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While packing for my trip, I fired up an old IBM T40 laptop I have laying around the house literally collecting dust. I just wanted to see if it still worked. I figured I'd use it to transfer my photo's from my camera's memory card to the laptop drive for storage and safe keeping. Of course if there was that slim chance of an internet connection in a town with a fly shop, a gas station, a bar, and a diner, I'd take full advantage of it.
Sitting in the diner, I took out my iPod and watched one of those Rise Form videos on how to European nymph with Aaron Jaspar.
Ohhh come on now... So with my iPod in my hand, I have it search for some wireless connections. Wouldn't you know it, "Bo's Chevron" right across the street from the Blue Whale diner has an unsecured connection! Right on, "Bo"! Now you know when, Bo, chose to use his money for an internet connection instead of a new set of pearly whites, Montana means business (as far as the internet is concerned) and has its priorities in check!
Before I continue, let me mention a little something about the Blue Whale diner / restaurant. This place is SPOTLESS. It's a 50's themed type of place with lots of original old goodies hanging around. The food was good and the people were super friendly. They're closed on Mondays, but not to take the day off... They actually dedicate Mondays for cleaning. If that's not clean enough for you, they have what they call, "Employee Ketchup". So what is, "Employee Ketchup"? You know when you're in the diner late at night and you see the waitress's emptying the 1/2 filled containers into each other. Let's face it, there's a chance you might be getting some pretty old ketchup. Not at the Blue Whale. Those 1/2 filled ketchup containers are emptied into another bin for employee use and brand spanking new bottles of ketchup are put into service! Ok... reality kicks in. Have you ever had a bad bottle of ketchup? What are the chances. Anyhow, if you're ever in the area and need a quick fix, this place is my choice for Twin Bridges.
Onward... We stayed at xxxxx xxxxxxx. There's a reason I don't mention the name but I'll get to that later. Ok, I'll get to it now. As nice as these people were, they are penny pinchers. I had a bill come out to 61.75. I had some loose change in my pocket. Out of that change, at least .10 cents were in the form of pennies. The owner asked me if they were all there. I counted them but jesus H christ.... Who the **** asks if all of the pennies were there? I told her to count them over just to be sure, and she did just that. Any other fly shop or dingleberry store or (insert store type here (banks don't count so don't try getting smart with me. You know exactly what I mean and unless you're a cheapskate too, you would have simply put the pennies into the register and if 1 or 2 were missing, you would have said, "Ohhh well", taken 1 or 2 out of your pocket and called it a day)) would have thrown those pennies in the drawer and said, "I aint countin that shit." I purchased quite a few flies from this joint... As if I don't know that a large fly and small fly are only pennies in actual cost to the retailer... I attempted to return 3 flies and trade them in for 3 other patterns. This dope gives a sigh as if I'm ruining her day by asking to trade them in for 3 other flies. The flies they have are categorized as "Small, Medium, Large"... I just happened to have 3 "medium" sized flies for the trade. After the long sigh, she says to me, "Why don't you just take 2 large for the 3 medium." I took the 2 "Large" because I could see at this point, she was nickel and diming me. I was also purchasing a few souvenirs for the kids. I asked if she could just apply the cost of the 3 "Medium" flies to the cost of the sweatshirt. "NO." Now, if your really need to know the name of this shop, I'll give it to you privately but I'm certainly not going to endorse the name without them taking out a paid advertisement. I'll also add that they were very generous 1 evening when they invited us over to their place for dinner. They're just very business oriented and in my opinion, they're in it strictly for the cash and not because they love it (MY OPINION). I've been wrong before and I might be wrong now.
GUIDES: The first day, we went out with Mr. Personality himself, Mr. Eli McIntosh. He's a big AL Caucci fan. "Al this", "Al that", "Al was in my boat", "Al can lift up a rock and tell you almost to the second when it's going to hatch", "Al - Al - Al - Al - Al", "PRAISE BE TO AL!!!". ENOUGH ALREADY... Sorry AL, but I just couldn't care less who rode in this guys boat. Eli was ok, but it didn't seem like he was into doing what he was doing and it really didn't seem like he wanted to be there. It appeared as if he was a bit into himself (and Al) more than anything. This was the most uneventful fishing day we've ever had.
Day two... We met up with Seth. On the way to the river, we were kind of explaining to Seth how we like to fish and Seth (with a good sense of humor) says, "So basically you just want me to row the boat". YES YES YES!!!! Seth got it. I'd recommend Seth anytime to anybody. I don't want to go on and tell you what a great guy Seth is because let's face it, I don't really know him but, Seth was a great guide for the day. We asked to have him assigned to us again but the shop had other plans for us.
Day three... Mark... Mark is a big kinda guy with a pretty good personality. He was very knowledgeable about quite a few things and didn't hesitate to tell us anything that he thought was interesting. I'd certainly recommend Mark to anyone in need of a good guide. He was down to earth and pretty interesting. Only 1 thing irked me. This was Wednesday I believe and Wednesday was the day for the fly shop owners to show us some western hospitality. See... The owner was throwing this shin dig back at the ranch and told Mark that he had to have us back at the ranch by 6 or 6:30pm (I forget). Did I mention that it doesn't get dark in Montana until 10pm? After the 2nd or 3rd mention of this outing, I told Mark that we didn't fly 2500 miles across the country to sit at a BBQ. We were there to fish. Needless to say, we were back at the shop by 6:30. He stressed to us that, "She is the boss and I have to listen to her". I told him, "We are the boss, we are paying you." He didn't want to hear it. My opinion... He wanted to go home and do whatever he does once he gets there. What guide will rush you off the river for a bbq (that might I add, he didn't even attend!) after you tell him you didn't give a shit about the F'ng bbq? On a brighter note... the catching was lousy anyway and there were no signs of anything happening. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise? Well, we get home and another guide comes strolling in about an hour later. See Mark gave us wrong directions to the BBQ so we traveled a way down the road to the wrong house only to find that the owners have moved. We drove back to the shop and nobody was there. While bullshitting around, another guide rolls in (about an hour later)' see, he didn't care about the BBQ. He did the same float we did. While talking to the guide, he tells us, "After you guys left, the place lit up like fireflies! We caught fish after fish after fish." Now, do you know how frustrating that was? I asked them if they were caught on dries and he said 'NO'. So that was a relief. Again, I didn't fly 2500 miles to do that bullshit nymph fishing bullshit. I'm not a numbers guy. I'm a guy who likes to see the trout come to the top and take my fly. 1 nice fish on a dry beats 125 fish on a nymph ANY DAY, ANY TIME, PERIOD. Call me a purist... It's just my preference. You fish your way and I'll fish mine. ANYHOW....
For the next 3 guided days of fishing, we rode with Frank. Now here's what I didn't like about Frank. and that's all I gotta say about that. Frank convinced us that he wanted to be on the river. He was knowledgeable, he told some great stories, he kept us on the river for as long as we wanted, and he never lead us to believe he was in a rush. He's a funny guy who really enjoys employing very colorful metaphors to get things moving along such as, "Let's go, get in the fvcking car" or to motivate, "Catch that last fvcking fish so we can get to the fvcking bar", or even at times to encourage, "Take a lesson from the old man, he's the only one catching a fvcking thing" or maybe to say goodnight, "See you at the fvcking bar." Frank was a lot of fun to be with and I'd recommend him to anyone going out west. Contact me for his contact info because let me tell you... You'll have a great time with him. I don't want to cut Seth out of the picture here because he was also very good but Frank is the one we had the most fun with.
So here's what I learned about the Salmon fly hatch. It's a bout as predictable as Green Drakes on June 3, 2010. You with me?
As you can imagine, we were a little disappointed with this fishing experience because we were told on so many occasions that we would be in prime time Salmon Fly season (which we were). My father called a week in advance of our trip and the word was that they were knocking the trout dead with these flies. I called up the Thursday before we left and the story was the same, "They're slamming the fish on the Salmon flies on all rivers right now." Then when I arrived and got ready to fish, I asked the owner which flies they've been slamming the fish on. He directed me to the bin and didn't even hesitate to allow me to purchase 35 flies (Large and Medium).
See... even if they said, "Fishing's been kinda slow", we weren't going to cancel our trip. We would have still come. I might not have purchased 30+ flies from them but, to get us all excited over NOTHING then allow us to purchase a bunch of shit that they 100% knew wasn't going to work, was just wrong. What was even worse was going outside in the mornings and hearing the guides telling stories about how slow it has been and how the Salmon flies haven't started popping yet. Do you understand how I would be a bit pissed. These guys are in it for the money. The hospitality thing was nice but it was all part of the sales game.
I know... I know... "But you were out on a great trip with your Dad, doesn't that count for anything?" Yeah it counts for a lot of things but, let's cut through the bullshit. My Dad and I had a great time and I can't wait to do it again with him, no matter how good or shitty the Catching is. The point of the last paragraph: I DON'T LIKE BEING LIED TO. Let me explain it like this... You tell your 12 year old kid that you're taking him/her to the beach and boardwalk for a week. You call the resort and they tell you the weather has been great and there's no sign of rain for the next 2 years. FUN IN THE SUN!!!... You pack your bags and you're on your way. When you arrive, not only does it start to snow, but you just found out that everything on that boardwalk burned down last year and they're not done rebuilding it. You go into the little store and the guy sees a small opening in the thick clouds and has no problem selling you a bottle of his most expensive Suntan lotion and a few beach towels. You all with me here or did you fall asleep at Rise form?
My summary... I wouldn't use this outfitter again because I think they're liars and will do anything for a sale. So while they have my short term money they will never see me again. Isn't the idea behind business to gain the trust of your customers to ensure that they WANT to come back to see you. I'll find someplace else. Backdoor Outfitters is the place we used the first time we went to Montana. I'd use them over and over and over again because they were just that damned good.
Another thing that gets me is that there are 5 rivers in the general area. We were told before the trip that they're all kicking ass. We wound up fishing the Big Hole river 5 out of 6 trips. One day we fished the Madison for a change of view. Not a helluva lot was happening there either. Any time we mentioned to a guide that we wanted to fish a different river, they gave us the rundown of why we didn't want to fish another river. Only Frank said, "Let's give it a shot".
I'm pretty convinced that these guides don't fish with many people who actually know how to fish. They use these balloon bobber things which I think are just ridiculous. If you use an indicator for anything other than indicating; holding it off the water to keep track of the end of your fly line, than it's a bobber and not an indicator. The only difference between yours and the little red and white one are the colors. They float, they bob, they go under when a fish hits your bait. You midas well use worms too.
So how was the catching? Here are a few pictures:
Sitting in the diner, I took out my iPod and watched one of those Rise Form videos on how to European nymph with Aaron Jaspar.

Before I continue, let me mention a little something about the Blue Whale diner / restaurant. This place is SPOTLESS. It's a 50's themed type of place with lots of original old goodies hanging around. The food was good and the people were super friendly. They're closed on Mondays, but not to take the day off... They actually dedicate Mondays for cleaning. If that's not clean enough for you, they have what they call, "Employee Ketchup". So what is, "Employee Ketchup"? You know when you're in the diner late at night and you see the waitress's emptying the 1/2 filled containers into each other. Let's face it, there's a chance you might be getting some pretty old ketchup. Not at the Blue Whale. Those 1/2 filled ketchup containers are emptied into another bin for employee use and brand spanking new bottles of ketchup are put into service! Ok... reality kicks in. Have you ever had a bad bottle of ketchup? What are the chances. Anyhow, if you're ever in the area and need a quick fix, this place is my choice for Twin Bridges.
Onward... We stayed at xxxxx xxxxxxx. There's a reason I don't mention the name but I'll get to that later. Ok, I'll get to it now. As nice as these people were, they are penny pinchers. I had a bill come out to 61.75. I had some loose change in my pocket. Out of that change, at least .10 cents were in the form of pennies. The owner asked me if they were all there. I counted them but jesus H christ.... Who the **** asks if all of the pennies were there? I told her to count them over just to be sure, and she did just that. Any other fly shop or dingleberry store or (insert store type here (banks don't count so don't try getting smart with me. You know exactly what I mean and unless you're a cheapskate too, you would have simply put the pennies into the register and if 1 or 2 were missing, you would have said, "Ohhh well", taken 1 or 2 out of your pocket and called it a day)) would have thrown those pennies in the drawer and said, "I aint countin that shit." I purchased quite a few flies from this joint... As if I don't know that a large fly and small fly are only pennies in actual cost to the retailer... I attempted to return 3 flies and trade them in for 3 other patterns. This dope gives a sigh as if I'm ruining her day by asking to trade them in for 3 other flies. The flies they have are categorized as "Small, Medium, Large"... I just happened to have 3 "medium" sized flies for the trade. After the long sigh, she says to me, "Why don't you just take 2 large for the 3 medium." I took the 2 "Large" because I could see at this point, she was nickel and diming me. I was also purchasing a few souvenirs for the kids. I asked if she could just apply the cost of the 3 "Medium" flies to the cost of the sweatshirt. "NO." Now, if your really need to know the name of this shop, I'll give it to you privately but I'm certainly not going to endorse the name without them taking out a paid advertisement. I'll also add that they were very generous 1 evening when they invited us over to their place for dinner. They're just very business oriented and in my opinion, they're in it strictly for the cash and not because they love it (MY OPINION). I've been wrong before and I might be wrong now.
GUIDES: The first day, we went out with Mr. Personality himself, Mr. Eli McIntosh. He's a big AL Caucci fan. "Al this", "Al that", "Al was in my boat", "Al can lift up a rock and tell you almost to the second when it's going to hatch", "Al - Al - Al - Al - Al", "PRAISE BE TO AL!!!". ENOUGH ALREADY... Sorry AL, but I just couldn't care less who rode in this guys boat. Eli was ok, but it didn't seem like he was into doing what he was doing and it really didn't seem like he wanted to be there. It appeared as if he was a bit into himself (and Al) more than anything. This was the most uneventful fishing day we've ever had.
Day two... We met up with Seth. On the way to the river, we were kind of explaining to Seth how we like to fish and Seth (with a good sense of humor) says, "So basically you just want me to row the boat". YES YES YES!!!! Seth got it. I'd recommend Seth anytime to anybody. I don't want to go on and tell you what a great guy Seth is because let's face it, I don't really know him but, Seth was a great guide for the day. We asked to have him assigned to us again but the shop had other plans for us.
Day three... Mark... Mark is a big kinda guy with a pretty good personality. He was very knowledgeable about quite a few things and didn't hesitate to tell us anything that he thought was interesting. I'd certainly recommend Mark to anyone in need of a good guide. He was down to earth and pretty interesting. Only 1 thing irked me. This was Wednesday I believe and Wednesday was the day for the fly shop owners to show us some western hospitality. See... The owner was throwing this shin dig back at the ranch and told Mark that he had to have us back at the ranch by 6 or 6:30pm (I forget). Did I mention that it doesn't get dark in Montana until 10pm? After the 2nd or 3rd mention of this outing, I told Mark that we didn't fly 2500 miles across the country to sit at a BBQ. We were there to fish. Needless to say, we were back at the shop by 6:30. He stressed to us that, "She is the boss and I have to listen to her". I told him, "We are the boss, we are paying you." He didn't want to hear it. My opinion... He wanted to go home and do whatever he does once he gets there. What guide will rush you off the river for a bbq (that might I add, he didn't even attend!) after you tell him you didn't give a shit about the F'ng bbq? On a brighter note... the catching was lousy anyway and there were no signs of anything happening. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise? Well, we get home and another guide comes strolling in about an hour later. See Mark gave us wrong directions to the BBQ so we traveled a way down the road to the wrong house only to find that the owners have moved. We drove back to the shop and nobody was there. While bullshitting around, another guide rolls in (about an hour later)' see, he didn't care about the BBQ. He did the same float we did. While talking to the guide, he tells us, "After you guys left, the place lit up like fireflies! We caught fish after fish after fish." Now, do you know how frustrating that was? I asked them if they were caught on dries and he said 'NO'. So that was a relief. Again, I didn't fly 2500 miles to do that bullshit nymph fishing bullshit. I'm not a numbers guy. I'm a guy who likes to see the trout come to the top and take my fly. 1 nice fish on a dry beats 125 fish on a nymph ANY DAY, ANY TIME, PERIOD. Call me a purist... It's just my preference. You fish your way and I'll fish mine. ANYHOW....
For the next 3 guided days of fishing, we rode with Frank. Now here's what I didn't like about Frank. and that's all I gotta say about that. Frank convinced us that he wanted to be on the river. He was knowledgeable, he told some great stories, he kept us on the river for as long as we wanted, and he never lead us to believe he was in a rush. He's a funny guy who really enjoys employing very colorful metaphors to get things moving along such as, "Let's go, get in the fvcking car" or to motivate, "Catch that last fvcking fish so we can get to the fvcking bar", or even at times to encourage, "Take a lesson from the old man, he's the only one catching a fvcking thing" or maybe to say goodnight, "See you at the fvcking bar." Frank was a lot of fun to be with and I'd recommend him to anyone going out west. Contact me for his contact info because let me tell you... You'll have a great time with him. I don't want to cut Seth out of the picture here because he was also very good but Frank is the one we had the most fun with.
So here's what I learned about the Salmon fly hatch. It's a bout as predictable as Green Drakes on June 3, 2010. You with me?
As you can imagine, we were a little disappointed with this fishing experience because we were told on so many occasions that we would be in prime time Salmon Fly season (which we were). My father called a week in advance of our trip and the word was that they were knocking the trout dead with these flies. I called up the Thursday before we left and the story was the same, "They're slamming the fish on the Salmon flies on all rivers right now." Then when I arrived and got ready to fish, I asked the owner which flies they've been slamming the fish on. He directed me to the bin and didn't even hesitate to allow me to purchase 35 flies (Large and Medium).
See... even if they said, "Fishing's been kinda slow", we weren't going to cancel our trip. We would have still come. I might not have purchased 30+ flies from them but, to get us all excited over NOTHING then allow us to purchase a bunch of shit that they 100% knew wasn't going to work, was just wrong. What was even worse was going outside in the mornings and hearing the guides telling stories about how slow it has been and how the Salmon flies haven't started popping yet. Do you understand how I would be a bit pissed. These guys are in it for the money. The hospitality thing was nice but it was all part of the sales game.
I know... I know... "But you were out on a great trip with your Dad, doesn't that count for anything?" Yeah it counts for a lot of things but, let's cut through the bullshit. My Dad and I had a great time and I can't wait to do it again with him, no matter how good or shitty the Catching is. The point of the last paragraph: I DON'T LIKE BEING LIED TO. Let me explain it like this... You tell your 12 year old kid that you're taking him/her to the beach and boardwalk for a week. You call the resort and they tell you the weather has been great and there's no sign of rain for the next 2 years. FUN IN THE SUN!!!... You pack your bags and you're on your way. When you arrive, not only does it start to snow, but you just found out that everything on that boardwalk burned down last year and they're not done rebuilding it. You go into the little store and the guy sees a small opening in the thick clouds and has no problem selling you a bottle of his most expensive Suntan lotion and a few beach towels. You all with me here or did you fall asleep at Rise form?
My summary... I wouldn't use this outfitter again because I think they're liars and will do anything for a sale. So while they have my short term money they will never see me again. Isn't the idea behind business to gain the trust of your customers to ensure that they WANT to come back to see you. I'll find someplace else. Backdoor Outfitters is the place we used the first time we went to Montana. I'd use them over and over and over again because they were just that damned good.
Another thing that gets me is that there are 5 rivers in the general area. We were told before the trip that they're all kicking ass. We wound up fishing the Big Hole river 5 out of 6 trips. One day we fished the Madison for a change of view. Not a helluva lot was happening there either. Any time we mentioned to a guide that we wanted to fish a different river, they gave us the rundown of why we didn't want to fish another river. Only Frank said, "Let's give it a shot".
I'm pretty convinced that these guides don't fish with many people who actually know how to fish. They use these balloon bobber things which I think are just ridiculous. If you use an indicator for anything other than indicating; holding it off the water to keep track of the end of your fly line, than it's a bobber and not an indicator. The only difference between yours and the little red and white one are the colors. They float, they bob, they go under when a fish hits your bait. You midas well use worms too.
So how was the catching? Here are a few pictures:
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