I’m in a terrible spot; go fly fishing at Georgetown Lake (where big trout lurk), or assemble a post about our visit to a small meadow stream.

Hmmm.

Looks like the Undergrounders will have to be content with a teaser:

It's (Name Redacted) again, this time on an alpine meadow stream

This meadow stream is a tiny thing and you rarely even touch the water (except to release a trout), but in this instance, [Name Redacted] caught a trout right at the base of the flowers.

This particular stream required a little hiking, and I managed to land a Grand Slam there: Brown trout, Brook trout, and a Westslope Cutthroat.

[Name Redacted] also put the steel to a 12″ Brook trout – a big fish in such little water – and we returned with photographic evidence of the existence of a rare freshwater mussel – the Western Pearlshell.

Its range is shrinking fast, and it would be a shame to see it disappear; it’s extemely long-lived (one specimen lived 67 years), and it’s being killed by eutropification – mostly due to cattle grazing and bad agricultural practices.

More pictures and words coming – I just don’t know when. In the battle between blogging and fishing, well…

See you in Montana, Tom Chandler.