Two boats, 4 anglers.
20 fish between us.
It was a training day for me. Practice on the oars. I'm telling you, keeping the boat off the rocks and right side up in these swifter rivers is a good workout. If I could do this everyday, I'd be svelte and smokin' hot. Well, as svelte and smokin' hot as a 5'5" tall, bald headed, middle aged dork can be anyway.
This is Deb, Joel's wife. She caught the first fish of the trip, the most fish of the trip and the biggest fish of the trip. That's yours truly standing in the river holding a net and trying to catch my breath.
We were near the end of the float and this thing ate right before a little swift set of rapids. I was trying to row to keep up with the fish and hoping it didn't break off. Got lucky.
Next day I rowed the Bitterroot. Had Joel in the back of the boat and Marty up front. It was a tough day with higher water. March browns were all over the place but no risers. Joel caught one fish on a march brown spinner dry early in the float.
He was wanting to try a streamer so I tied on a tandem hook, articulated, black meat whistle that Woodsman tied up and sent me. About 3 casts later Joel was hooked up. After a brief battle, the fish broke off. Dang it. It was a really nice fish. Got to see it twice. I'd guess 5 pounds. Not a monster but really would have saved the day.
While I was looking through my box for another big black streamer, Joel tied on his own big black wooly bugger. We were drifting along and I had Marty cast to a spot of color. Nice brownie came up to eat but missed his golden stone dry. I hollered at Joel to toss his bug in there. He ate again. Came up with this. Nice fish, but probably only 3/4ths as big as the broke off brown. Still a great day.