USA Troutfishing Montana

It was no surprise that some of the best trout fishing was in Montana. We spent a whole month in that wonderful state so I had the chance to fish several of what the USA anglers call: Blue Ribbon Waters.

The first of these was the Blackfoot River. This is the river that Norman McLean wrote about is his inspiring book, All the rivers run through it. It was made famous when Robert Redford made a film of the book starring Brad Pitt. What you may not know is that the river shown in the film is actually the Gallatin River. The Blackfoot River is now so lined by houses that Redford was unable to show the river as it would have been 60 years ago. So he moved locations to the Gallatin which flows through reserves where there are no houses.

The Blackfoot had a much larger volume of water and was not wadeable. It was a matter of wading out as far as I could and fishing the eddies behind the large boulders in the middle of the river - a bit like fishing the old Mill Race section of the Tongariro River. The smaller fish were plentiful along the edges but only the bigger fish could survive in the faster flows. Using that technique I picked a couple of rainbows around the 4 lb mark - large fish by local norms.


The next day I fished the Gallatin and had an interesting morning. There were not many anglers but there were a horde of rafting children.



I don't think this enhanced the fishing but about a dozen fish were landed; a mixture of browns, rainbows and cutthroat trout.













The best went around 3 lb.






It was lovely water to fish, quite easy to wade in the middle sections and very similar to a high country NZ stream.




Fishing the Gallatin River












Some local anglers told me the best fishing in Montana was to be had in Rock Creek.



Rock Creek








I had not heard of that fishery but found it to be just a lovely waterway, wadeable in most stretches and holding a good population of trout. I was hoping to catch a bull trout which is a fairly rare species only to be found in the local waterways. When I hooked into something substantial in the middle reaches, I thought I might just have cracked it as the fish did not fight like a rainbow or a brown.
The fish put up a good account of itself and it was ten minutes later before I could ease a pale fish into the shallows. The fish has noticeable shiny scales and it was only down at the tackle shop later that I had hooked a Mountain Whitefish.



These are regarded as a nuisance by the locals but I found them good sport.



They mainly took a sunken nymph and perhaps that is why I caught more of them than most of the other anglers. As the fishing was a bit hard that day, they were a welcome relief to what might have been a relatively hard day's fishing. That particular whitefish would have gone more than 4 lb which was later put in perspective when the tackle shop told me that the State Record was a touch over
5 lb.




Whitefish Pool
Rock Creek









While fishing Rock Creek, I talked for a while with an angler from British Columbia. He told me of some great fishing to be had on Ruby River. He told me that the upper reaches were owned by media magnate, Ted Turner, but there were some public access points further down.
A week or so later, we had wandered around the tourist town of Virginia City and made our way to a campground not far from Ruby Creek. The next day we poked our nose down a small road that lead to a Public Access point. The river did not look that great from the carpark, being sluggish and brown, having been discoloured from overnight rain.


A sluggish, dirty Ruby River











I tackled up and left Susie to her book and the local birdlife that entertained her for a couple of hours. I walked down the track, pausing here and there to have a flick in the odd pool. Nothing much happened and I reached the limit of the public fishing. The water below looked more attractive so I climbed over the single strand wire fence and wandered down to the large pool. It was noticeable that the water colour was improving and that was emphasised by the sight of a trout rising in the centre of the pool.
I changed to a hopper pattern and tossed it in above where the rise had been. Up came the trout on schedule and grabbed the fly. A lively brown fought strongly and eventually a beautiful 4 lb brown came to the bank. I was impressed at the size of the trout from this small stream.



Four pounder Pool









I started back up the stream. The water was now only slightly discoloured and the fish were taking freely. I had always found this was the best time to fish any waterway as the fish must be hungry after not feeding during the fresh. Twelve more browns were taken, mostly on the nymph after I resorted to a combo rig when the dry seemed to lose its appeal. They were not as big as the first fish but most were in the 2-3 lb range - good fish by US standards. Not too bad even by NZ standards.
Two hours later, I was back at the van, relishing the news from Sue that two anglers fishing ahead of me had not taken a single fish between them. This was probably caused by them fishing only with a dry fly. I had noticed this trend on many rivers that US anglers had little interest in fishing the nymph . They seemed to persist in fishing the dry fly regardless of a lack of success.
I'll try any method that catches fish. I can't see any merit in being a puritannical flyfisher - surely that went out with Halford.

The next river I fished was the Bitterroot just out of the small town of Hamilton. We found a campground by the river which looked of a nice size but rather low thanks to the dry summer.


Apart from a few kids mucking round at the side of the river, the only anglers I encountered were all coming down the river in inflatable rafts.





They would whiz through my section rather quickly and they did not seem to:
a) be fishing the water very thoroughly or
b) catching any fish.
By wading up the river in normal fashion, using a dry fly/nymph combo, I was able to pick up around a dozen fish.
But the rafters did provide an unexpected bonus - as I was fishing the far side of the river, I spotted a rod and reel embedded in the sand. I dug it out and discovered a quite new 5 weight rod with a reasonable reel. The bright yellow flyline was not to my taste but could always be replaced by my favoured 'New Zealand Gray' colour. The outfit was not a topline brand but proved a nice present for my son-in-law when I returned to NZ.
I had some great terrestrial fishing further up the Bitterroot. As I walked through the long grass on the bank by the river, I disturbed hundreds of grasshoppers. So it was a no-brainer to out on a Hopper dry fly when I reached the top of the run. I had in mind 'walking the dog', that is walking the hopper down the river by walking along the bank. This proved extremely effective with about 10 trout intercepting the hopper as it ambled downstream.
This technique is effective as the drift is a very natural one. There is little mending it so the technique is much less disturbing to the fish.

The Bighorn River

Bighorn brown

The Bighorn River is rated one of the world’s finest trout streams because of its abundant trout, dense insect hatches, and easy accessibility. Prior to 1965, the Bighorn was a warm, silty stream that flowed out of the spectacular Bighorn Canyon northward into the eastern Montana prairie. With the completion of Yellowtail Dam at Fort Smith, Montana, most of the river’s silt load was trapped behind the dam. The river below was transformed into a cold, clear tailwater, much like a giant spring creek - an ideal habitat for trout. The Bighorn River’s headwaters lie in the Absaroka, Bighorn, and Wind River mountain ranges of northwest and north central Wyoming. From below the Montana-Wyoming state line, the mainstem flows through Bighorn Canyon to Yellowtail Dam, a 47-mile-long passage between the northern end of the Bighorn Mountains and the southeast margin of the Pryor Mountains. The canyon, its sandstone and limestone cliffs rising steeply hundreds of feet, holds the waters of Bighorn Lake. From the Afterbay Dam, a reregulating facility 2 miles downstream, the Bighorn River journeys 84 miles - through the Crow Indian Reservation, past massive tree-dotted ramparts and rock outcroppings, beside rolling hills, grasslands, and pine-covered ridges - and joins the Yellowstone River near the old settlement of Bighorn, just east of Custer, Montana.

I found that the dry fly fishing can be patchy but the nymphing is consistent. Because of the heat, the fish were lying deep or in the riffles and a nymph was more successful in drawing them out. Even rough water dry flies like the Wulffs did not work that well.

The Big Hole River comes to life in the Beaverhead Mountains south of Jackson, Montana, as the outlet of Skinner Lake, elevation 7,340. Throughout the 155.6 miles it flows, the Big Hole takes on many faces. From its beginning as a small mountain stream, the Big Hole flows north to Wisdom, where it gains strength by joining with the North Fork and flows northeasterly for about 25 miles. It then flows 27 miles eastward past Wise River and Divide, gaining more volume from several creeks, as well as Wise River itself. At Divide the river changes course to the south and is paralleled by interstate 15 for 17 miles. Then, at Glen the Big Hole heads southeast for its remaining 25 miles to the point where it joins the Beaverhead, and forms the Jefferson River, near Twin Bridges, Montana, at an elevation of 4,600 feet




Big Hole River








The Big Hole River proved it pays to walk a bit if you want to find good fishing water. I had found that the Big Hole was heavily fished by float craft, both rafts and one man rubber duckies. But then I discovered all floatfishing was banned through a gorge above Glen. So that was the obvious place to try. I accessed the gorge at a side road bridge and went up my usual lefthander's side. It was rough going, scrambling over boulders and around rocky points. I fished here and there on the way up but the water was too fast in most places. After an hour or so, the gorge opened up and the water spread out. There were big slow pools, fast riffly bits and the odd deep hole. It meant a change of tackle each time you encountered different water but I was well-used to that after fishing rivers like the Mohaka or the Gray.
I started catching fish, some on the dry fishing to rises in the slow pools but more on the nymph in the faster water.
I rounded a corner to see a beautiful stretch of riffly water ahead. In the pool above this stretch I could see anothe rangler fishing on the far bank, just below the road.
Halfway up the riffle my nymph was hammered by a solid fish. It took off upstream with me scrambling to keep up. Then it raced across to the far side of the river and started trying to burrow into the rocks along the edge. My options were few with 40 yds of line out - I would have to cross the river if I wanted to land this fish. I was vitally interested to see just how big it was so I plunged into the river.
It was not quite Brad Pitt's effort in 'A River Runs Through It' but Robert Redford would have applauded. I used the leverage of the tight line to help me keep my balanced as I poled my way across the fast riffle. It was only thigh deep but that river had some power.
Eventually I made it to the far bank and resumed the fight. The brown seemed to sense it was all over Rover and 5 minutes later, she was flapping in the shallows. It was a beautiful 5lb brown, my biggest USA brown at that stage. Freeing the hook with my forceps, I eased her back into the tide.
I didn't fancy the wade back across the river so I figured a walk back down the road was the better bet. So I fished my way up to the top of the riffle and then wandered up to the angler in the pool above.
He had not moved in the half hour since I first saw him. When I neared him, I could see he was an older guy, probably in his seventies. He hooked up with a fish as I reached him. A few minutes later he landed a nine inch trout and released it.
'Good fish?' he asked.
'Yep, a beauty. Must have gone 5 lbs,' I replied.
'That's a big fish for this river' he advised. 'Kiwi eh?' he asked.
'Yes I am - how did you know that?'
The angler advised that he had been to NZ several times so knew a Kiwi accent. We talked about the fishing in NZ and he told me that it was too tough for him. Too much walking, too rugged terrain and too difficult trout. I correctly guessed that he had been fishing in the Nelson Lakes area in mid summer. I admitted I had had a frustrating, fishless days in that area so I did know how he felt.
The old guy said the fishing in USA was much easier. He had stood in that one spot for 3 hours that morning and hooked 15 trout on the dry fly. Admittedly they were all less than 12 inches long but he was happy. Such is troutfishing - each to our own.
I wished him well, climbed the track to the road and made my way back to the car. I couldn't shake the feeling that the effort I had made to get to less-fished water had made the Big Hole River a somewhat more exciting place to fish.


The Upper Madison River flows from Yellowstone National Park to Ennis Lake. The river then flows in a northerly direction for 140 miles to Three Forks, Montana, where it joins the Jefferson and Gallatin rivers to form the Missouri River. From its source in the park, the Madison flows across a high conifer-forested plateau, its journey interrupted by two man-made impoundments: Hebgen Reservoir, located one and one-half miles below the park boundary, and Ennis Reservoir, 58 miles downstream from Hebgen. Just below Hebgen, the Madison feeds Quake Lake, a natural lake formed by an earth slide during a major earthquake in 1959. From Ennis Reservoir the Madison flows through Bear Trap Canyon before entering the lower Madison River valley for its final 18 miles. The Madison is one of Montana’s premier wild trout rivers. Due to its national reputation, heavy fishing pressure, good access, high scenic value, and excellent wild trout populations, it has been classified as a “Blue Ribbon” trout stream. The Madison is also the home of “wild trout management,” where the results of a controversial study in the early 1970s introduced a shift in management emphasis nationwide, from stocking trout to population monitoring, harvest regulation, and habitat protection. A number of challenges exist to wild trout fisheries in the Madison River, such as whirling disease, increased angling pressure, and drought.
The river is famous for its variety of water types, ranging from riffles to deep pools mixed with braided channels and supporting a good population of rainbows and browns.

The start of the Madison River
Junction of Firehole and Gibbons Rivers











Unfortunately the Madison was closed when we stayed in Yellowstone NP. It had been a very hot summer and the high water temperatures were stressing the trout population. The Firehole River was also closed as it is fed by waters from geysers and so rapidly increases in temperature during hot weather.
The Madison opened for fishing the day we were leaving so I had a couple of hours to have a flick in this famous Blue Ribbon water. Only small fish came to the fly on a hot, still day. Even these small fish showed signs of stress and were not in good condition.



The Yellowstone River flows out of Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park and flows hundreds of miles to meet the Missouri River near North Dakota.






Deep pools and runs characterise this great undammed river. Browns, Rainbows, Cutthroat and Mountain Whitefish are the predominant species.
The Yellowstone is open year-round to angling. Spring and fall months offer the most consistent hatches of stoneflies, caddis, midges and mayflies such as baetis, drake, BWO and Sulphurs. Terrestrials and attractor fishing characterize summer angling. Drifting a large hopper pattern over good water often produces some of the largest fish in the river. The Yellowstone fishes well in the fall and offers some of the most spectacular views of our Montana scenery. Streamer and nymph fishing are productive until November.
Unfortunately, the river was not fishing well when we visited in August. There had not been any significant hatches and the weather was keeping the fish deep. I fished the riffly section above figuring the fish would be in the riffles, if anywhere but only a couple of fish took in a morning's fishing. I only saw one other angler which testified to how tough the fishing had been as the river would have been inundated with holidaying anglers in times of good fishing.