Bear Creek, Bitterroot Mountains

Did some Crik fishin' yesterday.

Fish

A few fishy pictures snapped on the river in front of the B&B this morning.

Kootenai Creek Fire

While doing a little fishing this afternoon, I looked up at the fire and there were huge plumes of flame clearly visible from the river near the B&B. I snapped these with my cell phone, but they do not do justice to the amazing huge flames that can be seen from miles away.

Pontoon Boat Day

I had a chance to float the river from the B&B to the Stevi bridge today. It was great. I threw one of the cruiser bikes in the back of the pickup and drove to the bridge. I left the truck there and rode the bike back to the B&B. That took about a half hour. I packed a lunch and rolled my pontoon boat down to the river using the special wheel assembly that I made myself by gluing together some PVC pipe and fittings. I started floating at about 1pm. At about 1:30 I stopped on a secluded sand bar and ate my lunch of sandwich, pretzels and beer. I watched some large trout feeding nearby and tried a few lazy casts. Back in the water I came to a pod of feeding trout and caught one while I was floating. I pulled over and fished from shore for a while and caught a beautifully colored cutthroat, about 12 inches. I found an abandoned cooler roped to an inner-tube and another inner-tube near the river bank. The cooler had trash and a few unopened beverages in it. I left it all there, thinking that someone was probably coming back to retrieve it. I wonder what the circumstances were? Hope everyone was OK. I floated on down to the bridge and took a nice swim with some little kids near the take-out. The wheel assembly worked great to roll the boat up to the pickup. I was back at the B&B by 3 pm. I should do this every day!

Floatin' the Bitterroot

When the temperature soars into the 90's, it seems that the whole valley heads for the river, especially on a Sunday afternoon. I snapped this photo of a group of rafters that stopped in front of the B&B for a while on Sunday (with my cell phone). What a great way to spend a hot afternoon. The River is fishing great and who can resist a dip in the refreshing water when it is sooo hot!