Fly Fishing: Highlights...Part 5 and a Brief Unrelated Rant

Penn's Creek taught me a valuable, though painful lesson: A world of difference exists between fooling naive, half-starved hatchery wannabees and the real deal.

 

Penn's Creek kicked our butts. Though we pounded the project water above Weikert for three days hook-ups were...well, I'm just not going there. Overrun with disappointed fishermen hoping to hit the big hatch, which even on the best of the three days fizzled badly, finding the open spot was small potatoes compared to the beating we took at the hands of the creek's persnickety wild browns. Each day a heavy caddis hatch came off mid-day, at times littering the water bank to bank. The term "boiled" is in no way a stretch.

During those blitzes we literally pitched everything in our arsenal and except for a few lucky hook-ups as when our flies were trailing downstream as we scratched clue-less noggins we basically ate skunk.

Then in the evening, deja vue all over again--those the bugs were sulfurs. First a blanket hatch, the creek wall-to-wall duns and trout up everywhere gorging the moveable feast. But that was just the matinee to the big event at dusk when clouds of spinners appeared and...damn we just could not get it done.

Clearly we lacked two things: the right ammo and the skills to get 'er done. As I say we got our hats handed to us big time...

Now for the rant:

Am I nuts or what? As ranted previously ad nauseum, I know, our illustrious politicians debated just how the hell they might get there crooked feet in the door and make adjustments to the Montana Stream Access Law more to their individual and collective benefit. A unique law that not only works damn well as is but arguably brings more dollars to Montana businesses than any other law on the books.

Then, even more ridiculous, more pathetic actually, a bill which would allow spear chucking for big game...I recall thinking at the time "man oh man, what next?"

But I had neglected to include Dillon's very own preposterous, arrogant senator Ms. Debbie Barrett's latest stab to denigrate TU; actually a back-door approach to her real agenda to oust the only conservation voice currently allowed at the table during water rights adjudication proceedings, from the process. Very neat, should it happen, since then the only votes counted would be those of the special interest thugs trying to steal the water in the first beginning.

And last but not least, while Kansas isn't Montana how about the bill currently on the gov's desk to allow SILENCERs for big game hunting...don't it just take your breath away?

To me all this proves yet again the two requisites to gaining elected office are "dumber than a stump and crookeder than the crooks attempting to put you there."

End of rant...