For the third consecutive year, I blocked a few days to fish Montana with friends. This time around it’d only be Nate joining me, as the other usual suspects decided late in the game to try Wyoming with a driftboat. Admittedly, an interesting option, but travel arrangements were already sitting in my inbox so we stayed the course. We boarded this aircraft above, because small places require small planes.
On our descent, we smelled the signs of the fires in the west and saw that they had extended their wispy fingers to Montana as well, rust colored blanket preventing the distant ranges from being seen.
On a fishing trip like this, sleeping in a cheap AirBnB is either the best or worst sleeping option. This is doubly true in Montana. Hard to find art like this (see below) in a tent. Or bathroom mold that watches your naked body whilst you shower.
Where else can you find the dinginess of a cheap motel, without the trappings of government regulations as a safety net for basic cleanliness? Or enjoy the sounds of local wildlife screaming out to be released from a glue trap from behind the laundry dryer? AirBnBs. Are. The. Best.
DAY 1:
Our first plan of attack was to head to the main fork of the Gallatin. This was a stretch we eyeballed last year but decided against it in the end because the trailhead was a parking lot of Subarus and modified Tacomas. The smoke muted the landscape and the water was low, but we knew that the buckets would still hold fish. After covering a good amount of ground, we had great quantity (25 or so) but mostly were connecting with a lot of “Freshwater Bonefish”. Some of these Mighty Whiteys were pushing 22″, and I sighted a pair that looked to be closer to 25″. The state record in MT is 23″, not that anyone I know is hoping to hold that title.
Hoppers were everywhere. To take a step in the brush was to send a dozen of more launching into a short flight. Different species amassed some sort of biblical plague. I tried a few larger dries, but the fish here wanted smaller #12 nymphs.
That afternoon, we moved to the stretch of Gallatin in the canyon, where the rocks change to massive boulders and the water gets downright heavy in stretches. I moved a few smaller bows here, and Nate posed for the cover of Field & Stream.
DAY 2:
We reconnected with an old NV acquaintance of mine and headed out toward the “Upper” Madison. The Upper Madison is everything below Quake all the way down to Ennis Lake. Chris is not only a generous fellow, he’s an easy hang that doesn’t chat too much and handles himself on the sticks like someone who’s spent hundreds of hours on the water…because he has. Things started slow, even with multiple changes to the rigs. We put in at Palisades and took out at Mackatee, a float of a few hours.
One observation from this outing: when a river has a particularly even substrate, with not much topography to it, then even the slightest changes in features can become hot spots for trout to line up or take shelter. The brown below was laying down behind a rock the size of a basketball, which in most rivers you wouldn’t consider prime real estate.
DAY 3:
On rumors of good activity, Nate and I drove toward the Flying D Ranch off W. Williams Rd, where Ted Turner’s bison roam about and electric fences follow the Gallatin for several miles. It was some of the best looking water (as far as trout habitat goes) I’ve ever seen in Montana, and yet it yielded nothing but disappointment. A few dinks here and there, and some stressful hiking given the proximity to the metal wires carrying current alongside the narrow trail you have to move up and down.
For what felt like hours, I had a small river mink (or something like that) keeping watch on me. His behavior indicated that perhaps he had been fed before by a fool that looked like me. He would stay close enough for me to touch him with my rod tip, but not close enough to grab him. He observed my movements, and closed distance whenever I pulled a fish out the water for the release. Mostly, he stared and chittered, bouncing between the rocks (see below).
That afternoon we tried the East Gallatin, mostly because the wind came up quite a bit and kept us off the creeks where I was eager to try the ant patterns that the local shops were so amped about. This stretch started out hot, then died completely without so much as a rise for 90 min, then turned aggressively back on for the last light. We could hardly get an empty cast back to the hand as the blues and purples on the horizon turned pink and orange.
DAY 4:
My plan had me joining a short retreat with others in my line of work at the tail end of this trip, but due to an email error, had been given the wrong details about when my shuttle was coming to pick me up in Billings. The good news was I had about 3/4 of a day to fish my way east…so I did just that, making stops in Livingston and Big Timber. Livingston was tough fishing, with whipping winds and the Yellowstone River getting super wide. More whitefish. Those damn whitefish were the mascot for the whole trip.
In Big Timber I took Holder Road down to a stretch of the Boulder River and found some fish with a proper mouth, as well as copious amounts of bear scat. I had eight fish to hand, including this electric looking brown. My head was on a swivel the entire time, and realized at some point I wasn’t really relaxed or taking in the sights the whole time I was out. In any case, Doug O’s Strawberries ‘n’ Cream was effective, but I lost the only two I had on me.
I’m always grateful for time in this state. I know that places like Bozeman will continue to suffer some identity crisis, both losing who she has been in the past and in gaining more change that many there never asked for. That how it usually goes for places that drip in natural beauty and offer experiences hard to find in the other states. The tourist is both the cash cow and the cancer. My hope is to leave as little negative impact as possible, and a bit of funds to keep local shops going and an opportunity to go back if the fates allow.