The Mighty Mo Blows

I've been out a few times on the Missouri in the past week and unfortunately, have been blown off the river each time. Last Saturday I took a couple friends from Helena down to Cascade. The winds were out of the South West at around 25-30 mph, which makes for a quick float but not all that productive. We were managing a few fish on streamers and although it was work, we had enough action to keep our interests up. At around 1:00, we rounded a corner and found a little break from the wind. There were a few fish sipping midges in a spot that was definitely doable. I grabbed my dry fly rig and began the stock. At about 1:05, the sun came out and before I could even get a cast in, the fish went down. We didn't touch another fish for a couple hours until the clouds came back and the fish came out of hiding. Big black and hairy was the flavor of the day when they were on.

I took one of the kids I work with out on Monday and just got hammered by the wind. At one point there were white caps blowing straight downstream and cross winds at about 40 mph making fishing impossible. It was so bad all I could do was hold on to the oars to keep the boat moving straight with the wind; a 3 mile float took about an hour after trying to fish for a little while and then just giving up. The little dude did stick a really nice bow right in front of a couple spin fishermen, which was pretty cool.

Knowing today was bringing some much needed snow, I took the little guy out again yesterday and again, the winds blew straight downstream in 20's. At least it's consistent. A good lesson for me was when at one point I referred to the wind as evil and, since the little dude is autistic, he takes those kinds of comments quite literally. It gave us something to talk about for a few hours.

Tomorrow will be another day as long as I can find a partner/guinea pig. The water temps were at 41 degrees coming out of the dam this morning. Big browns should be waking up, looking for much needed protein to make up for a long lethargic winter. Bigger bugs should also start hatching and hopefully, the pigs will start moving into feeding lanes to take advantage of the hatches. The next few weeks should start to get good.

Keep 'em where they live...