Happy Birfday, 'merica.

I like fireworks. I love the smell of a smoking BBQ. But on this particular Fourth of July weekend what I am most enamored with is sunshine.

Summer has finally arrived in western Montana. It sure wasn't here by Memorial Day, but it's here now. Despite bright sun and heat for the past week and a half, the freestone rivers are slooowly starting to drop, and every day there is more dark rock visible on the slopes of the high peaks. We still have a lot of snow to work through, but at least some of the upper drainage, super sneaky options are beginning to come in to play.

Everyone is hustling to find fishable water right now, and with Mother Mo cranking right along at 22,000+ cfs, even the Big Slide isn't such a great option anymore. We fished it one day and it was fine--with some big fish on the bite--but even most of the spots that fished well at 18,500 are now gone. So we looked elsewhere, and were lucky enough to have great weather and make it happen everywhere we fished. My past five days of work consisted of a lot of windshield time, plenty of heavy water boating and a few new callouses in places on my hands that don't otherwise toughen except for this time of year. But at least I was able to show my guests some of the more interesting rivers on the western half of the Big Sky, ditch the 12-foot

bobber/double BB/worm/scud slop rig, and catch some big old freestone trout on big old freestone bugs. A few even ate salmonflies. It's my favorite time of the year in this game...it just took us a lot longer to get there this season. Big water, big bugs, big fish.

From here on out, things should hopefully start to happen in short order. When the top ends come in to shape, the middle and lower (I'm not talking to you, lower Clark Fork. Sit back down in the corner and think about your choices) ends are soon to follow, and the bugs are certainly there. Trips are no longer canceling. And the sun is shining. I think we may finally be able to say we survived the spring of 2011. Game on.

When things get weird.

Unless you live on a tailwater--even then, only if it's the right one--things are pretty rough in the western fishing biz these days. High water is kicking our collective asses. Missoula guides are just now beginning to even consider touching the far upper ends of drainages like Rock Creek and the Bitterroot, with minor concerns like closed boat ramps and bridges with too little clearance to sneak a raft under taking priority over any thought of whether a trout might get caught or not. The good news is there's still plenty more snow to come, with each sunny day leaving us wondering whether the freestoners will take another jump...or finally start coming down.
Most of us that are lucky enough to still be working following the industry-wide wave of cancellations in the past month are getting pretty tired of driving to the Mo and back, and our comrades who live over there, as friendly and accommodating as they may be, are getting pretty tired of constantly seeing us on their turf. Things got a little heated in front of Izaak's one night last week between a young Missoula guide and a local Missouri guide, and I think everyone around--including those involved--just wanted to go home and be left to their own program. It just reminds me once again how lucky we all are for the most part to be able to spread out and even have our own programs much of the season.

Such is not the case right now. They bumped the now-Almighty Mo another 3,000 cfs in the last 36 hours, making an already big river an absolutely giant one. Yet the series of reservoirs on the Missouri continue to steadily fill, and soon they won't be able to hold back the water any longer. What comes in is what comes out. At 21,500 cfs currently coming out of Holter, Great Falls is nearly underwater already, and there's talk of 26,000. We're all pretty confident she'll still fish just fine at 20,000+, so long as you don't sink, but nobody knows for sure. Even California Island is pretty much underwater, and all the island seams that were producing trout have moved 30 feet one way or another, or simply been swallowed up in a spiral of massive whirlpools and upwellings. Fishy spots (or places to stop) were already few and far between at 18,500. To make things that much peachier, the trout that are still in catchable places are getting absolutely pounded on by the hoards of fishing guides trying to scratch out a living in these conditions. Increasingly selective trout in floodwater conditions, in short. It's not ideal.

On a whirlwind three hour tour of Missoula this morning, I visited three fly shops, two sporting goods stores, and one arts and craft shop in search of materials with which to tie new, different and heavy San Juan worms. As if not weird (desperate) enough, I ran in to one particular friend and fellow guide at every location, both of us looking for the same thing...even though we didn't know what that was. Except for the craft shop; I outsmarted him on that one, and ended up finding some sweet purple kid's necklace cord that will look sick with an orange sparkly pom pom superglued to it...

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how faint it may appear right now. Despite a week of warm weather, both Little Prickly Pear Creek and the Dearborn River, the two main tributaries of the Mo, are dropping steadily. I can see bare ground up on Snowbowl, the local ski hill. That's different. Don't ask me about the bigger mountains. And, one of the outfitters I work for and another guide are floating the upper Creek today, which has finally fallen below 3,500 cfs. That's our cut-off flow at which point we can start (relatively) safely working, and we're optimistic it will stay on the drop. The bugs are there if the weather and water cooperate: I've seen and/or heard of salmonflies, green drakes and goldens on several rivers in the western part of the state already...we just need the water clarity. As for the rest of Big Sky country, by and large the answer is still a resounding "no," and will probably stay that way for a while.


All I know is that it's good to be working, and the trout have to rise again eventually.

Saturated...

Yes, there is some fishing to be had around western Montana right now, and I'm not just talking about lakes--or watching your gumball bounce off other drift boats while you tumble down Mother Mo. With the water system completely saturated from Yaak to Sydney and plenty more snow still hunkered tight in the mountains, we're talking tributaries of tributaries, preferably draining from lower elevations and with a heavy spring influence. In other words, you need to know where to look.


No, I won't point you in the right direction. Neither will anyone else who knows. And I sure as shit won't guide you there. I'll already catch enough flack for talking about it, even in such a vague, condescending tone. Fishermen and their "secrets." So for now, all I can offer you is a picture of some giant freestone browns that have no idea that their fellow, generally smaller brethren are clenching their teeth around stout willow stems right now in an attempt to not be swept out to sea.


After a week of high water cancellations, I'm headed back to the ol' Mighty this weekend for some good ol' fashioned bobber chasin'. Who knows, we may even see a trout rise this time. It's gotta happen at some point. We'll see you there.

OK, now it's fishing season...

Now I remember what this is all about. It never takes long.

A couple weeks ago, back before the rafts were inflated and cleared of snow and you could still legally fish with "last year's" license, a freak warm February afternoon tempted me, my buddy and just about every other fly angler in western Montana out to the Bitterroot. It was my first day on the water this year, and for a short wade fishing mission, it served its purpose perfectly. Walking around on gravel bars, letting the dogs stretch it out and looking at trout water is good for the soul after the winter we've had. I even got the skunk off, albeit in the same way I usually kick off each season: by snagging a trout in the ass with a worm. I also caught one on an egg-- even classier.

Yesterday was different. The boat helped. For better or worse, after spending just eight short years in Montana, I find it hard to consider a wade trip a "real" fishing day anymore, particularly on any big western river. It's just so much easier to efficiently cover the big water when you're floating, not to mention the camaraderie and storage space a boat provides. Four rods, three dudes, two dogs, three boat bags, miscellaneous other shit and a growler of Single Hop ale take up a lot of space. One upside of the early season is you don't need a cooler to keep your beer and $5 foot-longs cold, though four hours of bouncing around on the floor of a self-bailing raft with the aforementioned dudes and dogs can do a number on Subway bread.


The trout played an important role as well, mostly because they were biting. In nicer weather-- provided the company's good and the beer's cold--even the slowest day of fishing can be a lot of fun. Early season, when the forecast high of 40 or 45 may only hang around for an hour or two before the sun dips behind the Bitterroots and things start to refreeze (like your fingers), a slow day of watching the bobber not bob can seem downright silly...like your time would've been better spent staying home and tying flies while you wait for the fishing season to honestly start.


Though far from red hot, the fishing yesterday was decent; some might even say good, considering that just last week we were skiing 3'+ of fresh powder and as I write this anywhere above 4,000 feet or so in elevation is still very much clenched in winter's icy jaws. Sure, we fished some bobbers, but at least they went down every once in a while--only to return to the surface with a scrappy trout attached to the end of the line. I also moved several nice fish swimming an articulated sculpin around on a sink tip, though the farmer in me only landed one.

It just felt like the river was waking up. The water looked more green than gray, and every once in a while a fish would randomly rise, even if it was just a whitey eating a midge. We poked our noses back in to a spring-fed slough where we found half a dozen nice fish holding in near-still water, its glassy surface occasionally dimpled as trout lazily rose to slurp something invisible out of the film.

Then Brett tied on a dry fly--a real, honest to goodness size-10 skwala of his own design--and in one of my favorite spots on one of the Root's most popular floats, this happened:

So it's here. With forecast highs in the low to mid 50s much of the coming week, it looks like this just may be the start of it. We didn't see any adult skwalas yesterday, but we also didn't look very hard, and they aren't exactly known for being the most social stoneflies in the world. Even during the peak of the hatch you may only see half a dozen on the water over the course of a day. That trout sure acted like he had at least seen a couple.

But who knows? As I write this it's snowing outside the living room window, and another nasty cold snap like we've become so accustomed to this winter could easily put things on hold for another week or two. But it sure seems like all signs point to the Root giving up some of the first solid dry fly fishing of the season in the next week or so. Rest assured I'm not the only one who feels this way, and you better believe the river is going to see some pressure this week as every trigger-happy fishing guide in the county heads out to test their new skwala pattern and get a few licks in before clients show up.

I knew I should've tied more flies and wrapped up any remaining winter chores earlier, because from here on out, I'm going fishing every chance I get.

Ready, Set, Go!

Like an old friend dropping by unexpectedly, the odd--yet not that unusual--mid February warm up is a welcome surprise every year in western Montana. You can't predict when it'll come, and if you don't act fast you'll miss it. Rest assured, it is still absolutely, positively winter. After three days of above 40 degree temps and mostly sunny skies, things are cooling right back off this evening and the mountains are expecting 8-10" tomorrow. Good thing the skis are still leaning in the corner of the kitchen, the pool of water collected at the tails having only recently dried from the last blower pow day.

We thought about resisting the lemming-like urge to hurl ourselves in to the nearest open piece of water come Sunday's sunny, 50-degree afternoon, but it was futile. Come 2 p.m., we were driving down the Root, poking in to fishing accesses only to find three, four, six SUVs and pick-ups sporting similar TU license plates and industry-related "cool" stickers on the back windows. Dirt bag fishing bums, every last one of us. Or at least we want to be. Anarchists unite.

Here is where I could ramble on about just how nice it was to be out, to soak up the sunshine, to run the dogs. And it was nice. We found a few decent winter runs to ourselves, kicked the gravel and talked about bugs. I even caught a few trout under the bobber, though the only cuttbow worthy of even a half-hearted point-and-shoot photo was snagged in the ass with a pink worm, and I figured that was already sufficient soul robbing of the critter for one day.

What caught me off guard, though it shouldn't, was how many damn people were out fishing that afternoon. It's safe to assume anyone who owns a fly rod has the shack nasties by mid-February, so it only makes sense that the Root, which usually warms up the fastest and starts fishing the earliest, would see some of it's first true pressure of the season on a weekend like this. But Jesus, you'd think it were first week of April and the skwalas were peaking. As we walked back to the truck, there had to be four or five boats pulling out at the bridge. Several looked to be brand spanking new: Christmas presents or splurges from last fall that had been just dying to make it out of the garage on a maiden voyage. My old roommate had floated from here down. Two other friends were taking out here. Wade fishermen were scattered throughout all the visible, likely-looking runs. I wouldn't have been surprised if a guide had rolled up with clients, sporting his shiny new 2011 tags.

Poor trout. Suckers have a reputation for being smart (well, then there's cutties...), but against these odds many of them don't stand a chance. All of a sudden, after what really only amounts to two or three months of relative peace and quiet, every potential food source once again becomes suspiciously threatening. Stonefly nymphs bite back and scar lips. Other fish's eggs swim upstream through the current before miraculously launching from the water--only to reappear again moments later. And you'd be smart to question any big, squirmy-looking creature wiggling across the surface of the water before taking a bite...especially if it's pink or chartreuse.

Yep, let the games begin. As an outfitter I work for often says, in the spring it's not so much about fly pattern as it is boat position. Get up early, get out fast, keep moving. I have friends and colleagues who love this type of float fishing. I tend to prefer a mellower pace and will opt for lower fish counts or slower overall action in favor of fewer boats and less molested trout. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't come to Montana to get in line. So as winter breaks free and spring fishing actually starts to show signs of heating up (as opposed to this mid-winter tease), I'll take every chance I get to wander around a bit and find some good fishing outside of the daily Bitterroot skwala junk show. You'd be wise to do the same--just don't follow me.

Feelin' it. And yet, not feelin' it.

Though I hate to speculate on how something like this could ever happen, this evening I found myself highly caffeinated and listening to throbbing ambient on full volume while I sat at the tying bench. To say I was overstimulated for the task at hand--to reproduce countless replications of relatively mundane fly patterns--with any sort of useful focus and productivity is an understatement. You try tying more than two in a row of any given pattern whilst a few hundred milligrams of caffeine course through your veins and your stereo keeps pumping tracks like this:




Burning Man flashbacks aside, I did manage to produce a dozen fishable bugs. Though in place of one dozen uniformly-tied #10 brown Pat's rubberleg stonefly nymphs, it was more like 12 completely different, freakishly-weird variations on something like this:


What red glitter foam, purple rubber legs and twin chartreuse butts have to do with Skwala stoneflies escapes me at the moment, but rest assured, crazy shit like this usually wrecks 'em, and then we're pissed because I only tied one. I learned that from my buddy Kurt. Thanks for ruining me, bro.

Happy twisting, freaks.

"Those fish are spawning and we will try to get them to take a fly as we roll it past their nose."

Missoulian outdoor columnist and host of the weekly Montana Outdoor Radio Show Mark Ward wrote this article about "fly fishing" for steelhead that ran in the Jan. 27 issue.

Come on, Mark. As a somewhat credible, somewhat locally-known outdoor "personality," try not to come off as a total JONG. It's obvious you don't know jack about fly fishing for steelhead-or fly fishing in general for that matter-but at least have the nerve to sack up and tell it like it is:

"Fly fishing" for steelhead does not involve 11 foot nymph rigs, six BB split shot and two "black and red nymph flies" tethered to 15lb Maxima. Nor does it involve dragging said rig across the faces of a few thousand exhausted fish attempting to spawn in gin clear water while they sit literally trapped at the base of a giant, non-negotiable concrete wall. If you had even the most basic appreciation of the history, culture and inherently existentialist nature of fly fishing for steelhead, then you would know it certainly does not involve yahoos like you and your buddy hooking 20 fish in a day. And I swear on the grave of Roderick-Haig Brown and everything that is holy in this sport: fly fishing for steelhead does not have a goddamn thing to do with "rubbing a little crawdad smelly jelly" on your fly. Fuck.

Hey, that looks like a good hole!

But you know what all of those things do have to do with? Snagging spawning steelhead off of their redds and bragging about it in the newspaper. I mean, the quote of your buddy's you used is priceless. Really? You're lucky the Missoula PETA freaks haven't found you yet!

Now, I'll grant you that the North and South Fork steelhead fisheries have become all-out meat markets, with fishermen from all walks of life throwing every conceivable piece of hardware directly on to the skulls of the biggest fish they will likely ever see. And that's fine. Though I'll never be caught dead setting foot in the North Fork with the intention of fishing for those rotting, doomed husks of what were once magnificent creatures, I have been known to occasionally nymph the muddy ditch we affectionately know as the South Fork and get some steelhead jizz on my waders. But at least I can't see them, and I'm not afraid to admit what it is: glorified snagging with a fly pole.

So if it cranks your stoke to rip the hatchery brats off redds as they bump their faces against the foundation of Dworshak, fine. I couldn't give a damn how you choose to fish for steelhead. Just know that it's unethical, it's sleazy and it is without a doubt anything but fly fishing for steelhead. So please don't write about it like it is, and stay the hell out of the way of me and anyone else fly fishing for them in a respectable manner.

By the way, the technique you described is far easier to chunk on a spinning rod. The rig sinks down "in the zone" faster, and then you don't have to like, fly cast and stuff.

Next time Mark, try these. They work waaaaay better than those silly flies.


And lastly, a priceless second opinion on the matter:

Run Off? Is that you?

Nope, it sure isn't. But if you cover one eye and quickly steal a glance at the hydrographs for Missoula-area rivers, you might think it were June. Inches of rain on top of snow the past couple of days have doubled the size of our rivers, and since all this rain is decidedly not rain above 6500 feet or so, we continue to sit in a pretty good spot this winter as far as water is concerned. Bring it on, La Niña.

New Look, Same Fishy Taste!

If you're gonna be stoked about your blog, you better like the way it looks. As an extra motivation to getting BHWM fired up and kicking again, I mixed things up a bit. Not that I disliked the old look, it was just becoming a little stagnant.

This seems a lot more fishy to me—and a lot less dark and scary. Just look how stoked Big Timber and Baker are. If you want to leave me a comment and let me know your reaction to the new steez, feel free. Or don't—I won't reply anyway.

S.A.D.

It hits every year at this time. It's not like it creeps up on you. Those of us who choose to live in this part of the world have seen it coming for months—the warmer seasons inevitably surrendering to the sulking gray ceiling and scattered snowflakes of a long Missoula winter. The summer toys are put away, the rafts stacked half-inflated in the garage, quietly waiting it out like old dogs who know better than to go outside in the cold. The focus doesn't fade, but it changes.

Not that winter is bad—winter means watching the sun rise over decoy spreads bobbing in steaming side channels, football and, if we're lucky, lots and lots of face shots.

Freshly satiated off big game and upland bird seasons, late-season trouting and, again if we're lucky, a few swung steelhead, most junkies manage to keep the fire stoked well in to late December. A waxing ski year and a waning waterfowl season further lend a hand in keeping the shack nasties at bay.

Never is that more true than during a winter like the one we're having, what with La Niña frequently puking her frozen goodness in the high country and all. Two weeks ago, snowfall amounts at several Montana ski areas were ranked amongst some of the most famous snow meccas in the West, at least temporarily silencing the argument that our snow has a tendency to, well, suck. Early season has been deep, if not downright dangerous—avalanches and tree wells have claimed the lives of multiple skiers and snowmobilers over the past few weeks as the snow continues to pile up.

But at some point, as if it's in fact too good to be true, things change again. In western Montana, that all too often means interrupting a perfectly good, crushing snow year with a week of warm weather and rain. This year, the unwanted warm-up and steady rainfall has the nerve to come just after the close of waterfowl season, effectively shutting folks like us indoors with little to do but hunker down and watch it pour while we wait for the snowpack to recover.

Having once again failed to plan ahead and figure a plane ride south of the Equator, I'm forced to break out my best coping mechanisms for this annual outbreak of S.A.D., or Seasonal Affective Disorder. An actual clinical term for cabin fever, S.A.D. always seems to hit me the hardest in mid-late January. With bowl season over, our beloved powder experiencing an old-fashioned flogging and every game animal in the woods breathing a collective sigh of relief, NetFlix downloads and used book sales take a decisive jump as Missoulians struggle to pass away the gray without sitting on a barstool—or gnawing their own arm off.

For me, this time of year forces me to start the always-daunting winter fly tying production. Up to this point I had all of the excuses I needed to avoid tying the dozens of these and tens of dozens of those that my clients will need to catch trout, trees and/or my various body parts come summer. But now, with the rain falling and the tying desk fully cleaned, organized and ready to be destroyed, it's time to start cranking.

As inevitable as each winter's S.A.D. outbreak, spring is not far off. It won't take many days of February sunshine to stir the skwala nymphs and the trout that are lying in wait to eat them. Once the circus starts, the rest of the season always seems to have a way of snowballing from one hatch to another, leaving little time to prepare for the next big event. If that weren't enough to get the fingers spinning, I know for a fact there are a few thousand B-run steelhead sitting in the main Clearwater, just begging all of us to come over the hill and hit them in the head with our miniature boat anchors and "flies" when the water starts to bump. The list of old stand-bys and new ideas needing to be twisted in to existence seems never-ending, and no matter how much I get done, I'll still run out of the most basic bugs by mid July, frantically running in to fly shops before my morning meet times to buy handfuls of Pat's rubberlegs.

There's no better time to get going. Then again, I could always watch another episode of West Wing...

An untimely update.

Alright, I'll admit I've been a little lackadaisical in blogging recently. OK, non-existent. Bottom line: it was a busy summer, me and a bunch of other people were wrong about the water thanks to A TON of rain during April-June, and the fishing was great, albeit odd. Hatches were stalled, if not "canceled" altogether, and up until just yesterday, we were still waiting for the first solid overcast of the fall season to bring on mahoganies and BWO's (at least with any consistency). Now that fall weather seems to be here to stay, I'd anticipate awesome dry fly and streamer fishing from now until it gets cold. Bow, backcountry, and waterfowl seasons are open, and the willows are turning yellow. Four days from now I can legally shoot technicolor ditch parrots. It's here, and it's all good.
Irregardless, I kept ya'll out of the loop (who are "ya'll?" No one reads this shit.) for the whole season. So there's no better time than right now, the start of hunting and steelhead season, when all the really beautiful things in the western US are happening, than to reflect on a season of trout fishing with some gratuitous hero shots of some of the more impressive fish that made the mistake of eating my flies this summer. Enjoy, and in the coming weeks make sure to take advantage of all the stuff that doesn't have ice and snow on it yet.

Tailing Loops

Observation: I'm slipping. There was a time when I proudly placed myself in that now so often-overused category of trout bum; I didn't make any money, but I also didn't have any real responsibilities that prevented me from fishing eight days a week. Although certainly not the best trout fisherman in the world, or the county, or even this neighborhood (you have to consider my surroundings. Insert appropriate Norman Maclean quote here), I was good. Really good. If practice makes perfect, I was doing my best to achieve a perfect 10 in the trout-nerd subculture.

Fast-forward 49 dog-years. My obsession and "drive," if you can really use that term in this context, has kept me in the Big Sky where I'm managing to scratch out a living rowing boats and keeping people alive and entertained while they catch some trout. A lot of folks say I've got the best job in the world. I agree. Taking people fishing and introducing them to an activity I feel so strongly about is the most enjoyable thing I've ever received a paycheck for, and even if it comes with it's share of ups and downs, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing.

The fact that I love my job is not the point here, however. The point, per se, is that while I have managed to pay the bills while working in the fishing industry, all while continuing to live in the best place in the lower 48, the amount of time I spend actually fishing these days is surprisingly low. And it shows. Sure, I get out this time of year, when the warm weather melts away the seasonal affective disorder and the first stoneflies of the year begin to die untimely deaths in the mouths of hungry, heartless predators. Every spring I'm reminded of why I love this game when I see my skwala disappear in a confident boil: the first dry fly eat of the season. It will always be fun.

But I'm also reminded of how quickly one can fall from grace without practice. I haven't forgotten how to cast; the fly still gets where I need it to be, it just isn't very pretty (I'm a big fan of the overshoot-drag-mend-it-in-to-the-spot technique). And it's not a matter of knocking loose the cobwebs, breaking in to my stride just as the salmonflies pop, because there won't be any time for cobweb-clearing. About the time I remember how to not throw a tailing loop in a 30 foot cast and the big bugs start crawling down my neck, John and Jane Doe climb in my boat, and they don't leave until October. John and Jane don't let me fish very much, and they shouldn't, because this is their time on the water and I need to make a living.

Where this leaves me by mid-season, however, is sitting in my office chair with a fairly comprehensive understanding of where the fish live and what they want to eat, but with a personal inability to catch them myself. I can row the boat for days on end without tiring, and tie blood knots with an efficiency that surprises even me sometimes. But ask me to stack mend a drift in to a pod of risers and you might as well throw a lit quarter-stick of dynamite at the lead fish's nose and hold your breath.

There's an old motto in the guide community that you never want to make a cast with a client's rod, even if they ask you to for demonstration purposes or otherwise. The assumption being, and I've seen it happen many times, that even if a trout hasn't made an appearance all day, as soon as the guide makes a cast, a fish will eat the fly. This can brighten some client's spirits, inject them with a renewed sense of confidence, and place you on a pedestal of Poseidon-like stature in their minds. Or it can piss the fuck out of them and you can kiss your tip goodbye.

I think when it all boils down, however, the real reason behind this old rule of thumb is most guides just don't want to show their clients how bad we actually are with a fly rod in our hands.