Fly Fishing A Favorite Highland Stream

Ever since returning home from the NOWA conference in Seeley Lake (see previous posts) we haven't accomplished much other than moping around the house feeling sorry that we somehow just can't manage to shake the nasty coughs we both contracted...

A couple times we decided enough already and feeling bad just didn't cut it so we headed to the hills hoping to get over the mountain perhaps find the road into our favorite little crick open and maybe, just maybe, get up gumption enough to at least make a couple casts...didn't happen as each time we made it as far as the locked gate and that was that...

Yesterday same game plan but this time around no problem, road open and snow free all the way to the crick. Instead of the usual dry fly I rigged up a pair of soft hackles instead. The idea being what could be easier than swinging a pair of wets? In other words keep it simple stupid... The onslaught of warm weather of the past few days had the crick rolling pretty good, but thanks to a colony of busy beavers behind the dams the current was at least tolerable. With the dogs wild to get started and dancing about dangerously underfoot I pitched the pair into a foam pocket beside a nifty run. Second cast I felt a tug and next cast hooked a fat 10-inch brookie. 

Handing the rod off to Gale in no time flat she had the grayling pictured above flopping in the shallows. After the requisite photo shoot it was again my turn. Several drifts later another fat, though somewhat smaller brookie. And so it went. Given our weakened conditions over the next few hours we didn't cover much water and we didn't set any catch records...But every so often one of us connected and really that was more than we wanted from the excursion in the first place. The dogs had a blast, so much so we expected Annie any minute to break a leg or worse...Kate spent so much time in the cold water she shivered such her teeth rattled nearly all the way home. Annie of course slept all the way...no surprise there, eh? 

Except for the single grayling and cuttbow I caught later all the rest were brookies...just in case you wondered.  

Fly Fishing's Best Kept Secret

The idyllic scene above was captured following a fine day fly fishing a favorite little freestone creek beside a well-traveled forest road about a hour's drive from our home in southwest Montana. The solitude was palpable (we did not see another angler all day although we did hear the occasional vehicle passing by), the fishing on a scale of 1:10 was at least a 9+ (many trout, all wild, most of decent size [10-13 inches or so]all on dry flies, can't beat it..right?).

Early in the morning we watched a cow elk and calf feeding a nearby meadow and later saw black bear sow with two tiny cubs--one cinnamon, one black--in tow. In addition over the course of the day was an almost endless wildlife parade--beaver, muskrat, mink, a hen merganser and a vertitble flock yougins, a golden eagle, a kingfisher or two, countless songbirds, pine squirrels and on the way home, more elk, mule deer and, of all things, a fisher cat scooting across the road. I don't know about you but this ol' boy hasn't seen many of those elusive critters in a long life of looking.

True all days spent flinging flies on little seldom fished waters are not so...ah, dare I say it, phenomenal but I can hardly recall one wasn't at least damn enjoyable.

Which begs the question why don't more folks do it? By far the vast majority resident and non-resident anglers instead flock to our many "blue ribbon" streams where truth be known the crowds are often such they rival flocks of sheep. One day last season I landed my drift boat at Melrose (Big Hole) and counted an astounding 60rigs IN the parking lot...the overflow parked on the road all the way from the entrance to the bridge!! Believe it or not I shot the above photo next day.

With a little research and map work you too can find your own "secret" trout spot...make that 10 or 100 secret trout spots. Actually in Montana there are countless dozens (100s, 1000s?) what a friend calls "jump cricks" that for all practical purposes go unfished year in year out.

As previously hinted solitude and wildlife viewing are high on our list while the fishing hot or cold puts us in bonus territory. But jump cricks are full of surprises, some are wall to wall willing easy to catch trout, where you bean counters in the audience can run up truly mind-boggling numbers; some hold trout of surprising size, especially considering the small stature of the crick itself. Trust me, an 18-inch trout tearing up a 10-foot wide crick...well hell, give it a try ya just might like it.

Obviously we do, and I could go on and on but by now I'm sure you get my drift so...