We took a little drive and fished a lake north of Livingston. Jim said he was getting to the point where he didn't want to deal with the fast pace of rivers. As we approached the lake on the far side of a ranch, we could see a few fish rising. calebedis were coming off heavy. We rigged up and I shoved off with the boat. Jim was casting from shore and stuck this beauty that Mark is holding up on a hopper. A few moments later a fish exploded on the hopper Jean was fishing. We missed it, who knows how. It was the most explosive take I've seen.
After cruising the edges and Jim and Mark launching their boat it became clear that the fish were not going to eat dries consistently. After we ate a little lunch I started to work the puzzle. The fish I was seeing on the surface were breaching not eating, so I figures they were eating emerging nymphs, but which ones. I put on a damsel nymph and a large skinny pheasant tail. With one split shot I told Jean to cast and let her line sink. Then strip back very slow and steady. On the 5th cast we hooked up and landed a beauty.
Soon Mark was next to me. Although he was skeptical, he took a few of the skinny PT's and within two casts Jim was hooked up. For about two hours we hooked and landed many nice rainbows, breaking off a bunch in the weeds as well.
As thunderstorms began to appear on the horizon the proverbial calm before the storm produced some cruisers rising well enough to catch on dries. Jim went back to the shore and caught one a damsel dry and missed another. we missed one before Jean decided to pull the plug. Mark and Jim thrashed the water for another hour before secoming just before the rain started.
The icing on the cake of this day was Jim and Jean added 7 new birds to their trip list bringing the total for Montana this year up to 101. They were curlew, godwick, sharptailed grouse, eared grebe, prairie falcon... and I cant remember the rest.
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