2 Sep 2008
Woke up to sunny skies! Cold sunny skies! Frost on the rigs however!!
Walked over to our new fave at the Copper Bowl for breakfast. Many people here most all locals and again the portions are mammoth. We don’t have time this trip but there is a 40 minute walking tour of the mine history on Cedar Street here in Anaconda. Waitress said it was pretty good but we didn’t go see it. We had a bout of lack of enthusiasm given the crummy weather yesterday and the "loss" of the Job Corps pond stream structure. Being cold again this morning made it a little harder to get going.
Stopped by Rainbow Sporting Goods (605 East Park, Anaconda, MT 59711
406-563-6150, 406-563-5080) where the owner (Gary Pearson) was just opening at 9
am when we arrived. We met his friendly black lab, oddly named “Blue”, and
picked up some flies which he ties himself and AM and JR snag very useful Hat
Eyes metal framed flip-down magnifiers for the fishing hats (mageyes.com). The
metal frame is desired as it is more durable than the ones with the plastic
frames.
Off to try the Big Hole River today. We head south over a set of hills dividing
the drainages on Highway 569 – high point in area is Mt. Haggen. Over the
continental divide again – something we continually will do on this trip. The
Big Hole appears as reach the East Bank Recreational area. It is cold and windy
(somewhat of a trend by now) at 45 F at 11:30 am. Met two fellows from Olympia,
WA on a week long fishing trip who were sitting on a bench looking at the river
– they were waiting for the weather to warm up so they could see some bugs
coming off the water and would have fish feeding. AB and AM went and flogged the
water along the bank by the boat launch without success anyway. If the guys from
Olympia were to wait until it warms up, they might be there until next spring!
Seeing little incentive in waiting for global warming to catch up with us, we
head down-river – checked out Dickie Bridge access – swung some nymphs but no
fish. Moving on.
Finally reached Melrose, MT (population 48?) and visited the Sunrise Fly Shop (sunriseflyshop.net)
Erik Thorson and Ryan Barba owners who we both met at the Meydenbauer Fly show
last winter. It is time to get dialed in!! Temps are now 55F and rising –
finally!
Erik Thorson, who got shop duty today, helped us select some girdle bugs, red copper johns, and sculpin patterns. I really, really liked the sculpin pattern but never caught a fish on it – looks like I might need remedial “sculpining”. The other flies were killers! Erik helped us access some semi-private water a stones throw from town – it was great! We caught browns (JR’s first), whitefish (huge WF!), and rainbows all afternoon and fished until about 7:30 pm – great day – AM got to wet wade so you know the temps were mild!! By 8 pm the temps were dropping fast down into the low 40’s. My first great day of fishing on the Big Hole for trout other than grayling (in 1997?)!
Heading back to Anaconda, we crossed the continental divide (again) via I-90.
Gassed up rigs in Anaconda where the convenience store has both a “beer cave”
and a drive up tobacco window. And, no, we didn’t see drive up signs for other
common vices!!
Back to the hotel, we called ahead for lodging the next night in West
Yellowstone. Dinner at the Copper Bowl again – AM/AB hit the casino where AM
finally won his tip money for the night. Yea!!