A Hot, Hot, Hot Group Three Day Two!

What a difference a week makes in these here parts!  Last week the Tattoos were comfortably cruising rivers and sweeping up gaggles of fish with temps in the mid 60’s and this week Dem Threes saw the mercury rise to 101 degrees (a 25 degree shift!) with the fish showing their poutiness as a result.  Day Two for Dem Threes yielded their first 20” fish, landed by veteran Rodger “Doctor” Schuester who just made the board with his twenty inch Clark Fork cuttbow and who is shown above not only with his bounty but also with his registering the yield onto our Twenty Inch Club Board and then doffing his brand new Yellow Hat [see separate posting for an honorary Twenty Ticket Yellow Hat awarded to long in the crack veteran Scott “Crack” McAdams].

 

At the beginning of their boat report, the assembled Threes asked “who is that new guy” only to be informed that Scott “Anti-Flash” Gordon had, after 48 struggling hours, finally made his appearance on the Extravaganza scene [likewise, see separate posting], whereupon Anti-Flash picked right up where his boat mate Kjeld “Cal” Hestehave had left of (ad nausea) on the mistrials of trying to catch a non-connecting 2 hour flight from SFO to MSO.  It seems that Anti-Flash (who missed his flight while trying to check baggage in the SFO UAL “Premier Line”) ended up finally hitching a flight to Denver 48 hours later and, literally, twittering his way up on the standby list to take (literally) the last incoming DIA-MSO seat, he being heard to rumble in his 6’3” baritone voice to the UAL agent there, “I had better get on that flight or it is going to get ugly here!”  Trashing UAL on Twitter had its impact as he was contacted by the UAL offended Twitter monitors and assured that, if he would just shut up (or whatever you do via equivalent on Twitter) they would “see what they could do.”  Well, they did resultantly move him from third to first on the standby list and, get this, there was only one standby seat to be called.  Well, when I last saw Anti-Flash this morning he was waltzing into Wal-Mart around 8:00 a.m. to try to get a fishing license (after leaving his wallet at Headquarters, resulting in yet further delay and diversion for this true rookie Extravaganzer!).  But I digress (as did he!)…

 

Fishing reports yielded expectedly lower fish counts and sizes as a result of the near record setting soaring temperatures.  Scott “Crack” McAdams told of a Rolling Stone and singing “I Can’t Get No Caddis Action” “but I tried, I tried, and I tried” under the watchful eye of our Double Up Outfitter John “The Great But Propaneless” Gould with the assistance of Tim “Four More Years” Aldrich—netting twenty fish, the biggest being of the 17” variety, for their Bitterroot efforts and informing His Gouldness “it sure would be a lot cooler here if you rowed faster!”  Sweetness was included in this report as Tim, at RCR’s request, told of his father Don’s path-paving successful 1970’s efforts to set the environmental course for Western Montana—a course that Tim and the rest of us yet travel with stunning vistas and unfettered successes!

 

Other Rooters included Martin “Madman” O’Malley and wife Cindy’s day which pridefully bestowed on them the landing of a 4” grandson of the fish they thought that they were fishing for (a 16 incher being their biggest—so much for doubling up on Yellow Hats for Madman!); the SS/Chaos vessel of brother Kers and his sidekick/partner in confusion Cal who told of pike, squawfish, whiteys and anything of trout (Kers having such a dramatic impact on his fishing guides that, get this, the guides have gotten together and this Day Three morning have given him his now-new MT moniker of “Dead Drift”, and Cal still confused that a rod is really a pole and yet thinking that a pole is really a European citizen thereby deducting that all Poles really should be called “Rods”—egad!!); and the truly expert boat of Chuck “Helena” Ballweg and Ron “Denver” Naff sporting the same rootish river  with the hot day’s result being just a handful of fish, the largest being 17 ½”.

 

A fleet of boats hit the legendary Blackfoot River with RCR fishing in the open boat space left by Anti-Flash (then enroute to DIA from SFO) only to post a “slam” (see separate  posting) among the 25+ fish netted and helping all-too-frazzled veteran guide Chris Stroup straighten out the line of rookie Bob “Boo” Branstad.  Well, in doing so (successfully as BB by noon had quadrupled his Day One output) nymphing became the art form of the day with “Boo” now having to move away from his dad’s cane rod to a “bobber” (something most of the rest of us call “an indicator”, btw) and seeing before his very eyes the evolution of his Montana name to first “Bobber Bob” and then, ripely so, to “Sponge Bobber Bob”—congrats on a great day of fishing SBB!!  Not only was it fun for me to fish with you but also it was more than special to have floating with us my two prodigy, “Lefty Tyler” and “Boots Trina” who put on a bamboo casting exposition that led co-guide Scott Anderson to comment to Trina that “you should enter into a bamboo rod fly casting competition—your cast is that good!”.  Also on the River Runs Through It was all-rookie boat of Bill “STP” Black and Jim “Happy Hooker” Brubaker [see separate headline posting re HH landing his first MT fish and missing STP in the process!], the pair boating 9 native fish during their day and, during their float, drifting by our new Blackfoot house.

 

And that left the SS/Genser/Schuester as the last report to talk of their 17 fish day on the lower Clark Fork (where, I daresay, most of our Day Three boats will probably target this Day Three) and the landing of not only 18” rainbows but also “Doctor” Rodger’s Yellow Hat winning twenty inch cuttbow.

 

Indeed, a hot, hot, hot day it was!

 

RCR---<’///><