2023 Fish-Pic-O-Rama

[Rasputin]

There was a fresh covering of snow outside when I got up today, so I thought it would be a good day to go fishing. I pedaled the 3.8 miles to the boat ramp, and arrived about 1 pm. After a half dozen disinterested casts into the churn, I waded over to the spot I'd caught three of them on Friday, the first cast there yielded the first fish of the day, a chubby little trout.





Fishing in a winter wonderland:








I caught four whitefish and two trout in three hours. The whitefish were all respectable size, this was a thick 15", caught on a #12 Pat's rubber legs, in coffee brown. All the other fish took the red beadhead Copper John which was trailing.





The sun tried to break through, but only got this far:





A little ways up the Bitterroot, I caught my last fish of the day (the smallest of the whitefish today), then weakly hooked, and quickly lost, two in a row. I knew it was time to saddle up and head home. A good afternoon on the river.

[romeo tango]

considering the growth of Missoula/Bitterroot valley the past few decades and
the influx of Northern Pike in the Clark Fork,
I'm impressed and encouraged by the number of large, healthy trouts being caught

,

[Rasputin]

I'm sure there are any number of old timey locals who would tell you it ain't what it used to be by a far cry, and they would probably be right, but I'm not complaining; every time I go out, I go with the awareness that I might get into a big fish, and it's not all that unlikely to catch my biggest one yet. I still haven't caught a twenty incher, but they certainly are in there.