************ [Begin obscure fly fishing report from Bitterroot River]************

Yesterday your sometimes Montana correspondent was called for jury duty in Missoula County Justice Court. It was a drunken driving case and I got dismissed from the juror pool almost immediately.

Turns out the simple act of tying a string noose really really does get the attention of defense attornies.

I spent the rest of the hot, sunny day exploring.

Skwallas are essentially played out on the Bitterroot. The favored surface food item there is now the Ameletus mayfly. Local guides call them “March Browns”.

The Ameletus mayfly (or, March Brown in date only)

Strictly speaking, that’s a calendar thing- the insects are neither Art Flick’s beloved Stenonema vicarium nor the early Rhitrogenea that emerge on the Willamette and throughout the Rockies.

Ameletus duns have mottled-wings and two tails. Their general color scheme is gray with just a hint of brown in the wing. As they float on the surface (something they do for extremely long, trout-provoking lengths of time) they look much larger than they really are.

A fly tied on a large size-14 like the barbless Daiichi 1199 imitates their size quite well.

The mild irony is that, despite the nomenclature confusion, a fly tied with Whiting “March Brown” hackle absolutely rocks during the hatch.

Then I discovered a bonanza of Skwallas in a totally unexpected place. They were crawling all over; clambering and mating.

It's love at first antennae wag for the Bitterroot's Skwalas, which have run their course.

Their mini-tarantula grasping on the back of my neck so annoying that I finally tossed all caught offenders into the creek, so it became a day of prompt justice after all.

In these pictures you see much smaller size and atrophied wings of the males. In an interesting display of parallel evolutionary development, this wasting is shared by the males who frequent western Montana’s multitude of casinos.

Signed, [Name Redacted]

The Undergrounders know of my consuming love for the little trickles, and revisiting a couple favorites from last year’s Montana road trip didn’t involve a lot of arm twisting.

Name Redacted on his way to the stream.

That storm clouds were gathering when we arrived didn’t matter – after two days of bigger water, I hit this little stream like a racehorse breaking from the gate.

Then again, I seem to have a thing with storms, and this trip was no exception; seconds after I caught a 15.5″ cutthroat (a great big fish for a stream this size), a lightning bolt struck a ridge a couple miles away, and [name redacted] and I found ourselves moving rapidly back to the truck.

A distressingly poor picture of my 15.5" cutthroat trout

Not only was the cutthroat the biggest I’d caught, but it was also the most colorful – a stunning mix of reds, oranges, yellows and colors I can’t quite identify.

You know that colors fade quickly underwater, but emotionally, you can’t quite grasp the idea that these trout actually are that wildly colorful.

The neon-painted cutthroats nicely echoed the wildflowers, which – due to a cool, wet spring – were now carpeting vast swatches of meadow.

Take these, add several other colors & species, then multiply by thousands of acres.

In fact, the blooms mimicking the shape of an elephant’s head were almost as intriguing as the cutthroat trout (maybe if they would eat a parachute):

They're mind-numblingly complex, and yes, they really do like like elephant heads.

Then again, sometimes you simply get too wrapped up in the fly fishing to notice:

In a turnabout for the Underground, I'm fly fishing, he's shooting (photo by name redacted)

The Fly Fishing Itself

This is a remote stretch of stream that doesn’t get fished much, but you won’t catch a lot of trout by looming over the water and waving your 8′ long arm around – even if that long arm is a gorgeously impregnated 8′ 5wt Phillipson Peerless bamboo fly rod.

Trout, it turns out, don’t respect a brand name fly rod.

[Name redacted] fished the 8.5′ 4wt Diamondglass he bought only days after fishing mine on last year’s Montana Road Trip, suggesting he’s a fast learner.

Even better, [name redacted] knows this stream (and cutthroats) well, and after the storm passed, we managed hook a sizable number of Westslope cutthroats – mostly on caddis dries.

Name Redacted didn't catch a trout this cast, but the next...

In a foolish attempt to find the real truth about the waterproof nature (or lack thereof) of Underground’s Official Point and Shoot digital camera, we went for an underwater photo:

He's not all that happy, but he did get to go home in a few seconds.

The bad news? The camera really isn’t waterproof any more.

Still, it only fogged up for a little while, but camera problems are starting to appear with distressing frequency. Tomorrow’s “fishing a tiny meadow stream” report suffers from a distressing lack of photographs due to battery issues – but you’ll still want to tune in.

For now, we’re back at home, I’ve got one more day to report (this on a tiny meadow stream some of you will recognize from last year’s report), and we may be headed to Georgetown Lake in pursuit of bigger trout (and fewer aching knees).

I think the Montana Road Trip 2009 is finding its stride, and while I’m sore from all the walking, climbing, wading, driving and sleeping on the ground, I’m willing to do more – willing to make the big sacrifices for my readership.

Wipe the tears of pity from your eyes, Undergrounders. We’re going back in.

See you somewhere in Montana, Tom Chandler.