IM BACK!!

Schools in full swing. It is only the second day and my  TO DO list just keeps getting longer. Im feeling a solid day or two trip to a near by river is on the agenda for this weekend. Until then check out my new short film "South of The Valley" on my Vimeo page.

South of The Valley from Strip. Twitch. Pause. on Vimeo.

Sporadic Spring Fishing

I have been getting out on the water more on the week days this spring, In an attempt to avoid the spring crowds. I have caught some very healthy good looking fish, but have been failing in the photo department. In my resent outings I have been using my Go Pro Hero 3 to take pictures. It takes good quality photos and is an unreal underwater camera. The one downfall I am having is getting the go pro to capture enough light in the picture. Recently I have been trying to salvage some picture with I photo, here is what I came up with...

 Rock Creek Rainbow

Brown from the creek

Goodbye

 Bitterroot Brownie

Headed home..

Just what I needed

Yesterday I hit the river on my day off with high hopes. I had spent a good amount of time on google maps a few days earlier and had a good spot picked out but it was gonna be long walk. Long story short, The walk was worth every single step. Here are the pictures to prove it

 Ferocious Cuttie

 Taped out to 20 inches (My biggest Cutthroat ever)

The Release 

 Fish of the day

I suck at selfies

Cheers!

My Hiatus

Hello again followers of Strip Twitch Pause, I am back from spring break refreshed, reloaded and ready to fish. My 10 day spring break focus was to relax and re-energize my soul, this unfortunately ment fishing was gonna be put on the back burner for the first time in more than a year. Its not that fishing doesn't allow me to relax, I was just feeling drained from the chaos we call life and needed to get away from everything. Most of the break I spent hiking in the wilderness and laying in my hammock clearing my head. The other days were spent sitting in some hot springs in Idaho at a secret location. (Hands down the best place to relax and re-energize) Now its back to reality and back on the river. I plan on getting out on the water Tuesday to toss some streamers in the high water around missoula.

Here are some pictures from my adventures over spring break.

 Hot Springs

 Panorama

 Not a bad view 

 Hot springs waterfall

Hammock relaxation

Cool Story: The creek where the hot springs were located was a tributary of the Salmon River. We set up camp along this creek below the hot springs because the terrain was to steep to camp next to them. One morning when the sun was shinning on the creek I looked in the pool in the picture below with my polarized glasses and saw a 18-20 inch steelhead!! I was in shock, I kept looking away, then back at it as it just swam in the current gracefully soaking up the sun. I quickly grabbed my friend Cam to take a look to make sure I wasn't going crazy. He ended up spooking the fish and it headed up the creek further. The amazing part about this story is we were at least 2- 3 miles up this creek and as you can see in the second picture there is not much room for a 18-20 inch fish to swim up this creek. Just another reason why I admire the steelhead and their epic journey.   

First Skwala Experience

Last week I was able to get out on the river for the warmest day of 2013 to date. A few days prior there had been rumor that the skwalas were out on the bitterroot and I was eager to experience my first skwala hatch. The day started off okay, I was able to catch a couple feisty browns on streamers. Then IT HAPPENED, fish started looking up and consistently rising. I wasted no time tying on a skwala dry and first cast I hooked up with a nice cutthroat. It only got better from there. I caught 10+ fish on drys, the biggest being a 19 inch brown. Now I finally understand what all the fus is about when spring rolls around on the Bitterroot.

The Trifecta!

Yesterday I had great day of fishing on the Bitterroot. I caught 5 different types of fish including a bull trout! Words can not express my excitement when I netted this fish. The fish itself was only about 13 inches but the fact that bull trout are in the Bitterroot just puts a smile on my face.

 Bully

 Dry fly eating Cutthroat

According to the weather man it is supposed to be the warmest day of the year tomorrow! Highs in the 60s! Can you guess where im gonna be?

A Tribute to the Cutthroat Trout

I put together a short video to post last friday but had some complications with Vimeo. I could wait till this friday to show it so your anticipation builds to extreme levels but for something that is average at best, it just seems unreasonable to do that. So take a minute out of your boring Monday afternoon and watch this short video. Click the link below the video to watch in HD.


A Tribute to the Cutthroat.mov from Strip. Twitch. Pause. on Vimeo.

WATCH IT HERE IN HD: A Tribute to the Cutthroat Trout HD