August

I got up fairly early the next morning, in the rain, and ate breakfast in town, a place for sale by a somewhat indifferent woman and an adorable four year old Mexican kid. Good huevos, too. And chocolate milk.

I headed over to the West Fork of the Bitterroot, the place I was supposed to be the night before. It had rained off and on all night, but for now had cleared up. I stayed on the lower part of the river until it began raining heavily, then packed it in. Fishing was dismal, no rises or hits, and I kept smelling something rotten deep in the willow thickets behind me, making me nervous. Ah well.
















I drove through the rain over to the East Fork, where I was planning to spend the night at another Forest Service campground. I worked my way upstream in the occasional rain, catching a mix of browns, rainbows, and cuttbows. It was a pretty river, but it could be better- it’s had more than its fair share of damage due to irrigators. It was fun though, biggest I caught was a twelve-inch cuttbow. Cracklebacks and other prospecting-type dry flies were the ticket.

The campground was gorgeous and uncrowded, and the gatekeeper awfully nice, if not a bit stoned. It rained. A lot. It was fun.