Thanksgiving on the Mo

I have a dilemma every Thanksgiving. The time. Why do people eat at 2 o'clock? What time did the original Thanksgiving take place? I figure I have a day off on a perfectly sweet fall afternoon... in which I am very thankful for, and in which I very much want to go fishing. So I want to be clear, I think it is a good thing to take a day to give thanks for all that we are fortunate enough to have... I just would like to do that on the river.

I am very lucky to have the family that I have as they realize I have an obsession, and make annual compromises for Turkey dinnertime. This year I chose noon. I wanted to work with my dog doing some waterfowl hunting in the morning and made plans to make it to the Mo for an afternoon float. I brought Paul Bloch his Thanksgiving dinner to the boat ramp as he had been fishing all morning with pretty successful results.

A much more difficult dilemma is, ''What streamer should we start with at the end of November on the Missouri?" Paul started with a Skip Morris pattern that imitates a small rainbow trout. Got a big rainbow to eat the fly but then lost it to hard hook set, and a fly locked on the bank (that may be a fly we see in our fly bins next season).

I often hear, and many times think myself that if the fish are eating streamers, then they are eating streamers. However, the Missouri can be finicky, even on flies intended to bring out the predatory nature of fish. We switched to an olive zonker looking fly, which under many circumstances would be a great streamer. However, evidently not on Thanksgiving, and we switched flies a number of times after that with minimal success.

I would have probably been too lazy to switch flies (after a noon Thanksgiving) but Paul was pretty persistent to figure this out and finally we switched to a simple white crystal bugger, all white. First cast landed a small brown trout, and although we had little river left, Paul and I switched back and forth landing fish off the front of the boat. They wanted white for Thanksgiving this year.

I am very thankful for the day, for fly-fishing, for our customers in the fly shop, our country, some great co-workers, my friends and family, and for Paul's skills in using rocks as an anchor (I believe he has done this before).