Report From Montana

[BilletHead]

Neat photos Al. We have also fished at the campground up there a ways. One time many moons ago in 1984 me, my cousin and a friend went up bow hunting with three flat land horses. Hauled them up there in a fifth wheel trailer behind a half ton truck. Broke an axle on the truck on the way back near Ogallala Nebraska. Fun times when you are young and not so smart. Back then you could get a sportsman tag for 325 bucks. Included bear, elk, deer, small game and fishing. We parked at the end of the mill creek road and rode in a long ways scouting. We camped on a mountain top. It is amazing I am still alive from that trip. This was before I started fly fishing but I remember riding next to a pond in the timber up there where you could see trout swimming around. I also remember my cousin leaving a wool Pendleton shirt my grandpa gave me, I outgrew it and gave it to my cousin. It was hanging on a tree branch up there somewhere. We ended up hunting behind dome mountain just East of the Carbella access. Up the Joe Brown trail. Boy I love that country. Will miss it and Wyoming this August.

BilletHead

[ness]

The ness family has never made the trek over there, and it's bugging me. This was gonna be the year, had done the early stages of planning, but early in the year that plan started to fall apart. Baby girl decided to take classes this summer and squeeze in a week as a camp counselor for kids with spina bifida. (Kinda hard to find fault with her summer plans). One of the boys got invited out to NC for a convention. Etc. So, it's gonna be 2014, and I'm starting to work on it. Gonna have to pay closer attention to these posts.

[mic]

Mitch, no chiggers and very few ticks, which is one of the really nice things about out here in the summer, the other nice thing being that even with air temps in the 90s as long as you're in the shade it's very comfortable because of the lack of humidity.

Mark, basically you just have to accept that people will be wading the river next to the house. Like Missouri law is supposed to be, Montana law is that anywhere within the river's high banks, the public has a right to wade and fish. Fortunately, most of the people floating the river don't bother to stop and wade through the smaller channel that runs next to the house. And for whatever reason, there are very few river dorks on the Yellowstone, and the ones that are there are simply floating by in rafts or inner tubes. There may be 100 different boatloads of people going by the house on a nice weekend day, but absolutely none of them have ever been obnoxious. The difference between this and Missouri streams is striking.

There's one kid who lives a few hundred yards upstream who comes down and fishes the island, builds forts out of the driftwood, and otherwise messes around, almost always by himself, along the river. He reminds me of me when I was a kid and I'm happy to see him doing that instead of playing video games all day. His dad occasionally comes with him or walks the dog, and has fished the island a few times. My closest neighbor fishes the island about once a month. Otherwise, once the water goes down to where the driftboats and rafts can't run "my" channel, I almost never see anybody fishing it.

Al, I've said it before and I'll say it again....

PLEASE ADOPT ME.