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With the teaching job in full swing again, I am back to two gigs. I had to work the past two Saturdays, and I try to spend time at home given that it is our youngest child’s last year with us before college. So, my fishing windows are few.

Plus, this sounds bougie, but Montana was so great that fishing elsewhere after that has been anti-climactic.

But, as always, the fishing bug got to me. I woke up Saturday morning at my usual 4 am and looked up the USGS gauges. As expected, the rain was causing the flows to surge. But it looked like I had a window of opportunity if I targeted the morning.

The river was at 700 cfs when I arrived and I decided to fish streamers on my Euro rod while wading downstream. I figured it would be too much to fight the currents by going upstream.

The water was discoloring quickly, and there was a ton of leaves in the drift. I decided to throw bright flies or ones with some motion. There were no takes on streamers. I did catch a few with a dead drift when I hit the quiet seams.

At one point while standing in the middle of the river, I felt the current push me off my feet. I scrambled to an island and saw that I couldn’t cross to the shore from it. Eventually I found a quiet spot above the island and made it to the bank without too much trouble. I crossed paths with a fishing buddy, who told me the river was at 1,400 cfs.

For the rest of the day, we found quieter water. I landed a few tiny browns, and it was nice to see these juvenile wilds. One of the nice things about fly fishing is that you never know what you’re going to find.

It was a lot of driving for just a few fish. The fall foliage was stunning though, and it was nice to be outside.

Today, I will go to Church and later watch the Patriots take on the Bills. My expectations are quite low for the latter, and we will see much fight our guys have.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.