My fishing guide son has had a couple days without clients and was getting itchy to be on the river again, so he and I fished a half day on the Clark Fork River just below Missoula. Any opportunity to fish with my son is a thrill for me, and this trip gave him a chance to have a rod in his own hands for a change. As the photo shows, it was a beautiful, if cool, day, and we had a picturesque part of the river to ourselves. We had a hard time getting the fish as excited as we were, though. After weeks with overnight low temperatures in the mid 40s or higher, fall came last night. The overnight low was 35-degrees; the low water temperature for the day was about five degrees lower than it has been, and the high for the day was even more than that below recent norms. That had the fish lethargic. Together we caught three small trout, one small whitefish, and a single large cutthroat-rainbow hybrid (Thanks, Dave, for letting me catch it.). These are strong fish, and to have even one on is a pleasure. The bonus was that it took a hopper pattern on the surface.

I wish you all could have shared the day with us.