Spring Thaw

Missoula is an amazing place to live.  There are very few cities where you have access to multiple fisheries within 30 miles of your home and actually would want to live.  Warm sun and rising temps have been making their occasional appearance, and with this year’s early signs of spring comes amazing fishing.

Zack and I have been busier than usual, not allowing us to get many days on the water.  Between school, work, and planning some big projects, we are lucky if we make it to the river once a week.  Although our days have been minimal, we have managed to land more big fish than ever before.  I myself am having a record book year, landing 3 of my biggest rainbows to date.  Our latest day on the water took us to the frigid waters of the west, and  would be our first day testing some newly acquired gear.

We had just gotten a few fine products in the mail and we’re excited to break them in right.  The Yeti Tundra 50 was full of the goods; beer, sandwiches, and cookies.  After a mildly sketch drive to our location we saw the river and our emotions began to rise.  Today would be the first day for us to break out the new rods and reels from Orvis and see if we could show them a good time on some of Montana’s finest waters.  We put together the Helios 2 rods in weights 5 and 7 and pulled out a couple sexy Mirage reels.  We’re not the kind of guys to get too picky over how nice or good looking our setups are as apparent by looking at Zack’s old Echo rod and Ross reel but damn these two Orvis setups look good.  Function is priority number one and we quickly waded across to the far bank so we could get to casting.  I had the 5 wt. with a double nymph setup and Zack was below me in the run with the 7wt and a streamer.  On my second cast I saw my indicator dip and I was hooked up with a 26 inch rainbow.  Yes, you read it correctly.  My first hole, second cast with the new fly rod, and I was listening to the Mirage reel scream as I got bent over by a monster rainbow.  Did I mention Zack hooked into a nice brown trout seconds later on a streamer?  We were doubled-up and the circus had started.  Zack managed to fight his brown trout and net my monster rainbow all at the same time!  Crazy is right.  Below is a sequence that Stan shot of the madness that went down.

^ Click for larger sequence ^

Zack managed to net my rainbow while still fighting a spunky brown.  After a quick holler, I grabbed the net and quickly scooped up his seemingly small brown trout.

It was definitely a surreal moment.  We quickly snapped a few photos of the two trout and sent the brown back on his way.  It was time to pull the big boy out and preserve what may be my biggest rainbow for a long time.

He was a fine specimen and I felt truly blessed to catch such an awesome fish.  Again this is another reason I love Montana, you really can catch steelhead here haha.  We were off to a great start, and we didn’t stop hammering fish.  The following photos speak for themselves.

To summarize our March day of fishing in one word, it would be stupefying.  We brought a wheel barrow full of different trout species to the Larkin Works net (rainbow, cutthroat, brown, and bull trout).

The next day we received our new HDSLR.  I don’t like to talk about it, but a couple weeks ago I dropped our at the time brand spanking new camera.  The body cracked, but fortunately we had insurance.  The bad thing is I had to send out our camera and we won’t be seeing it for over a month.  We have some badass projects in the works over the next two months, and with no choice, I had to go broke funding another camera.  Oh well, the investment continues.  The next morning Zack and myself headed out for an early morning fishing/photo trip. We had to test out the new Nikon and see if the mojo surrounding the new rods and reels was as good as it seemed.

The temperature read 19 degrees as we left the truck.  It was frigid and freezing and we had left our gloves at home.  After about a half hour it appeared that some mojo still remained as I managed to hook a fat football of a rainbow.  He was chunky and spunky, and gave our new camera the test we were looking for regardless of poor lighting conditions.  We packed up our frozen streamers and headed back to Missoula, to slave away at another night of work.

Overall I can say I love the new rods and reels from Orvis.  I never really thought a high-end setup would be worth the money that they often cost but I can say I was wrong.  The way they cast is in another league and helps you get the fly in the right spot more often and a lot more easily.  We’ll continue to try to sneak out over the coming weeks so we’ll have more photos and blog posts coming at you soon!  Fishing is just starting to get HOT.  We have a handful of awesome projects/films planned for this year.  I cannot tell you how excited I am for 2013.  God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.

-Travis