I first traveled to Montana almost a year ago, staying in the Kalispell area, and fishing the South Fork of the Flathead River and the Clark Fork River. Those excursions were hard to top, but stories about the quality of the fishing on the Missouri River, conveyed with reverence by the outfitter, have plagued me ever since. So when presented with a chance to visit the Missoula area, I jumped to experience this fly fisherman’s Shangri-la.
Missoula is at the epicenter of an astounding array of piscatorial opportunities. The Clark Fork River runs through the center of the town, and the Bitterroot River, Rock Creek, Blackfoot River and many others are within easy reach. Missoula is also the home to the University of Montana, and the surrounding area boasts significant cultural and scenic options, such as monuments and parks along the Lewis and Clark trail, the National Bison Range Wildlife Refuge and Glacier National Park.
For the first few days, I stayed at a hotel facing the Clark Fork in Missoula. This gave me ample time to observe the not-so-epic struggle of non-resident fly fisherman against post-graduate-level educated resident trout. From the hotel balcony, I watched fresh-faced rubes beat the water, up and down, with all manner of techniques, but only saw one fish landed. By talking to a local, I learned that a recent project involving a dam’s removal upstream had slowed the fishing. However, he assured me that the fish were indeed there, just very accustomed to seeing the entire Orvis fly catalog float by.
Immediately after arriving, I strung up my 10 foot 6 weight and headed to the river. It took all of three minutes to walk from the hotel to the Governor Forrest H. Anderson Memorial Bridge. As I learned, there are a number of dams upstream from Craig, and at the bridge, the river appeared to be shallow, wide and with a gentle current. There had been a recent cold snap, so there was considerable vegetation floating downstream. Gladly, I observed that this didn’t impede a respectable cadence of rises. Though I saw one angler wading downstream from the bridge, I headed to the far bank and meandered upstream to watch the scene. Aside from hordes of hoppers that I dislodged in the brush, there didn’t seem to be a strong hatch occurring just yet. I tried a few emergers near the bank, but got no takers – maybe another case of educated fish? Instead, I continued to walk upstream and kept fishing while the light came down. Soon after, clouds of small tan caddis began to hatch, but the rises remained about the same. I tried a few sedge patterns, but quickly changed to a natural cone head Madonna streamer. Two vegetation-dodging casts later and I was tight to my first fish of the trip – a beautiful 17 inch Big Mo’ brown.
I met Jim the next morning for the first of two days floating the river. Eying a flotilla of other guide boats, I confessed to him that I was a streamer fishing addict, with a mild obsession with hoppers. He responded that this made me a “guide’s dream” of a client, since most people who fish the Missouri are interested in putting numbers on the board, i.e. indicator nymphing. Though this is a highly productive method on the river, and scuds, emergers and beads are definitely in vogue, the proliferation of aquatic vegetation makes this method of fishing difficult during this time of year.
After heading downstream ahead of the other boats, we tied on the Montana Fly Company’s Carnage Hopper in tan and went to work. The technique involved long casts, tight to the bank, drifting the foam close to structure. Though this was a little tricky, once dialed in, a good drift near a large clod of river salad was very likely to result in an epic take. The fish were holding in these zones and found the hopper pattern impossible to resist. My first fish took the fly with no subtlety, making a sideways, downstream leap, throwing the hook and leaving me with a memory of a brown blur that will not soon fade. The next fish was a stout Rainbow that I fought on the reel and to hand.
Jim explained that the time for rising fish had passed, but that this wouldn’t slow the fishing. We found a few, and each time I drifted the hopper above them it induced a strike. In short, the hopper fishing was phenomenal.
Later in the day, we approached a long stretch of river with a steep drop-off and rocky bank. Jim informed me that this was what I had been waiting for – the streamer zone. With shaking hands, I pulled out my 9 foot 6 weight with the full sinking line and strung up another Montana Fly Company product, the SRA double bunny in natural over white. For the next 20 minutes, each cast was rewarded with either a slashing strike or a willing participant. Though I thought the fish caught on hoppers fought well, I was amazed by the strength of the ones that took the streamer. Each one gave a vigorous fight, though I’m still wondering what the battle with one particularly huge undersea mirage – a brown of a lifetime that rolled on the fly, but wouldn’t commit – would have been like.
The rest of the day was a combination of hopper and streamer fishing. The smallest fish measured at 16 inches, with the rest being cookie cutter slabs in the 18 to 20 inch range.
The second day of fishing with Jim was as spectacular as the first. We launched further downstream and tried many other fruitful venues. One standout was a side channel which the guide ensured me held fish. It was almost still water fishing, but by the size of the bulges that kept appearing along the far bank, I knew I would be in for some serious Hopper carnage. He then proceeded to set me up to pick off fish after fish along this run. One noticeable missed strike even resulted in a memorable second hookup in the middle of the channel immediately after the errant fly hit the water.
Blackfoot River
The Blackfoot is arguably the most beautiful river in the U.S. Its origin is in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and it runs crystal clear for 132 miles to the Clark Fork River. Though it is the setting for Norman MacLean’s novel, A River Runs Through It, and a certain movie of which you may have heard, the Blackfoot speaks for itself.
After hour’s drive from Missoula, we met our guide, Drayton Osteen, also of Montana River Anglers. At the start of the float, the river was fast-running and narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate our raft. Drayton set me up with a two dry fly rig for the day, alternating between hoppers, foam caddis and mayfly dun patterns. We scored on nymphs in one run, but the dries proved to be the ticket, as not long after we started he challenged me to beat the boat record.
As promised, Drayton knew the river like he was born there. Fishing the Blackfoot couldn’t have been more different from the Big Mo. He pointed me to seams, drop-offs and soft water a few feet off of the bank. I also targeted structure, as undercut piles of wood or rocks make ideal dens for Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus). These members of the char genus are native to several Montana streams, lakes and rivers, including the Blackfoot. I had my first encounter with these brutes during my last trip, and was hoping for another, as they may grow in excess of three feet in length and tip the scales at over 20 pounds. Though I didn’t encounter a Bullie on this trip, I did catch an array of Blackfoot inhabitants – stunning rainbows, Cutthroats and Cut-bows. This fishing was very challenging, as the strikes were lightening fast and occurred without warning. One millisecond with your eyes off of the flies and that’s all she wrote.
For the day, I landed 23 fish with one 18 inch plusser breaking me off and another spectacular miss on a fish that may have been the West’s version of the Montauk Monster. Though I undershot the boat record by one fish, Drayton later explained that it had been set by two anglers.
In short, it was another Montana trip that left me ready to relocate. I learned a great deal from both guides and recommend Montana River Anglers wholeheartedly. Drayton Osteen is a prolific and innovative tyer, so I’m happy to pass along what I learned from him to any of the fellow tyers in the club.
For more information about fishing the Missouri and Blackfoot Rivers, or the Missoula area:
1) Jim Voeller, Montana River Anglers
http://www.montanariveranglers.com/
2) Cross Currents Fly Shop, Craig, MT
http://www.crosscurrents.com/CrossCurrents/Our_Fly_Shops.html
3) National Bison Range Wildlife Refuge
http://www.fws.gov/bisonrange/nbr/
4) Missoula Convention and Visitors Bureau
http://www.missoulacvb.org/
5) Montana Fly Company
http://www.montanafly.com/index.html
6) Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks – Bull Trout
http://fwp.mt.gov/wildthings/tande/bulltrout.html
7) Brian and Jenny Grossenbacher, Fly Fishing Montana (Tucson, Arizona: No Nonsense Fly Fishing Guidebooks, 2007).
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