Our road trip began on July 24th a Sunday by that evening we were in Twin Bridges Montana a home away from home. Who do we immediately run into in the only grocery store for 30 miles, my good friend Dan Rooster Leavens. It’s been since 2012 since we worked together on the Big Hole, Jefferson, Beaverhead tri fecta. Of course, we went for drinks and some steaks at the “Roost”. There’s something to that saying never smoke weed with Willy again, well in Twin it’s never go drinking with Rooster on his day off, I’m sure the missed seasons may have been an excuse to overindulge.
It was a wonderful surprise to actually get in the boat with a good friend and colleague Seth McLean of Four River Fly Shop. I can’t say enough of his abilities as a fishing guide shop owner. There’s only a few of them left in the west that operate shops and full-time guiding, Seth and Chris Knot have it going on, great guides, lodging and frankly knows every inch of every mile of water in the area.
Of course, we met up with Jamie Laya the chef we use at my Wild Duc Lodge, she came along on the Wyoming portion of the trip to fish and accommodate what she does best Cooking and Fishing!
By Thursday we met up with Jamie and Johnnie “Colorado” at our Wyoming location. We rent a house near the river for the 6 of us, Jamie manages the house and we have guides pick us up and fish three more days. Day one it was all about going for numbers, we found them in a big way, doubles are common on the is fishery and we made no exceptions!
Of course, Neal is an exceptionally aggressive angler so it’s only another day on his home water. He had a crew all lined up for us that fit the bill perfectly.
Day two, back to ALL DRIES and still double resume. we found great hopper fishing in the shallowest of fast water on our LOCAL YAKIMA patterns. This is such a great fishery, good populations of wild trout in a beautiful riverine atmosphere. Large brown trout eating big bugs in 1 ft of water!
Not my Largest dry fly trout of the trip but a special one. A great eat on the Jefferson River Brown trout everyone needs to relive memories or re make them whenever you can, and this fish did that for me!
Hopper Palooza 2023 can’t wait!
