A Day On The Big River

For the most part I'd like to stand by my words in my last post, but I may have to eat some of them, because I did fish the Big Hole while I was in the area and spent a considerable portion of an afternoon catching and gawking at outsized brown trout.

This big boy was over 20 and I caught a few more from the same hole that were within an inch or two. They fell for small nymphs, like pheasant tails and little princes. And yes, was it a damn good time. 

Montana

I have dreamt of exploring the mountain West since I was young, have visited it on several brief trips, and it is a wonder that I didn't end up here sooner, but here I am at last...living under the big sky of Bozeman, MT. While there are ambitions and fulfillments that I'm sure I won't have the time or resources to make happen this summer, there's also a lot of amazing sights and smells sitting (almost) at my literal doorstep.

A week or so ago, I had two days off of work at The Daily Coffee Bar, my newest source of employment, and stayed up late one night looking over maps and guidebooks in search of a place relatively close to my house where I could try out my new North Face backpack (circa. 1983) and catch trout in an alpine setting.
I chose the Tobacco Root Mountains west of Bozeman for my little jaunt, and by afternoon the next day I was sitting underneath a cirque of 10,500 foot peaks drinking tea and pondering the brief but grueling hike up to where I was sitting, on the shore of Bell Lake. It was marvelous and peaceful and, though the fishing looked bleak (due to a high silt concentration in the lake from melting snow), I was riding a happy high of thin alpine air.

I pried the lake that night and the next morning with leeches and wooly buggers without a take, though there were a few rises, so I resolved to walk around the lake to try and find clearer water. After ambling over a large rock outcropping I came upon a clear, sparkling, inlet stream which provided maybe a 15 x 30 foot patch of crystalline water in the lake itself. Before Bleu could discover and traipse through the hole, I thrust a cast below and immediately had a foot-long cutthroat fluttering at the end of my tippet. I hoisted it over the small inlet waterfall. Bleu noticed this and was all about trying to catch it in the air, for which I chastised him, and for the next forty five minutes or so he behaved pretty well and even watched patiently as I caught ten or so more pretty cutthroats from in and around the clear water which I had found. I released them all. The longest was around 14" and most of the fish were sleek and skinny and dressed in their proudest spawning colors. I breathed deeply and smiled. Satisfied with my success, I left after an hour and made a hearty meal of quinoa, beans, and other earthly morsels.

So last week it was the Tobacco Roots, this week it's the Pioneer Range in search of grayling, and I'm pretty damn happy with the theme. For now, I'll leave the famous rivers (like the one I'm staying next to right now, the Big Hole) for Jim from Illinois to explore with his pal who just flew in from Dallas.