The Big Hole

For Father's Day we went fishing on the Big Hole River.  It's a favorite of Mike's (and of all of ours now!), and it's so far away that we don't do it often so it's a treat!

The pictures are mostly all blurry because I took them from my iphone and forgot to wipe the lens before I took them. When will I learn? 

This is at the put-in, when the boys are rip roarin' ready to go! 

It's such a pretty river! We floated from Divide to Melrose, which is about 14.5 river miles.  The fly shop said it takes about 5-6 hours but we took about 8 1/2 hours.  Mike and I guess that 3 of those hours were spent dedicated to untying knots. 

It was a big day!  Josh caught 7 fish.  This arctic grayling (with the big dorsal fin), a tiny trout and 5 whitefish.

The boys are getting to be big helpers. They are net men, and Luke is completely self-sufficient at the spinner rod. They're growing into nice little fisherboys.

This is one of the many knot-fixing stops.  Josh and Luke are having a dance party, daddy is working diligently on a knot and who knows what I'm doing. I love Josh's real smile in this picture. 

Here's Josh's tiny trout. It counts.
In other news, Luke is trying to like soda. He likes the flavor of root beer, but not the fizz. Here he is with Funyuns and a root beer, living large. 

Seriously, does it get cooler than this? I love that they're both small enough to sit up there. 

Ruby is so curious about these fish. She needs to know what they're all about, but she's not too sure she trusts them. 

Luke gave fly fishing a try, and he did great!  Check that sassy stance. 

I'm so bummed this picture is blurry.  It's so hard to pull in a fish on a fly rod. Josh said that each fish feels like a whale, and I think Luke is proving that to us here. 

Poor Mike.  He rowed for all but about 30 seconds of that trip -- I tried to learn to row, but I just don't get it. I need practice. He fished for a few minutes total, and he caught a nice one right away!  

We saw a mommy moose and two babies -- the mom was smart and moved off the bank before we floated by. It was very cool to be so close and see such young ones. 

We stopped at a truck stop and Luke found this Bobber Cooler, which is such a funny joke. He thinks if you want to fish big, you need big bait.  He also made me take three pictures of him by it, and this is the one he was happy with. I think he is trying to look tough.