The Bob

[luckydude]

I just got back from the Bob, floated the river with what was the Pawsup guides (pawsup has bowed out so the people who did the work put something together).

I had a blast. Pics are up here:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/

with my fave here:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/100.html

Great trip!

[Charlie S]

Great photos and what looks like a wonderful trip. Thanks for sharing....

[Fly Guy Dave]

A luckydude indeed! Lots of great photos and such a beautiful area. A solid bull trout there too. Thanks for sharing. But I'm curious as to what happened to PawsUp? Did they go out of business?

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I heard this was one of the last unspoiled rivers in North America.

[Keith Kaneko]

Great report and photos Larry! I am glad that Joe and the gang put on another great trip down the SF Flathead. I appreciate the business!

Dave - Paws Up is still in business, but they gave up their outfitting segment of their business. Paws Up "Outfitters" used to partner with Joe Muretta of the now Bullseye Adventures to offer this trip. So in actuality, Muretta was and is the true owner (and permit holder) to offer this float trip. The float that Larry just did is the same program and staff that serviced the Paws Up program. I will be, once again, offering this same trip in 2013 with Joe and his gang.

[luckydude]

Here are some more details on the Flathead trip. [XXX - some of the guide details below are wrong but I'm packing up to leave Idaho, I'll fix when I'm back in California.]

Keith sent me a packet of stuff including a good list of stuff to take.

What wasn't made clear, and I sort of get why, is that you spend the first day doing 22 miles on a horse. Personally, I like horses, I like riding, but 22 miles is a long way. You will be tired and grumpy after that day.

We got to Youngs creek that day and the group decided to lay over for a day there. As soon as I got into camp and got off the horse, I lined up my rod and headed to the creek (I don't get to fish places like this at all, so I was stoked). It took me about 20 minutes of walking around and trying stuff and then I was into fish. Fish after fish, all in the 11-13" range and fun as heck to catch, those small fish fight like crazy. My rule is to stop counting after a dozen fish and I stopped counting that first night.

The next day was guided fishing, I got Jason and we headed down the trail so we could work our way back up the creek (here in California we'd call that a river). Had a great day, I brought to hand a 18" cutthroat. Jason was great, he pokes around into back channels and got me into some more big fish.

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/50.html

Randy was tagging along and while I was pulling in a decent fish I saw a good one and put him on it. This is Randy with the biggest fish he caught the whole trip:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/66.html

The next day we rode again. It was supposed to be a short ride but there was a log jam so we rode a bit farther. Camp was here:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/97.html

and while they were making dinner I went out to fish and was happy right away (this was small, I hooked and lost a much bigger fish).

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/98.html

That camp was fun, there was a back eddy next to where we had dinner that had at least a dozen good sized trout in it, you could take a bite, catch a fish, repeat. Awesome.

The next day was the first day in the rafts. My guide was Tom, a young man from Maine. I wasn't sure about him at first, too much telling me what to do, but it got better and fast. He put me on fish and I landed 2 17+ inch cutties right away and then a bit farther down I got one of the two bulls landed on the trip, here's me and Tom after getting that bull (which he gets 100% credit for seeing and stopping and getting me to cast a bigger rig than I have ever cast):

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/127.html

I should mention that since I was by myself I got paired up with another single, Vicky. Here is her first big one that Tom put her on (go Vicky! It was her first trip fly fishing, she improved hugely on this trip):

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/130.html

Tom also liked prospecting the back channels, just like Jason, and here I am with a nice trout on my 3wt Sage Vantage (I was stoked!):

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/167.html

Grrrrr:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/169.html

Down the river we went. Made camp, had yet another great dinner (the food was fantastic, I think this dinner was the Elk Tacos, yum, yum).

Next morning, here is Doog hauling his string across the river to take supplies to the next camp:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/175.html

That day I was guided by Adam. If you want technical guiding, he is who you want. All business, he knows his stuff. We did have sort of a slow day but I don't think that's his fault.

So we're on our last night. I'm not going to say much about that other than there is a policy of not packing out any booze. Let's just say that I helped the guides a lot with breaking down camp and hauling equipment the next morning. If you've ever worked off a hangover you know the feeling

This is all of us that morning (I'm on the right next to Vicky):

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/190.html

The last day I was guided by Joe, he runs the team, it was awesome. We got into lots of fish and had a blast, lots of nice fish like this:

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/the_bob-2012/199.html

It was a great trip, I had a blast! I gotta go, my wife is waiting so if I've made mistakes on the photo links I'll correct later.

Anyone who wants more info can PM me or Keith.

[EricO]

What an awesome trip LuckyDude.

I showed my wife your pics (she loves fly fishing). Her response: "when are you taking
me on a trip like that?"

That is a bucket list trip for sure.

EO