Montana Fishing

 Casual is about the best way for me to describe it in one word. I guess the biggest thing I've noticed is Montana fishermen DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET OUT OF BED !....My goodness the Orvis bunch who throw flies while floating down the river have to wait until the donut/ latte shop opens which coincides with the first warmth of the day which make the ' terrestrials ' emerge. And it looks to me like the Lake fishermen have to wait until they gas up at 8:00 a.m. when the Town Pump finally sells beer. The local Lake Como is only 10 miles from my house and it's gorgeous, big , clean and wilderness. I've now been up there 5 or 6 times and have yet to not be the first one to launch. The other day we waited as I had to work on my downriggers and didn't get to the lake until 9:30 and yup, first one off the beach. Tuesday morning MP and I left the house at 6:00 and launched at 6:30, who would miss that magic moment ? The lake is flat calm and Herons walked the shoreline. A nice brisk 3 mile run brings us to the head of the lake where it's so quiet you can here both waterfalls rushing down the canyons.....here's the Inlet of the lake with a bridge that we're going to use when we work up to circumnavigating the lake by foot path. But for now floating and fishing is just fine.

And a pic of the captain...as I rigged more experimentals she ran the boat most of the morning. We caught just one nice trout that morning, maybe that's the reason people don't get out of bed but me, I't a challenge to learn and the chase...well that's all there is. I'm learning to run the riggers, tie nots in line that I can't see onto the @#$^ damn sharpest little hooks I've ever worked with and I haven't asked a soul how to do it, just me and some intuition...and forget about doing the ol ' seagull ' thing that I've seem hundreds of times in Alaska...there's nobody to follow !

So we fish until 11:00 when it's hitting 75 degree's it's time for team 003 to retreat ... just as several launchers and an entire flotilla of kayaker's are arriving. You talk about casual, letting your kids kyak in 53 degree water with no life jackets.....mmmm....

And the boats....what a fine collection of vintage watercraft there is around here. I was going to say junk but it just seems to be a different mind set here, the guy with this boat told me he was working on a 1963 Shasta camper to go with is boat.

Those are the motors of my youth.  Evinrude 18 h.p. V twins, about the same size and weight of the 50 horse I run now.... These are the motors that started the twin outboard motor craze for safety, one of them is sure to run most of the time eh ?  These are the motors that my dad, brother and I were towed in from Sawmill bay out of Valdez Alaska in 1965, these are the motors that had us pulling the rental boat along the shoreline back to the lodge on Paxton Lake Alaska in 1964.  These are the motors that we had on our skiffs and well...helped along the events of July 26th 1973.  Guess I'm a boat snob but when the guy told me " they run like hell once you get them started " I thought no thanks. I'll take and EFI 4-strock with four cylinders of quiet dependable performance.

I know it's been a while sense I've written....the Hot Springs tour is still on of course. We went back to Jackson which is our favorite developed hot water and now we've found two hike in natural springs. The first one is just over the Idaho Border at Jerry Johnson. We got a late start and quite a few people were there. It's mile and a half in and of course a mile and a half out. Beautiful canopied Forrest and a nice trail, nice hike for sure.

The smell of the cedar Forrest is fantastic and new to us, we both agreed that the lush vegetation and abundant water combined with the Cedar reminded us of southeast Alaska.

We were told that there are three pools but the third one had fallen into the river where we could see hot water gushing from the rocks. Of the the other two pools the first is kind of the kids pool and the next is kind of the adult pool if you follow the unwritten body language of the place....hehe...So, I only got pictures of the first pool, what gorgeous place eh ? Next week we're going to be there just  like Lake Como at sun up, the best part of the day...I'll bet the hike in hot springs crowd have trouble getting out of bed as well.

The other night I set up to practice. I have about 5 new songs I'm working on, it might be  four to many...but, I turned on the amp, tuned the Godin and this old song just fell off my lips, I used to sing it in the 70's and can't even tell you the last time I sang it before this... MP said we need to get that on tape so I did it again....don't worry about me, I'm feeling fine...and I'll write more.