06-24 REELLIFE digital - Flipbook - Page 22
With the sun beginning to
set I decided to call it an
evening and get back to
the ranch before dark.
Arriving at Bill’s ranch my
son Matt was there, having
driven from Helena. “How’d
you do”? they asked me.
Pulling out the catfish from
my cooler, Bill looked at it
and said, “That’s a nice one,
I’d say about ten pounds”.
Matt’s eyes got wide and he
asked, “When do we go?”
The next day’s sunrise
was a classic Big Sky
Painting, with red and
yellow hues breaking over
the trees. We had been
shadowing a group of
about thirty turkeys, trying
to keep below a ridge that
separated us from the
turkeys between the field
and the river. Finding an
opportunity for an ambush
location, we set up and
started calling the mix of
hens and gobblers toward
us. Donn Morse of Old Goat
Lures is also an avid turkey
hunter and had given me
a couple of the 3D pot calls
that he makes and sells.
The pots have great tone
and soon several turkeys
22 | NWFISHING.net
started our way. And then
stopped. Dismayed, we
watched the birds turn and
head for the river, flying
across to safety.
Returning to the ranch
Bill had prepared for us a
breakfast fit for a, well, a
rancher. We made plans
for the day, deciding to visit
some friends and hitting
the river after dinner for an
evening bite.
I was excited to be
fishing old school with
Matt. Our lifetime fishing
experiences had generally
been from a boat, and I
couldn’t recall bank fishing
with him before. It gave
me pause to think how
sometimes possessions
and technology can rob
us of something so simple
by making it complex. All
the tools we use for fishing
from a boat are certainly
important, but there is just
something about sitting
on a bank and soaking a
worm, waiting for a bobber
to get pulled underwater,
or seeing a rod tip twitch,
knowing that on the other
end, some kind of fishing is
preparing to make your bait
his meal.
After dinner we headed
over to our fishing hole,
passing groups of turkeys
teasing us in the fields.
They would have to wait for
another day, we were Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn, our
fishing rods and a box of
worms in hand, looking for
the perfect piece of forked
tree branch to serve as a
rod holder.
Matt baited up and cast
out, and in a matter of
minutes announced that
he had a bite. Tightening
down on the line, he set the
hook and reeled in his first
Musselshell catch, a nice
smallmouth bass.
And so, the evening went
on. Matt and I were kept
busy with a steady evening
bite. The smallmouth were
most active, and we caught
around a dozen ranging
from dinks to nice 2-3
pounders. Thrown in the
mix were plenty of yellow
eye, which is a Montana
version of a giant herring,
around 12” in length and
very spunky to catch. Sadly,
the catfish bite was dead.
No worries, though, with
the Missouri River as our
backyard there will be
plenty of new places to
explore the next time we
decide to go “Old School”
fishing.
