Dillon 8/22

Here is an entry I wrote yesterday at the ranch, hoping to simply incorporate into the post.  I'm not able to do this, so I'll retype it.  It covers 8/19 to 22.

Russ and I travelled from Phillipsburg to the ranch mostly using blue Highways:  Over a divide from Anaconda to the Big Hole.  Then up Wise River and over a divide into Grasshopper Creek, then over twenty miles of gravel to Grant, on the interstate to Dell, and Big Sheep Creek Road.  The Wise River portion was especially pretty--forested with a medium size clear river and many National Forest Campgrounds that seem hardly used.  A tempting place to park a camper for a week.
 

At the ranch Russ and I fished upstream on the 19th.  I wanted him to show me the stream improvements that we paid $26,000 for. They are not very obvious.  About all we could do was guess that here they had deepened the channel, there they had built up the bank, and elsewhere partial rock dams were laid in the stream.  But the stream is greatly improved.  What part is due to the healthy water flows of this year and last and what is due to construction is hard to say.

The fishing has never been better.  We fished together, alternately trying promising runs and caught fish in almost all of them.  The next AM we did the same thing from the bottom of the lower meadow to about half way up with the same results.  Here are some pictures

How nice these seem.  And how nice it was to fish again with my old friend.  I could not help thinking that after fishing with Russ over a 45 year span, this could be the last time.  I think that awareness of this possibility makes the present even sweeter. 

On the afternoon of the 20th we took a walk to the mouth of Patterson Canyon.  The BLM has taken down the shearing shed.  The old bath tub is also gone, perhaps taken for a Levitra commercial.  In the evening a run to Lima for take-out pie and ice cream--dessert for the Caesar salad main course.

Yesterday after Russ left I took a walk up Woodpile Canyon.  Saw a pair of large owls guarding their nest.  They flew close but did not strike me.  Also saw bear sign, a rarity for Sheep Creek.  Today another hike.  And I finished Amy and Isabelle, a very good book I thought. 

That's what I wrote yesterday.  Today I'm in Dillon on the way to pick up Ames at the Butte Airport.  I write this in the basement of the public library, having played 9 holes of golf.  Yikes I'm late.