Montana | Bonefish on the Brain

Locations — No Comments
09
Sep 15

A float on the Kootenai

My dad and I (my dad came along on the trip as we are forging some new traditions these days) had a trip with Linehan Outfitting Company over on the Kootenai, of which the Yaak is a tributary. We met Sean and headed to the dam on the Kootenai. First stop was to look at the fish just out of range, above the bridge that designates the fishable water. Sitting there were a few Bull Trout well above 25″, as well as several rainbows ranging from 6″ to 24″. So… there were fish in the river, of size.

A big river

We had a choice. Cover a lot of water and rack up some numbers. The “bread and butter” fish here is about 12″ and you can put a lot of them on the scorecard if you want to do that. We went another route. We put me on the streamer rig (about 7″ long and heavily weighted) and went after the big fish.

Shortly after starting our drift we went right over a rainbow that had to be over 30″.

I didn’t catch it.

I didn’t catch much of anything on the streamer, as it turned out, but I knew that was a risk going in. Sean had nice things to say about my casting and about my sticking with things. I managed to catch one pike minnow and hooked and lost a bull trout. The water was so clear you could see at least 30 feet in the water and I saw the bull chomping on the fly. He came unbuttoned and that was the only bull I had eat.

I switched over to dry/dropper and nymphs and picked up a few fish in the last mile or so of the drift. My dad ended up as top rod, but not by much.

SMILE!

The Kootenai is a cool river, a big, broad river, a river without much traffic on it and a river that stayed cool throughout the hot, parched Montana summer.

I’ll be back next year, and I’ll be rigged for the big boys (and girls). Those fish are stuck in my head.

Reminds me a bit of tarpon fishing. You see the fish, you know they are there, sometimes they eat, and sometimes they don’t.

Locations — No Comments
08
Sep 15

Labor Day Vacation in NW Montana

We almost didn’t go. Smoke was thick up on the Yaak and my wife’s asthma was going to nix the trip, but the smoke blew away, as smoke does, and the trip was back on.

Instead of smoke, our week up on the Yaak River in NW Montana was accompanied mostly by clouds, a bit of rain, and cooler temps. That did put a little bit of a kabosh on the fishing, but there were still some highlights.

This corner of Montana doesn’t get written up too much and people don’t find themselves up here by accident. It isn’t really on the way to anything, or from anything, it is just up there all on its own. People have to head here on purpose.

My in-laws live on the Yaak, a pretty little free-stone with loads of trout in it. Loads and loads of tiny, little, finicky, temperamental, temperature sensitive trout. I never seem to get to look at this river when it has water in it. I’ve seen it in December, when most of the water is frozen up in the mountains. I’ve seen it in September when all that water is mostly through the drainage (no dams on Yaak). They float this river in the Spring, but you’d have trouble getting an inner-tube down it in September.

Dark skies, cloudy, cool weather.

The picture above was me getting mostly worked by the Yaak. So much good water, water that hadn’t been touched in a long, long time, and had nothing in it interested in eating. It seems when the cooler temps hit the water, the fish just shut their mouths. I caught fish, but if things were going well it would have been fish after fish after fish. I’ve seen that happen here, just not this year.

I did stick some fish on the river, even got my son out in the backpack to do some fishing on one of the decent weather days.

The boy in the backpack… good stuff.

The Yaak does have trout, this is a big one for that bit of water.

That fish is from riiiiiiight there.

On his way.

It is pretty pretty up there.

The Other Girl Smacks Some Trout in Montana

After my 7 year old squeezed 20 trout out of a Montana creek it seemed like a great idea to take my wife out to that very same creek to get her some fish as well.

Turns out it was a good idea.

She wanted to get five and she got five. Pretty much the perfect ending to the trip. For the beginning fly fisher, there are few places better than a creek… especially a creek with cutthroat.

Just beautiful (and full of willing fish)

Montana has a similar effect to the Bahamas. I feel very much at home there, even though my life is somewhere else, and I’m happy with my life.

It felt like a very Montana week. I shot some skeet and trap. I floated the Kootenai. I saw a bull moose a couple times and loads of deer. I scooted the girl around on the ATV for a bit. My daughter got 20 trout. A pretty excellent week.

—

(Comments are still broken)

Fish Tails — No Comments
30
Aug 14

The Girl Crushes It In Montana

I have fished from an early age. It runs in the family. I started fly fishing when I was 21 and I had my first truly magical day of fly fishing when I was 24. That day I fished the Lower McCloud with Fred Gordon and had 20+ fish for the first time.

Today, my daughter caught, on her own, 20 trout on a little creek near my in-law’s house in Montana. She is 7.5 years old.

The girl with one of many

I’m still shocked by it all. I wanted to find a little creek for her that would be easier to get around in than the main Yaak and we found exactly that. Most of the fish were cutties, one rainbow, one brookie. They all succumbed to the same hopper pattern, now battered and bruised. Battle tested.

She was over the moon and so was I. None of the fish were big, but they were her fish. They were caught on her casts, her drifts and her hook sets. She also unhooked a couple of her own fish today for the first time. Milestones galore.

I told her the problem with catching 20 fish is people won’t believe her. It is something that sounds like it could be made up.

This is a girl who caught her first fish by herself earlier in the summer and now, at the close of the summer, she knocks out TWENTY.

What can I say… I’m one proud dad right now.

A very good day

— the comments appear to be broken right now. I’m trying to figure out what happened.

Conservation — 1 Comment
03
Jun 14

Bad Luck Way in the Madison Valley

I just read Bad Luck Way; A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West by Bryce Andrews.

The book is about a ranch hand on the Madison River’s Sun Ranch. It is about ranching and wolves and the many interactions of cattle, wolves and people and repercussions of those interactions.

The book also brings back many memories for me. Sun Ranch is a place I got to see a little bit of. I got to spend a week there each summer from 2005 to 2007. It is a magical place. It is massive and beautiful and as full of Montana as anything could be.

The Sun Ranch… magical.

I actually saw three wolves with Roger, the former owner who is written about in the book, as we hiked up to Finger Lake to fish for very dumb Yellowstone Cutts. These wolves were members of the Wedge Pack and were almost certainly casualties of the clash between the world of the wolves and the world of men and cattle.

What I remember of the wolves was first their sound. They clattered and banged as they tore down the mountain. I had expected stealth, but this was anything but. The other thing I remember was the size of the wolves. They were massive, no mere “large dog,” as I had probably thought of them before actually seeing them. They were so large and powerful. One ran probably 40 feet from me. It was so fast as to not be scary and I was left stunned and impressed.

I may have met Bryce or Jeremy or James. I certainly met some of them, but it was in passing. I was one of those passers through. I came for a week, spent most of my time on the rivers, in Yellowstone or Ennis, and I didn’t get a sense of the battles that were being waged on a daily basis by the guys like Bryce.

I did get to talk to Roger (and still consider him a friend) about his hopes and dreams for the place. He put 97% of the ranch into conservation easements before he was forced by circumstance and the markets to sell the ranch. I know how much he loved the place, how much he cared for the wilderness and the wildlife and how sincere he was about his desire to find a way to co-exist.

I have this framed at home.

In the end, the Sun Ranch has some claim to a small bit of my soul. Other parts are owned by other places, places with fish for the most part… the Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, the Keys, the rivers and streams of Northern California. I think about Sun Ranch often and the Madison and the Ruby and the Lamar and the memories I have from those times.

I know wolves are not loved by all. They are hated by a great number who have no experience with them at all, like the folks in Siskiyou County who lost what little sanity they possessed when a lone wolf crossed from Oregon into CA a couple years ago. Wolves are also loved by people who don’t understand the places they live and the people who live there and are forced to co-exist with them. Both those extremes seem to drip with a sort of ignorance, and I’m not exactly dry when it comes to all of that myself. Living in the SF Bay Area I don’t confront those issues and don’t live with the consequences. No wolf has taken food off my plate.

Like Bryce, I hope there is a place for wolves in the West. Get the book and read it. It is a quick read and well written and you may just emerge from its pages a little less wet.

Locations — 1 Comment
03
Sep 13

Happenings on the Yaak

My in-laws live up in the Yaak River Valley. You’ve likely never heard of it. It is in Montana, but doesn’t make too many fishing magazine covers. It isn’t one of the sexy MT rivers you’ve read all about. This is where the family and I spent Labor Day weekend.

It’s a beautiful freestone river and fluctuates with the seasons and the annual precip totals. It’s not supposed to be “on” right now, but, it totally was.

The Yaak River, Montana

Let’s just say I crushed up there. Hopper/Dropper was the key and if the sun was on the water, it was fast and furious.

The fish weren’t big, but they were plentiful. I even had the odd surprise, like this 17″ feisty rainbow caught right in front of my in-laws place with everyone watching.

Nice Yaak bow

I’d say most of my fish on the trip were under 9″, but there were just so many of them! It is the kind of river I love at these late summer flows. You get in, walk around, cast at pocket after pocket after pocket. You are constantly on the move and if something isn’t working, you can adjust quickly because the feedback is so immediate.

A nice little Yaak bow, returning to the river.

My girl LOVED Montana. She especially loved riding on the ATV with Grandma and Grandpa, but she also loved the snake we briefly detained,all the fish, the big grass field, the woods and pretty much all the good stuff Montana has to offer. It was simply a fantastic Labor Day weekend. We hope this is the start of a Montana Labor Day tradition.

Looking forward to the return trip.

Awesome.

Locations — No Comments
30
Aug 13

Montana Labor Day

Labor day is going to see me in the great state of Montana. My in-laws are up in MT, and we’re headed up there for a visit. I’m looking forward to seeing this particular part of the state without the winter coat of ice and snow I’ve witnessed the last two years for Christmas.

There will be a bit of fishing, but around the margins. My daughter will be with us and this is a family trip more than a fishing trip, but I do fully intend on wetting a line more than once and seeing if I can’t get a few trout to cooperate.

I’ve fished MT a few times, but not in the last several years and not this stretch of Montana (Yaak River). I always enjoy walking through a new piece of water and I can’t wait to see what is in store.

See you on the other side of Labor Day.

Fish Tails / Locations — No Comments
17
Apr 10

MT Bonefish

That’s not Mount Bonefish, but Montana… as in some Montanans go bonefishing. Now, it is April and here in the Bay Area tonight it will be down in the 50’s. In Bozeman it will get down to 39. Folks in Montana have excellent trout fishing and really, really long winters. Therefore, I can understand why those rugged folks from Montana might, in a moment of divine weakness, look to the Caribbean for a little get-away.

This group from MT. heads to Belize, Turneffe Flats Lodge where the weather is warm and the fishing is good. This trip was their fifth year in a row.

I don’t know at what point I get to head to a place like Turneffe Flats every year. I don’t think that life is about to start any time soon.

I'd like to go here.

Bonefish on the Brain Bonefish and all that relates (maybe a bit about tarpon too).

Archives