounds odd but its quite common. Lucky for us we stumbled upon it.
The river was high and flowing faster than normal. Normal is warp speed so you could only imagine what high and fast means, uncontrolled! With the flows as they are it should be pretty easy to figure out where the fish are. The problem is getting to them. Any slow water near the edges will be holding fish, right, duh. Easier said than done. The slow water isn't a nice long run; it’s a teeny-tiny pocket in the middle of the white water, like a "sucker hole". In order to get down to them you need weight, adding weight will inevitably get you stuck on all the wreckage that has been scattered through out the river due to the heavy flows and the slow water here wasn't always near the edges. I'm not sure how many flies we lost that day, pretty insane really. The fishing was OK at best, more of a challenge than anything. The fish were beat up, hammered and looked exhausted. One rainbow in particular was shaped like a lightning bolt, stricken with whirling disease? Perhaps.

Moving up river a few miles the water was violent, the higher we went the more power it had. It was truly amazing, scary and reverent all at the same time. We got out and fished the beast. I can't believe the fish can survive that kind of constant pounding, wow. The fish were smaller but they were wild, unsoiled and beautiful. I truly appreciated them and their struggle to survive. Time to move on.

Hit a few areas on the way home with a few more fish to hand. Then scoped out various water systems for further ideas before making it back to camp. Grizz grilled the trout while I was busy trying to take a few pics with the good light…hope the weather hold for the last day…