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!

Waders

It is great to see our fishing guests drying their waders on our deck railing again. Lots of waders have dried on that railing over the past few summers. The fishing is really picking up now with warm dry weather and clear water in the River. I fished in front of the B&B last night and there were at least 6 different hatches going on a the same time. Bugs everywhere and fish rising all around me, but I could not find the bug they were eating. The skeeters were eating me, so I gave up after I caught one fish, a whitefish!

Riding 4 Hope

We recently donated a room to the Riding4Hope team. They are two 16-year-old identical twins and their father who are riding bicycles coast to coast, about 4,000 miles, in 43 days. Their support vehicle driver, Skip, stayed with us for the night, while the riders stayed at the Stevensville Hotel. The team is raising funds and awareness for the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound, where they live, and the Wounded Warrior Project. Check out their website and daily updates of their progress at http://www.riding4hope.org/.

Happy July 4th to Everyone!

Happy Independence Day! Our busy season is upon us! All four rooms at the B&B are full for 4 out of the next 5 nights and we have guests every night for the next 10 nights. All of the summer weekends are filling up fast. We are so happy to have so many great visitors! Thanks for all of your patronage. Saturday is the annual July 4th Stevensville Pignick where the whole town shows up for a pot luck and the local emergency services folks cook up some mighty fine rosted pork. Here are a few pics from last year.