Central Montana

  With a 4 day weekend at hand, I decided to go visit my dads ranch in central Montana.  Gracee actually hitched a ride up on Wednesday and Noah and I followed her Thursday after school.  We spent some time at the ranch and helped with a few ranch chores.  One great bonus to this trip was the somewhat unknown brown trout fishery only minutes from my dads front door.

This steam is technically a river but is very small in size.  It is much like the East Gallatin near Bozeman.  It is a winding water, characterized by riffles, run and undercut banks.  At first glance one would never guess that lurking in these waters are big brown trout.  The standard FWP info claims that fish average 10 inches in this river.  But an inside source who had fished the river last spring said that it was more like 16-18 inches.  Others report fish in the 5 pound range being caught frequently.  When fish are getting this big it is not unlikely that there are some 30 inch fish in this thing!

Noah and I set out with much excitement and anticipation.  We first arrived on the river at mid day.  Noah was casting lures and I began swinging streamers.  4 hours later, Noah and I trudged home...fishless.

The water was fairly muddy, and the day was very warm and bright.  These were also brown trout and they are not known for feeding out in the open on a bright sunny day.  Noah was pretty much over it.  The stream was hard for him to fish.  It was narrow and brushy and he snagged up quite often.  He did give it a valiant  try and I am always impressed with the diligence that he displays for being so young.

He was tired so I drove him back to the house.  It was now almost 6 p.m and I did not want to end it that way.  I figured the evening would be better anyway.  I drove back down to the river and began working the banks with big streamers.  A lot of casts went by before finally a got  a hook up.  The fish fought hard and it was defiantly larger than any of the fish I had caught so far this year.  I landed the fish and pulled a quick tape on it.  It was just a touch over 15 inches.  Not a big fish by any means but after so many fish-less hours I was feeling like a just caught a steelhead.  This fish did create one milestone for me.  It was the first fish I have caught on a fly that I tied myself, a black and green woolly bugger.  I released the fish a fished on with a little more adrenaline in my veins.

It took another 2 hours to strike pay dirt again.  By now the excitement of the last fish had worn off and I was beginning to tire.  The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky.  I had no more luck on the self tied wooly bugger so I went bigger and brighter.  I tied on a natural and yellow double bunny and went to work with it.  I spotted a deep undercut bank and casted across and slightly upstream.  I mended once to let the fly sink and then let it swing into the deep water adjacent to the opposite bank.  I suddenly felt a jolt unlike anything I had felt in a long time.  This fish had my rod bent double and made a quick run that took about 30 feet of line.   I actually had to strain to keep the rod tip up.  I finally landed the fish.  It was by far the biggest fish I had caught on my fly rod in a number of years.  I taped it at 19 inches.  Once again, not a trophy trout, but under the difficult circumstances I was thrilled.  I released the fish and being a little caught up in the moment, looked toward the beautiful evening sky and spoke out loud..."Thank you."