My good friend Mike Hodges (same guy that took Co9 and Di fishing), along with his friend also named Mike, and myself floated the Missouri over the weekend. Man, we had a great trip. Fishing there just never gets old despite the hundreds of guides, dudes, and fly swatting drift boats. While we don't enjoy seeing the hordes of people, we make our own fun and let the fish keep us distracted. On a side note I used only the lure's that Di had given me after Bill passed away. He was on our mind the whole trip.
Here is one of the first fish of the day and I think the best rainbow I landed that day.
Me doing my thing and right in the middle of my Happy Place!
Mike's friend Mike had the magic touch for browns on the float. He caught more browns than the other two of us combined.
Mike Hodges wasn't to be outdone and landed some very nice fish of his own.
About an hour into the trip I was attempted to release a nice rainbow I had caught when he pitched a fit and the hook came loose unexpectedly. The lure came shooting back at my hand like at arrow and the treble hook buried itself in the tip of my left index finger. Hurt like a son of a gun. Pert near cussed. Anyway it took me a while but I was able to remove the hook from the lure, clip the other two barbs off, and then stabilize the hook with a Band-Aid so it wouldn't flop around or catch on anything. It was early in the trip and I didn't want everyone to have to cut their trip short on my account so we went right back to fishing. I fished for 5 more hours with that hook in my finger.
The fishing was great and I had no regrets. Heck we even did a second float and picked up few more fish. Here's one from the second float of the day. The two Mike's kicked my butt for the size on browns. I thought mine were still decent though, plus I caught more fish than both of them combined, so that has to count for something. Did it with a hook in my finger no less, so Mike H verbally awarded me a Man Card for the day for toughing it out.
My favorite photo of the day is this one. This happened right at the end of our trip. Both Mike's hooked into great fish and we got a double landed in the boat. After that we wrapped up the day and headed back into Great Falls. The two Mike's went their way and I went to the hospital. Having the doctor remove the hook hurt way worse than the initial injury, but it's all good now and I hope to be back on the water this week. Lesson learned here, pinch all your barbs! I do it on a lot of lures , but this was a new lure and I had forgotten to pinch them. Had I done so, the hook extraction would have been simple and relatively painless. Learn from my mistake and save yourself a spendy trip to the doctor.
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