Blackfoot River Float

We left early Friday morning to float the Blackfoot. Jim drove the escape as chase car. We parked the escape at a landing on the main Blackfoot called "Russell Gates" below Ovando. We were loaded in the Dodge looking for a boat launch on the North Fork of the Blackfoot called "Harry Morgan", but we ended up driving around for quite some time. Jim even tried yelling out for Harry Morgan out the window as we drove around, but with no luck. After fighting our male instincts not to ask for directions, we gave in and finally launched the raft at around 8:30. The north fork was crystal clear and really not a big river. Because of this, I could see when a fish would come out after one of their lures. We had some followers on the north fork, but didn't catch one. Steve and Jim really haven't fished on a river with rapalas like this before, so there was a little bit of a learning curve. We were laughing at Steve. He managed to bird nest his spin cast reel a couple times once just a hundred yards from the boat launch. They really didn't hook the brush too much though which made it nice for me as oarsman. We hit the main river which was actually quite colored, but with the clear north fork and colored main the river color was perfect. I was excited as they were casting; we really didn't know what we could catch in the river. Shortly after the confluence, we came to a fast riffle behind a submerged tree. Jim cast right behind it and hooked a nice cutthrout. Chaos then ensued. The river was fast so I was trying to oar and help him land the fish. During the ordeal, my pole was laying across the boat with the rapala dangling. As I was turning the boat to keep his fish off of the oar, I watched my rapala catch a submerged root and my pole jump right out of the boat. By that time Jim had lifted the fish into the air, and it was dangling in front of my face. I had just purchased this pole the day before, and wasn't about to lose it. I rammed the boat into the side of the river yelling for Steve to grab the weeds. He flung himself out onto the bank grabbing what he could; we almost lost him actually. After all the laughing we got Jim's fish landed and my pole found. You can only keep rainbows under 12 inches and browns so we let the fish go. Steve also caught his first shortly after. In fact they both had fish landed before I had even caught one.

I actually caught my first bull trout shortly after, but I lost it as I was unhooking it before the picture. I think that this was my first bull trout; I may have caught one steelhead fishing on the Salmon river before, but I can't remember. Halfway through the float we found a good spot to stop for lunch. We grilled us some brats and ate a bunch of junk. Steve didn't finish his dog and was trying to catch a fish with his leftover hotdog, those Californians.

The float was around 15 miles; we ended up getting off of the river around 4:00. Steven ended up catching the one fish, Jim caught 2 or 3, and I caught 6. For being our first time floating the stretch, it was pretty good. I caught this Bull Trout in a good deep hole second cast into the hole. I estimated him 22 to 24 inches long, weighing 4 to 5 pounds. He fought for at least 5 minutes; Jim was filming the entire time. You can't keep the bulls in the Blackfoot river, but they are a kick in the pants to catch. When Jim started to film, he jumped out of the boat hooking himself with his rapala. The film is hilarious. The fish jumped out of my hands while we were taking the last picture. It definitely made my trip.