It was an overcast and cool morning. A perfect day for fishing.
I was fishing in Joe Moore's boat with SteveL today and we began the day at Holter Dam. It was the Friday before the 4th of July and people were beginning to pour onto the Missouri River with watercraft of all types for fishing or partying. Our original plan was to fish an area further down river but a tragic drowning the previous afternoon and an ongoing search and recovery effort by the sheriff's department put an end to that float.
Despite the crowd both boats were immediately into fish. Guides Joe Moore and Greg Falls lined us up off a gravel bar and both boats took turns rowing up to the head of the bar then drifting down river as we caught trout after trout on the drift. You could see the other boats slowly begin to edge closer and closer to us as we continued to fish and when we finally left another boat slid into the area but as we moved down river I saw nobody on that boat hook any fish.
We stopped for lunch on the backside of an island and we were able to do some wade fishing. SteveL fished the top of the current that was coming off the tip of the island and was slaying them. Jin watched for awhile then stepped up and hooked a fish on his first cast. Tom got into it too, picking off trout. I got my share and lost a few too.
Later in the afternoon Joe set us up for some dry fly fishing and SteveL jumped four fish then got his first rainbow on the dry. I picked up a decent rainbow after missing two and we continued to dry fly fish for the rest of the trip as we made our way to the take out ramp.
EQUIPMENT: We used 6-weight rods, floating lines and fluorocarbon leaders for deep nymphing. Our dry fly rods were 5-weights with leaders and tippet that measured between 9 to 12-feet long. Watch out with that backcast!