A Week in Montana   August 8-15, 1998

The trigger for this trip was our acquisition of a four night stay at a lodge near Clyde Park known as Teneagles (click here for a review).  We successfully bid on this American plan package during a benefit for the Colorado Ski Museum and decided to expand the trip by a driving/camping tour of some of the more popular Montana fishing waters.  Happily the 1982 Vanagon made it without a single towing incident - which is a new record - for this old vehicle.

Here's a chronological record of the trip and our fishing experiences.

8/8: DROVE TO THE HENRY'S FORK of the Snake in Southeast Idaho.  It was a long drive for the old beater van, and we didn't arrive at the Harriman water until late evening in the middle of a thunderstorm.  We weren't planning much more than observation here due to time constraints, but we did talk to a few fishermen on the water and found them to be having extremely low success rates.  The following morning large numbers of fisher people showed up near where we were camped and frankly, we were just as happy to be leaving the area.  Saw some sign of PMD activity and a few smaller fish rising by the bank.   But this is a weird river- being very wide and with lots of underwater greenery.   I'm sure lots of large fish must be present but suspect they may be more effort to catch than I'm willing to make.

8/9: Early this day we tried a few casts on the South Fork of the Madison just outside West Yellowstone, but due to lots of mosquitoes and no strikes, we left shortly.  Heading downstream we crossed some fork of the Snake and cast at very small fry with dry flies having some success, but as we were unable to find the parent fish, gave this up after half an hour or so.

On our way up Targhee Pass we stopped several times on what turned out to be probably our favorite stream of the whole trip - Grayling Creek.   It was running at maybe 20 c.f.s., but is a beautiful little peice of water.  Virtually every place where a fish should be located, they were, and they proved eager to please us.  Sue used a grasshopper and caught small rainbows and the only grayling of the trip, while I had lots of success using small elk hairs and comparaduns.  Rainbows dominated, but I did also land a 12" brown and similar sized cutthroat.  Four species landed on one stream is really fun work.  Don't know the total count of fish, but it had to be between 25-40.

In the afternoon we fished our way down the Gallatin with limited success until we reached the Taylor Fork of that river.  There we finally got away from throwing surface flies and had good success in both streams with a combo rig of small stone and caddis emerger.  The fish weren't large - probably in the 8-13 inch range, and all were rainbows.

8/10: We drove to Big Sky and fished the West Fork of the Gallatin while waiting for Tim Blixseth, the developer of the new Yellowstone Club, to give us a tour of that project.  By the way, if you'd like my notes on this newly created private ski community, send me an e-mail, but if you don't have a few spare millions to spend on the membership, building lot, etc., please don't bother.  It's really a pricey venture.  The West Fork stream we fished was very productive.  Difficult casting due to overhanging trees, but lots of scrappy rainbows and a couple of browns came to hand.  Everything took surface elk hairs, and the fish ranged up to 14 inches in length.  Astonishing to have this good fishing right next to the main access road to the Big Sky ski area.

We fished our way down the Gallatin with continued moderate success on nymphs and then drove to Four Corners and turned East to the lower Madison below Norris.  That river in this area is really was a joke of a stream.  Though full of water, the Madison water temperature was probably 70 degrees and until evening the river was full of tubers enjoying the hot air and mild river waters.  At night we cast by the bank for whitefish and small browns, and I hiked a short way up the mouth of Cherry Creek, enjoying some tiny rainbows and schools of whitefish.

8/11:  We headed into Bozeman before driving to Clyde Park.   While Sue visited some old college friends, I drove up towards Bridger Bowl and hopped down into the brushy Bridger Creek.  Incredibly difficult casting - lot of bow & arrow, etc. but the fishing was phenomenal.  Every nook that could hold a fish did hold one or more, and in an hour or so, I probably landed 20 fish, having twice that many strikes.  All were rainbows this day; all were wild; and all took surface elk hairs.

It's constantly amazing to me that gaggles of fishermen cast shoulder to shoulder on the more famous streams while the best fishing may exist in these tiny out of the way places.

After checking in to the Teneagles Lodge we trudged a half mile down to the Shields River, of which the lodge owner controls about a mile and a half of water.  It's late in their season, the fish are inactive midday, and we had very light success, catching a couple of 12 inch cuts.  This stream is probably running at 40 c.f.s.  It's wide with deep holes on the bends and is running very warm.  Basically it reminds me of the lower Smith River that I fished in the early 60's when stationed near Great Falls.  In the hot summer months the Smith was best fished during the evening hours and I suspect the same is true of the Shields.

8/12:  This day we headed for the Boulder River down by Big Timber.  After several false starts on roads we finally located some public water about 3 miles up from the confluence with the Yellowstone.  It's an absolutely gorgeous stream flowing at perhaps 4-600 c.f.s.  It's freestone water and slippery stones at that.  I went down on my butt a couple of times and may have ruined most of the photos of the trip to date.  Strangely the fishing was modest.   Took nothing on stone fly nymphs in the deeper runs although shucks were present along the bank.  Eventually we did catch a few browns and a cutthroat near the banks in pocket water - on elk hairs.  I think the stream must have to be fished early or late - and probably it is much better away from the heavily trafficked public water - of which little is available.  Nevertheless this would be my first choice of a stream to fish on a daily basis.  It just has to hold large fish and is truly beautiful water.

That the evening we again fished the Shields - we were still too early, but the river did yield not only browns and cuts, but a rainbow, and a lone very large whitefish.

8/12:  Back to Bozeman for some more visits, so we again visited Bridger Creek.  It wasn't quite as productive as the prior session, but both of us caught plenty of rainbows and this time I landed a brown in the same section.  All fish took surface caddis or comparaduns.

On the way back to Clyde Park we stopped off at the International Fly Federation Museum in Livingston.  The $3 entry fee is probably worth the charge to see the various fly displays alone.  It's not as impressive an exhibit as we had hoped, but is a nice diversion.

At the turnoff to Sheep Mountain on Highway 89, we headed up the dirt road that parallels the Yellowstone.  That river is huge at this point and would always be best fished by drift boat.  We waded the bank water in a couple of spots and both experienced lots of strikes, but no hookups.  In fact this may be the first time I've ever had 15-20 strikes and never hooked a fish.  Finally casting a surface pteronarcys trailed by a small black stone, I hooked the best fish of the trip - a bank feeding brown that I would estimate at 21-23 inches - just before he expectorated the fly after a couple of monumental leaps in midstream.

That night we again visited the Shields with the same kind of success - a few smaller browns and some whitefish that came up from the deeper holes.  If the river weren't quite such a hike from the lodge, it could be fished much later, but my fear of the ubiquitous Montana rattler keeps me from doing much brush hiking after dark.

8/14:  We headed back to Colorado, planning on stopping for a while on the North Platte in Wyoming, but stormy weather suggested we drive straight through to Denver, which we did.

As a retrospective, had hoped Montana would be a true nirvana experience, but it was really not.  So much for unrealistic expectations.   However, given the vast spaces up there, with greater exploration, we'd find fabulous fishing.  But at this point I still wouldn't trade what we have here in Colorado for what we found up there.

Back to the Vail Valley , the Main Fishing Page, the 1998 Diary, or check on stream flows.