…Tuesday I was out with my Casa Blanca fishing partner, Kris, and her friend Heath.  The Bitterroot had been rising for 3 days and finally started to drop last night so we decided to give it a shot.

 We launched around Hamilton and there was definitely more volume in the river but water clarity was decent.  We started with dry/dropper rigs and Heath connected with a cutthroat on the first bank to get us going.  

A few runs further down and we doubled up with a rainbow and a cutt.  Then Kris picked up a couple of nice fish out of a back eddy.

 It actually fished very well despite the higher water.  Back eddies and the bottom part of runs were key for us, but all of those spots were holding decent fish.  Heath came tight on a cuttbank and you could tell right away it was a heavy fish.

 He had to fight that trout away from some downed timber but eventually but a gorgeous 18″ brown in the net.  Kris followed that up with a 17″ brown of her own just downstream.  

For the afternoon I switched up the droppers and both Heath and Kris connected in the first spot.  The action remained pretty steady the rest of the day.  Kris had one back eddy where she hooked 9 and most all of the likely spots produced in the afternoon.  The average size was a little smaller once the sun got high, but the fish were still eating.  

We finished up the day with a series of better rainbows and cuttbows.  Heath had a couple in the 16″ range and Kris boated a fat cuttbow.  Only 2 dry fly eats, but considering that the river had more than doubled in flow in the last 3 days we had some fantastic fishing.