Fishing with Hank Patterson, his nephew, brother in law, and the best man for his nephews wedding. (Montana Matt Fishing with Hank Patterson)

This journey began on the beautiful Blackfoot River near Bonner, MT. I woke up at 2 am to make the 4 hour drive from Hayden, Idaho to meet Hank and the gang. During that 4 hour drive I kept thinking of the guiding tips Hank gave me the last time we fished together. Snap It, skate it, kapoweeeee, I was just making sure I had my crap together before I met the legend. It is hard knowing you are about to guide the 2012 guide of the year.

I was on mile marker 30 heading up to Lincoln when I heard it! Thunderous Snaps from the canyon walls of the Blackfoot River. I knew he was there practicing for the day. I had my music up loud and the snaps were so loud my windows were shaking. No wonder why the fish know when Hank is around and are ready to eat.

Hank is a huge advocate of stretching before the day begins. His stretching lasted exactly the same amount of time it took us to get ready for the day. Coincidence?

This day couldn’t have been any better. We hooked up to fish right away and it never stopped. We caught them with caddis, caddis, caddis, and more caddis!! Around 1pm the fish were not as active because of the temperature. I could see a lot of fish hunkered down in the lower depths of the pools. I hooked up a streamer rod for both Dane and Will and showed them how to streamer fish. Dane is officially hooked! He loved the feeling of the head shakes and the vicious grabs.Will got a lot of follows and loved how you could see the fish come from the depths to chase your streamer.

Hank was still determined to go for risers and showed us some new cast, we should try to master. He doesn’t mess around when he is fishing. If he doesn’t like a certain bank he goes straight to the other one without delay!

The Blackfoot river is one of my favorite rivers I have ever fished. I love catching fish while in rapids. This nice Cutthroat caught by Dane was caught with a size 16 caddis on the roughest stretch of water in the canyon. He did a excellent job handling it and I am so glad we were able to get it in for a picture. Congrats Dane!!