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Craig makes hay while the fish fly
CRAIG, Mont. (AP) The midafternoon heat is intense in this little town and the fishing is a little slow, but Mike Bushly is still upbeat.There's air conditioning inside The Trout Shop, an emporium loaded with cool fishing stuff fly rods, vests, waders, flies, ventilated clothing and a well-stocked deli offering drinks, sandwiches and chilled salads. Even the thick fleece-lined jackets have a perverse retail appeal.And Bushly has plenty more reasons not to sweat. The shop and the small community that surrounds it are awash in anglers ready to spend cold cash chasing big trout.This is our Christmas right now,'' Bushly said.While the stretch of the Missouri River between Holter Dam and Cascade lures plenty of Montanans through the year, the summer months bring anglers from all over the United States and around the world to the broad, cool river.A group of anglers from France just wrapped up seven days of fishing on the Missouri.
Native brook trout are in hot water
My first brook trout arrived on a frosty late-spring morning in mountain water so cold it made my fingers tingle before going completely numb. No bigger than my hand, the brookie was a work of art to rival New Hampshire's Chocorua Lake, its home just before I enticed it to swallow my fly and to which I would return it moments later. Its olive skin peppered with blue-ringed red dots and a rakish orange belly is a vivid image that has stayed with me for more than 25 years. If I had a lick of artistic ability, I could draw that fish from memory. Since arriving here 18 years ago, my encounters with brookies have been fewer and farther between. Some of that has to do with the other fish that occupy my time: white perch, croaker and, of course, striped bass. (Let's not even mention menhaden, OK?) But even when I've carved out the time, it's been hard to do a meet-and-greet with Maryland's only native trout.
Injured vets strong-arm the river
Bond - The trout rose and sipped a mayfly off the surface of the Colorado River. Joshua Williams caught the small disturbance on the water from the corner of his eye. Standing in a drift boat, he raised his fly rod and the trout rose again and gulped in the artificial fly on the end of the line. And suddenly, Williams was in trouble. He'd done this a hundred times before on the rivers and creeks around his home in Virginia, passionately throwing a fly at rising trout, holding the long rod in his right hand and gently stripping in the slack line with his left, a delicate two-handed operation. But on Friday, the baby-faced 22-year-old Army staff sergeant who spent a hellish year engaged in street combat in Iraq had a problem. He didn't have a right hand. The trout surged into the current.
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