Fish of the Year

 

Well, it is the best fish we've caught so far this year but to be fair, I've only had the boat on the water one day...yesterday and it was only March 4th. This is Scott Hirschi; on-air personality for the Mighty Mo, podcast collaborator on The Montana Dream Cast, and fly fishing enthusiast with his fish of the day.

 

So how was the fishing? In one word I'd say, solid. We only fished for about 4 1/2 hours and landed about 15 fish.

 

I hate when people put numbers out there so let me just explain. Everyone's definition of a good day is different. Some folks would be happy with just one fish like this and some of us might have a little higher expectations; at least for the number of fish caught although, that's a really good brown and something anyone would be proud of. It is March and the water is very cold and you can be assured that fish are still going to be pretty lethargic so 15 fish in 4 1/2 hours is pretty good and is a good place to set the bar. And the reality is, is we weren't really trying that hard. We didn't recycle or sit on runs when we found fish. We did try different bugs at times just to see if we could get them to eat something different and we still did pretty well. AND, I fished left handed for the last half hour and still landed a few...(I also accidentally punched John LaRue, who was rowing at the time, in the back of the head while stripping in line, landing a fish. It's very awkward and I must have gotten a little lose. Sorry John.)

 

So what were they eating? The same stuff they always seem to eat this time of year on the Mo. Pink. We caught most of the fish on a rainbow Czech (which has a pink collar,) and a few on a fire-bead sow. Oh yeah, and I have to regrettably report that the brown was on a pink lightening bug...I don't think I own a pink lightening bug anymore so it wasn't my idea. We did see some midges and a few sporadic fish coming up on them but not enough to really target. We didn't throw streamers because we wimped out and didn't want to get our hands cold. When I say we I mean one of us...but again, nobody really wanted to work that hard and we had fun doing what we were doing, which was giving each other a good dose of crap, drinking a couple beers, and catching a few fish.

 

Keep 'em where they live...