Instead of going to work, Jerry and I went floating and nearly froze to death in the wind. But after a few fish, we both pretty much agreed that it's probably worth losing a few digits.

Almost nobody else was using the river unless you count the non-human inhabitants and visitors, of whom there were many. We saw thousands of goldeye ducks (whistlers!) and Canada geese and a surprising number of bald eagles and rough leg hawks, birds whose migration south in the fall ends here in balmy Montana headwaters. Pretty tough customers.

We had so much fun on Friday that we decided to go again on Monday, although seriously, I do have to go to work some time this week.

It was a much nicer day, the fishing was better and again, nobody else was using the river except for the usual suspects and hangers-on.

I had another really good day, this time thanks to John's fine rowing and a lot of other positive factors - it was sunny, and warm for early March and there was very little wind. Of course it was also Saturday so there were people about, but our early start put us out of the way of most of the crowd.

The river right now is absolutely crystal clear, just about like thin air, and like the air, it's just a few degrees warmer than freezing. There is no sign of runoff yet, and as clear as the water is, the fish are REALLY wary and the best of them seem to be holding deep in bottom cover.

Another terrific day on the river, but only if you like a bitter wind on your frozen fingers that are all wet and slippery from frequent fast and furious hand-to-fin fights with feisty fish.

With midday temperatures approaching 50, moderate to strong winds, seasonally low flows, and reports of geese acting aggressively as they begin to nest up, the public should consider staying away until conditions improve.

Cold and windy today and the fishing was off. Still, we hit the only patch of sunshine in a weeks-long run of unsettled weather and it was great to be out. Freezing or not.

So, there are no gratuitous fish pictures to show off, this time.

Basement City: I am catching nothing but Office Salmon for the time being, thank you.

Meanwhile, our friends and associates on the Smith River are catching a perfect Springtime snowstorm this week. (SEE IT) Some guys just always seem to have all the fun.

If you need visual proof that cutthroat trout are making a comeback on this stretch of river that used to be considered "dead," well, here it is, folks. This fish may not look that spectacular but it is a miracle if you remember the 70's when this river was too toxic from mining and smelting runoff to support fish of any kind. It is encouraging to see sensitive native species returning to this water. How cool is that?

Sadly, it is still fairly toxic in this valley. We saw a place today where the river had cut a fresh bank and exposed a vertical cross-section of riverine alluvium, probably about three feet thick from top to bottom. Beneath a foot of more recently settled sediment, there was a layer about a foot thick that was completely permeated with the poisonous pale green color characteristic of copper oxides. This is our legacy of a century of mining and smelting such as what was done upstream and upwind. Today, most of the big-time mining and smelting has ended and some of the habitat is improving, but we aren't "eatin' the local catch of the day" around here yet.

A good day on the water after getting a late start due to the detour we took to look at alternative waters, and also because we exercised the environmentally responsible alternative of running our shuttle on the bicycle. Right after driving more than a hundred miles in my old pollution-spewing Suburban.

Good fishing, though, and an almost perfect day where we had the river practically all to ourselves. The water is low for this time of year and quite clear, so the fish were selective and none of the ones we brought to hand were particularly large, but still we each caught at least a dozen free-range brown and rainbow trout, 12 to 16 inches long. Not too much wind, either, and only one whitefish.

One of our better days on the river for the 2010 fishing season so far. Perfect weather, ideal temperature and water conditions, not much wind and over thirty fish apiece.

The only downside to the experience is that every time we float this beautiful river, and many others throughout the state, there are more new trophy homes encroaching on the riverbank.

Pretty good fishing especially early in the day. The spring runoff is finally starting to taper off and they've started reducing the flow from the dam upstream. Still, the river is muddy and over the bank in some places. As usual, given the adverse conditions, we advise recreational users to stay away until runoff conditions abate.

Perfect conditions today, absolutely freakin perfect. Neither one of the ladies likes to fish so I didn't have to row that much and I actually had a pretty decent day of fishing.

It's kind of a funny story, but at one point today we had quite a bit of water sloshing around in the raft because we'd just run through some tall waves, and I happened to catch a little rainbow trout that flopped off the hook and got loose in the water in the bottom of the boat. I wanted to toss him back but every time I got close to grabbing him he would swim off to the other end of the boat. I finally had to trap him with a landing net. Not sure if that's actually legal.

Perfect summer conditions, the river is clearing and dropping. Emily caught the big one, a nice big rainbow with a little bit of cutthroat orange under the gills. A really nice fish, about five pounds, probably the biggest rainbow of the year for us...

Thunderheads and a lot of other boats in the afternoon but we had the river all to ourselves for most of the morning.

Pro Tip: Fish 'em deep and dirty! There is plenty of surface activity, but the real action is quite a bit deeper. Moby Dick pays no attention to the trico hatch.

It was tough summer fishing conditions today. The river has warmed up, the water has cleared and flows have dropped to a level where increasingly wary fish are taking advantage of better and better feeding opportunities, so they tend to ignore the offerings from fishermen in favor of nature's own plentiful midsummer bounty, which is perfectly normal for this time of year. But unfortunately for the fishermen, it's always harder to catch a well-fed fish.

The worst thing is, there are so many boats and so many fishermen pounding the river, even on a week day, that I think the fish are flushed out from their normal feeding habitat for most of the daylight hours. I know this isn't good for the fishing, and I don't imagine it's particularly good for the fish, either.

Again, we urge the public to stay away until conditions improve. We will keep you informed of any progress in these matters.

This is Jerry, releasing a nice brown trout.

What a sweet surprise, we had good fishing all day long, many fish, although most of them were small by Montana standards and yet they might have been state records back east or in most of Europe for all we know. They seemed just fine to us. Fantastic fishing, in fact, quite possibly the float of a lifetime.

Man! We really roughed 'em up today. And vice versa.

Dog days fishing is surprisingly tough at times. High temperatures and crowds of fishermen seem to make the fish wary, selective, and scarce - but persistence, an early start and a lifetime of fishing experience often gets the job done nonetheless. It also helps to work the less popular waters where the fishing pressure might be a bit lighter. And don't forget to bring a lunch.

Strange water conditions today. The east fork was extremely muddy. The main fork was crystal clear. The mixture of the two that we floated on had only about a foot-and-a-half of visibility, and the river actually came up a bit while we were floating it; mud and the rising water means thunderstorms upstream.

This year's strong spring flows left a lot more brushy debris in the river than usual, so in addition to fifteen or so fish, we also caught a fair number of snags.

Dog days fishing is also sometimes surprisingly productive once in a while.

John got the big one today, but I also caught four respectable rainbows prior to taking over the rowing chores, and at least one of those big boys was a cutthroat cross.

We had Saturday traffic: Lots of boats and lots of inner tube floaters but overall a very nice day on the water nonetheless.

The picture makes it look like a lake, but it's really a river, among the finest on the continent.

We didn't catch any fish today but we had a decent time and dodged a nasty thunderstorm that barely missed us. We ducked for shoreside cover to get out of the rain as it mostly passed us by, but up on the Fairfield bench it sure looked like somebody was catching big-time thunderstorm-hell.

So today we were shut out and rained-on, on one of the greatest rivers in North America. You just never know what you're gonna get.

12-Aug-2010: xxx river, about 40 miles downstream from yesterday (3530 cfs):

Today we encountered low river flows, a cool windy morning, and partly cloudy skies that threatened rain. Otherwise, the day could hardly have been more perfect: The fishing was excellent; there were no other boats or people around; the highway traffic to the launch was minimal; and Our Own Hometeam veterans Mark and Johhny showed up early, healthy and ready to play. And so we gave a fine accounting of ourselves in every respect - all fish released unharmed to the river, and likewise all expedition members safely returned afterwards to respective destinations.

It sure beats a day at the office, which is what we all did the very next day.

A chilly morning with occasional wind gave way to a very nice afternoon. Nobody else appeared to be out, probably due to the unsettled weather forecast, but possibly also because this little dewatered ditch is not considered particularly fishable or floatable at this time of year.

Flows have settled back down after a thunderstorm surge earlier in the week. We caught and released a lot of healthy vigourous fish including an approximately equal number of rainbow and brown trout and one whitefish. By any reasonable standard, a fine day of fishing.

We had good conditions but generally mediocre fishing for the first couple of days.

We camped at the flats above the bridge on the north side of the river. It rained hard for four solid hours as we drove up but it was nice as we set up the camp - we actually broke a sweat just setting up the tents.

Our time on the water was cold and windy though, and I sometimes wished that I had worn that heavier coat. One fine fine consolation for all our troubles was the great big bull trout Jerry caught. It was a giant, and might turn out to be our biggest fish of the year.

The weather improved but the fishing actually deteriorated from mediocre to not-so-hot.

Adding insult to injury, we could see the fish stacking up and feeding occasionally in the incredibly clear water. Thousands of fish, tens of thousands of fish, maybe more. But we just couldn't seem to catch very many of them.

We never quite figured it out. Everything we tried caught a few fish, but under the circumstances, we were more than a little bit surprised by our underwhelming lack of huge success. I wonder if I need to buy newer boat?

With all the hot weather over the past weeks, you might not expect the fishing to be particularly autumnal just yet, but fall is clearly underway in all the higher valleys upstream of the Headwaters. The brown trout buck in this picture is beginning to show the snaggly, hooked jaw characteristic of the fall run. It seems like the browns have moved out of the holes and have set up elsewhere, sometimes in midriver runs but more often right along the eddy fences where there are sharp edges between the still water and the heavy current. The strikes are vicious, aggressive attacks that do not necessarily involve a bite - quite often these fish actually seem to be trying to butt or bat your bait... bellicose bastards, these browns!

The river was low and bony, but perfectly navigable in the small raft. The afternoon temperature rose to 70, winds were mild and water temps in the 50's. The fishing started out slow but by the end of the day we each caught around a dozen fish, mostly smaller ones, but some like the one pictured were over 20 inches.

Good fishing today on what could well turn out to be the last really nice weekend of 2010. It was a bit chilly before sunrise when we launched, but warmed up to almost 70 by midafternoon.

We caught about a dozen fish each, rainbows, cutt-bows and brown trout, and some of them were pretty big.

Jerry and I enjoyed fair fishing today on an unusually mild and calm early November day. It was frosty and the sun wasn't quite up yet when we got to the put-in, but it warmed up nicely to about 55 later in the day.

Everything in the upper headwaters is closed for the season - the fly shop and even the one little bar and cafe in town were locked up tight, so we had to stir things up somewhat just to buy a shuttle and get going at first. Literally everybody we disturbed was great, very helpful all the way around, and they basically fired up the whole town, just for our business. Gotta love it when somebody makes a fuss over us, it doesn't happen very often.

We only caught about ten fish total. They were all brown trout and none of them were exceptionally big but they were all in fine shape. And. We also helped a hunter ferry his mule deer buck across the river, but that's a weird story for some other time and place. This is a fishing blog,after all.