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Cousin McMac with a nice brown on a recent Bigfork Anglers guide trip.

It’s a slow and easy time of year. Sipping coffee by the fire in slippers in the morning and warmish sunny afternoons have been the norm.We’ve still had a few trips going out but for the most part we have been hunting and relaxing. It’s a nice time of year. Preseason orders, inventory, outfitter reporting, payroll, and all that fun stuff is still scratching at the door…but for now we hunt.

There is still some fishing to be had despite the record rainfall we received in October. 4.86 inches of rain in Kalispell crushed the 100 year old record of 3.4″. The average is just 1.01″ for October so you can imagine how the river looks if you haven’t been on it lately. Add in the tally of 12.3″ for Hungry horse and 10.8″ for West Glacier and you have a serious gusher of a river. Normal flows are 4k-ish and we hit almost 20k a few days ago!

Flows have been dropping steady as we’ve been drying out the last several days so you can find some fish in the right spots(think slow). Problem is, those spots are also occupied with whitefish fisherman looking to fill their coolers with the fall run of Lake Superior Whitefish. That’s ok, we can all find some fish and enjoy the warm sunny fall weather we’ve been getting. Why not bring a jig rod and try your luck on some whities? They pull pretty hard and are good in the smoker. Or tie up a hefty jig head olive sparkly wooly bugger on a loooong leader and bounce it on the bottom(if you can find the bottom). You can catch a few on the fly pole too.  Not sure where to fish for whities? Go float on a Saturday and look where all the whitefish guys are sitting in their motor boats, then go back on Monday…

Some nice weather in the forecast. Get it while you can.

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Jason Lanier
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