We’re heading out the door for more remote places, but didn’t want to leave the Undergrounders empty handed while I cavort with Montana’s fishier elements.

Yesterday’s float on the Bitterroot was remarkable… for how quickly the fishing plummeted from the day before. Still, a float is a float, and those are generally big fun no matter how many trout come over the gunwale.

Plus, we had a volunteer rowing the boat, and while it’s probably rude to say your host’s outdoor-guide, going to law-school daughter is a Massively Hot Babe, it’s maybe permissible to suggest [name redacted] and I fly fished in an environment offering a considerably elevated level of babeitudeness.

We have questions for Montana's under-30 male population. Like, what's wrong with you??

Enough said.

Two days ago, we waded the Bitterroot, worked rising fish, and saw lots of bugs.

Yesterday, the PMDs didn’t happen, and most of the other bugs were in hiding, and we ended up slapping streamers against the Bitterroot’s many wood piles (and a couple long banks held together by long strings of old cars), which delivered a few hustling attacks, but no hookups.

You know there's a big one in there, but he didn't come out to play.

The body count fell somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen+ smallish trout, and though we expected bigger things, it simply was too beautiful to pretend at disappointment.

Angry clouds surrounded us all day, yet the sun shone and we barely got rained, yet the weather drama was almost unbearably primal (and beautiful).

Today we’re looming up the truck and heading for more remote areas, and you’re unlikely to hear from me for a couple days, though who knows what might happen if we get cell coverage.

Meanwhile, our wading boot test continues, though we have to say that wading Bitterroot was so easy that real testing of the sticky rubber soles isn’t all that possible, though that didn’t stop the Underground’s Crack Testing Staff from trying:

Even with a different boot on each foot, the Bitterroot waded so easy I couldn't tell the difference.

I will say this: on an easy-wading river like the Bitterroot, the new sticky rubber soles worked just fine, and if these are the kinds of rivers you fish, then maybe you don’t need to hassle with studs, felt or other stuff.

Still, we’re coming to realize that the next phase of testing (back in the Underground’s Natural Northern California Habitat) will involve studs or cleats of some kind.

More to come, Undergrounders. Next up? Some of the little streams we live and breathe for.

See you where there are way more cows than people, Tom Chandler.