Fishing Our Way Home II

We spent the night in Dillon, met our guide at the fly shop the next morning, and headed to the river.

It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day, but despite our guide's best efforts, the fishing didn't match the day. Pretty water, but not a lot of trout were found, and those that were found were less than giant sized. That's the way fishing is sometimes!

We drifted by some pretty real estate also.

By the end of the drift, we were less concerned about fishing the Big Hole and more interested in whether we would have time to visit Poindexter one more time before we headed to Missoula that night. We got off the river late, and by the time we were back to the fly shop and our car, it was about 45 minutes to sundown. No problem. We made it to Poindexter about 30 minutes before sunset, and there were several cars in the lot. Grabbing our rods we practically ran downstream and started fishing the later part of the run we had fished the previous night. With dark approaching fast, we speed-fished, hopscotching each other up the stream searching for the most willing fish. We found a few but not like the night before. Voices distantly heard from upstream and fresh bootprints in the mud made us think we were probably fishing behind someone. As dark approached, we hit fresh water and had a little last flurry of action. Then it was sadly time to leave Poindexter so we could get to our hotel and get a little sleep before our final day fishing our way home.

We decided to give head home by way of Nunya (all roads lead to Nunya when Tom and I are together). It being a Saturday, and arriving midday, we were not sure what we we would find. Bad news. Several vehicles, a couple guys camped and getting ready to head out fishing said there were two other groups already out. Not what we were hoping for. But resourceful brothers that we are, we found our way to a part of the stream free from fisherman and found some rainbows that matched the browns we had found in Poindetxter.

Nice Nunya bows

Beautiful fish

That's a Montana-sized smile!

After a couple hours, we decided to call it a day. While I wouldn't say we were tired of fishing after more than a week, we were satisfied enough to be able to head for home with big smiles and no regrets.