Fast Times on the Mo' Part 1

Day 1

4:30 AM:  Wake up.  Eat a healthy breakfast of chocolate chip cookies, coffee, and an assortment of leftovers.  Depart to Missoula soon after.

6:30ish AM:  Stumble into the rendezvous point (Town Pump) and meet up with some False Casters with Flat Tires featuring "Thunder Cat" Caleb.  This occurs after cramming into a truck full of an assortment of fellow crazies diehard trout bums.  This includes Alec, Chris, and new friends Kelsey and Garrett.  We all depart for the wide Missouri.

10:00 AM:  Arrive in Craig.  Skies are clear, spirits are high.  After an obligatory stop to Headhunters Fly Shop, the boats are soon in the water.  

11:00 AM:  We perfect the art of trolling long enough for a brown to gobble up  Gratton's streamer.  Pictures ensued.  We do not attempt to troll streamers any longer.

11:15AM - ?:  Fish tend to eat such things as Firebead ________, Pink Such and Such's, Tungsten This and That's, and just about anything with "Scud" in the name throughout the day.  Trout are caught.  Lies are told.  The wind says hello from time to time, but hey it's central Montana in February after all.

12:00 PM:  It's all smiles.  Alec skillfully lands this quality specimen and Kelsey is soon into her first Missouri river trout.  As Walt Whitman once noted, "It ain't nothin' but a chicken wing on a string."  No actually, I don't think he said that.

1:00 PM:  Garrett tags an Alaskan look-a-like rainbow.  Love those spots.  As per usual, Chris continues to put plenty of finned creatures into the net with regularity.

3:00ish PM:  Stop at a desert island to warm up and chat with the False Casters Stanley, Zach, and Caleb.  Discussion turns to that of triple-overhand-double-hauling-reversal-crossover-spey-casts, CuttyBrownBows, and Purple Mountain's Majesty Drakes or PMMD's as known to you educated fly flingers out there.   

4:00 PM:  I tie into a fine Oncorhynchus mykiss which makes my day.  I'm fortunate that Garrett had the good sense to grab a camera.  He also brought the boat and drove.  What a guy!

5:30PM:  Pull into Craig, 3 boats and 8 anglers and friends.  We are treated to a beautiful Big Sky sunset and no wind.  The perfect end to a days work.  Or is it? 

Indeed the night is young and after all we are in the "City that Never Sleeps," aka "Montana's own Disney Land," aka Craig, Montana.  What happens next?  All I know is that fishing trips are sure better with a bunch of friends.

As the great Paul Harvey would say.  Stay tuned for the "Rest of the Story."  And in this case he actually did say that.