Here's the fly Pat Barnes caught the (above) fish on. The Pat Barnes Scud. I have a few more photos of him somewhere, in backup disk land, but I haven't found them yet. I have a bunch of 35mm slides that haven't been scanned yet too. Are there 8 days in a week?



>> https://montana-riverboats.com/?robopag ... s-Scud.jpg << a few more Pat Barnes flies here

And I thought the head down, bowing to the fish, was a new pose.

Keep the photos and stories coming.

I have one more Pat Barnes story. Actually I have a dozen or more but this one did come to mind. No photo to go with but it is an interesting story.

The day above was the first of several Lower Missouri River trips I made with Pat. That day it was just the two of us. I rowed most of the way but not for all of it. When we got to the Hardy Rapids (which are a riffle at best) Pat showed me a secret of his. Lots of people stop and fish there but miss what he showed me. A pretty big spring fed slough enters there. During mayfly hatches fish move into that slough from above and you can catch big fish in shallow water, although you do have to fish downstream to get them. They're vulnerable and exposed there so they move out the minute the hatch is over.

At the bottom of that slough, back in the willow bushes there was a pile of crawfish skins four feet wide and 4" inches tall, left there by generations of raccoons. Pat lived and worked (he was a school teacher for a long time) in Helena and told me it had been there for as long as he could remember.

About ten years ago an exceptionally high water year washed all those crawfish skins away. Now it's ten years later and they're starting to build up again. Although nothing like they used to be. Not yet anyway.

So I almost always fish crawfish there. At the Hardy Rapids. Where that spring fed channel flows it (actually it's mostly irrigation diversion, but it is spring fed too). I don't think I necessarily catch more fish that way--fishing crawdad patterns--but they do work well there. From the Hardy bridge on down there is good big-fish fishing for 200 or 300 yards. And they do like crawfish flies. Especially late in the day. You take out at Pelican Point on that float. If it isn't pitch black when you take your boat out you've made a big mistake. The best fishing all happens late.

Wow. Thanks for the reminder that for all that seems to change, most of it really stays the same.