The annual RIO trip to the Missouri took place in October 2009 with a bunch of RIO staff and a number of dealers from around the US.

The weather was mild enough to start with - too mild really, with no baetis hatch and few heads up, and too warm for streamer fishing. Things changed early on, though, and the bitter winds picked up bringing snow and freezing conditions. Though tough for fishing, this lit up the streamer fishing first, and then the baetis came off in huge amounts, bringing noses up all over the river.

For at least 4 days in a row the temps never got above freezing, and with the wind chill factor the air was closer to zero degrees fahrenheit, than freezing!  Brutal for any exposed flesh!

The fishing, however, was on fire. The streamer fishing really picked up to start with and smaller streamers were the order of the day - small foxy clousers, brown leeches and sculpin patterns produced a lot of fish, while the bigger streamers got lots of follows and short takes. The biggest fish of the trip was a 24.5" Rainbow caught by Wes Osborne on a streamer fished off the F/I OutBound Short - it was a hog!

The water temp was 56 degrees at the start and dropped down to around 54 by the end of the trip.

The fish were sporadic on dries to start with and the only naturals coming off were pseudos. A sz. 12 Bloom Caddis seemed to work pretty well on these fish, but when the Baetis finally started hatching there were willing noses up everywhere.

The end result was some of the best dry fly fishing ever, some epic streamer fishing and the coldest, most frost bitten fingers on record!