Taters First Float

Saturday April 28th: Jefferson River with Shook, Rhianon, Reece and Tater. Sappington to Willow Creek Bridge, flows 1580 C.F.S. Water clarity was about a foot in Tea Stained water.

Shook called me earlier in the week and wanted to go for a float over the weekend if the caddis were popping. I called him on Friday and told him that the Yellowstone was blown out and that the Lower was going to be a zoo with the Yellowstone blown out and the 15 boats full of wading women on the annual Caddis Fly Float trip that I had started 5 years earlier. I told him that my dad and his good friend Bob also wanted to float something because they were kicked out of the house since my mom was throwing Melissa a baby shower at 6pm on Saturday evening. I also was in charge of watching Reece during the shower so he would be with us on the float as well. I said that maybe we should do something out of the box and float the Jefferson for a change of pace and lack of crowds. So on Saturday morning I called shook and my dad and we all met at the house around 1 pm. We headed for the Jefferson and when we got to the bridge there was a couple of feet visibility in the tea stained water. We put the boats in the water and ran the shuttle. We loaded up the dogs and the kid and made fast to a fish right out of the gate. Rhiannon had a small brown and a whitefish within sight of the rednecks using a pistol to shoot a dead carcass in the river underneath the bridge. We continued on down the river and my dad hooked and landed a nice 18 inch bow where the spring dumps in below the cliff jumping diversion. Shook took over on the oars and I pulled out a fly rod and ran a streamer and a worm in the dirty water. I turned a really nice fish in the fast water above the William's Bridge access and then I lost a couple of fly setups and switched to a very short heavy leader and on Motor Oil Bugger. After that I hooked three really nice healthy browns by either dead drifting it in the big eddies or by dragging and stopping it off the root wads and collapsed banks. The fish that I caught were all very strong and healthy and Reece enjoyed reeling them in and tossing them back for the release. The fish were all bigger than Reece and it took both his arms and his chest to heave them over the side of the boat.

"Reece Put-em' back"

After hooking the three fish Shook wanted to give it a try and I jumped back on the oars. Tater was great during the float and slept most of the way, but when I got on the oars he got a little feisty and began to wander around the boat and test the waters a bit. He became curious about the oars and before Rhiannon could grab him he had three feet on the oar and the attempt at getting all four on caused him to slip off into the water. He did a very graceful dive and went under water a few feet before resurfacing and realizing he was in the water. We plucked him out of the water and he had taken his first swim.

"Tater after the swim, 9 weeks old"

The day was a huge success and I was even more happy with the fact that we caught some nice fish, saw nobody on the river and had very little wind. The reports from the Lower were that the fishing was fair and the wind blew hard all day long making for a long and tiresome day. I made a great call and finally saw a decent day of fishing on the Jefferson.