Well it’s been springtime in Montana, which is just an extension of winter, lol. Example, last 48 hrs winds been blowing steady 20-25, with gusts 50-70 in some parts of the state, then this morning woke up with 2-3 inches covering the ground and mountains with much more.
Anyway I found a day last week with relatively little wind and high of 60, and finally got the boat out. I trolled up and down the river with bottom bouncers and crankbaits, and threw crankbaits and jigs to no avail. I finally got a bite but it just stole the night crawler. This kept me out there for at least another hour.
Eventually I relented to that ‘smell’ in the boat.
Well as I got closer to the ramp I see three guys that pulled up in there boat and with fly rods started fishing from the docks. They were just killing the rainbows that were stacked up in spawn mode. I got in there and docked my boat, and those guys were really nice and shared with me what they were biting on.
After getting my boat out of the water, I said to myself that I got skunked in the boat but darned if I’m getting skunked for the day! Of course I didn’t have my fly rod with me, nor any flies. The guys said the trout were eating small black leeches or woolly buggers. So I matched the hatch with what I had with me and tied on a little black maribou jig. Walked down to the docks and first cast, bam a nice fat 20” probably 3 lb rainbow.
I don’t know if the smell is out of the boat, but I sure got it off my clothes!