Devils Tower, National Monument, WY

 

Sunflowers

 

Tonights Night Sky!

 

My Vacations' Last Montana Sunrise!

 

Gallatin River, MT

 Today we fished the Gallatin River and what a beautiful gem that is. We even fished the headwaters of the Missouri.  

We fished high on the Gallatin and she was running I thought well. She was clear in 18" of water and deeper than that it was emerald green.  

Jack, myself, and his daughter hit the rivers today. We fished all the pocket water we could find. She threw dry flies and had a riser, but did not have an opportunity to bring it to hand.  

We are officially done fishing. Their is a Patagonia outlet in Dillon that I will be visiting tomorrow. Then Wednesday we begin our trek home.  

Trout Food!

Missouri River Headwaters

In Helena, MT - The second part of our vacation.

 Well, here we are on day ten of our vacation. We are headed to the Helena area. It will be slim pickens where we choose to fish for several reasons. The first reason will be the water levels. There are areas that are closed to fishing. 

There are also Hoot Owl restrictions still on a few rivers. I will look at the current flows water levels and call a few fly shops. 

I have called a few shops and they appear to be closed or just busy. My Garmin 64sx is telling me the mountains that have snow on their tops are at 7000 asl (above sea level). Even the south faces of the mountains have their tops blanketed with snow. 

As we snake our way around Missoula you can see how the lack of water effects the landscape. I realize that a lot of this is in an arid and a steppe environment. In the Great Lakes we do not know how fortunate we are.  

We have arrived at Jacks daughters & sons-in-law house.  I am truly blessed to have such good friends. Their house is beautiful, and they have put so much work into making it their home its amazing.  The views they have all around there house are million-dollar views. 

I was looking at the night sky and I can clearly see the Milky-Way galaxy. I am working on some star light photo’s right now.   The night sky looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. I will share my photos of the stars tomorrow.

Polebridge, MT

Day 8 - 9.23.2022 Kootenai River Part 3

Here is the better part of the day report. I used my switch rod all day throwing 350 grain skagit short head with a 10’ clear sinking poly leader. 

The patterns I would use was a good ole #12 brown tungsten soft hackle. These fish where holding in 2-4 FOW (feet of water).  The one fish is a Columbia Redband Trout, and the other fish was a Whitefish and both took the swung soft hackle. 

The Kootenai was under 7000 cf/s and had several sections that where very wadable, but that current is swift and one must be very wary of that!

We are headed to the Helena area in the AM tommorow for our last days of vacation!

The bad and the ugly truth!

Day 8 - 9.23.2022 Kootenai River Part 3

No matter what sport of outdoor activity you participate in you must be prepared for accidents as much as you can. I have spent countless years taking safety classes from water safety, fire safety, hazardous chemicals, field medical situations, and heat related conditions. I have also had countless hours of water survival technique classes. Then there is the acceptable risk factor. I also need to add another factor my partner and I have entered several confined spaces together and trust each other with our lives.

I knew going into this that the lake canoe did not have high walls and that was a concern. I bought outriggers that would give us extra balance and buoyancy. As, you can see in the photos what I am talking about.

All our gear was lashed into the canoe except my coffee cup. We had an extra oar in the canoe lashed to the canoe. My 24”x27”x14” dry box was lashed into the canoe and secured. These two items saved us from losing the canoe. All of our rods and other gear was not lost. All of the gear was tied in by rope or lashed in with heavt velcro straps.

My details of what lead to our titanic moment on the Kootenai River. The river was 57 degrees on this day. I ran upon a submerged rock and could not push off fast enough and the current pinned the canoe to the rock. We would get lose but not fast enough. The stern go swamped and filled up with water. As you can see in the photos.

We had on out PFD’s, wading belts and wore not cotton. This only allowed the water to get in up to our knees. In our fight or flight moment we choose to fight for each other, and my partner did not abandon me, and I did not abandon him. We where about 17 feet from river left, but it felt like a mile. We kicked out legs as hard until we drifted closer to the river bottom. My partner reached bottom and then I touched bottom.

Even thought the water was that cold and due to what we wore along with the air temp of 60 ish hypothermia was not an issue yet. The risk of hypothermia waned as we emptied the canoe of water and cargo before pressing on.

We had three miles to go according to my Garmin. With a combination of portaging and canoeing we made it safely to our takeout. I have several take aways from this trip for sure!

Be safe on the water and be prepared is not my only take aways and there are many more!

We are laughing now, but only because all that we did preparing for what if worked out in our favor along with alot of luck.​

Yes, I know this was not the best choice for river fishing in Montana on a river I am not familiar with!

Day 6 and Day 7 Montana Fishing and Sightseeing escapades!

Day 6 - 9.21.2022 Kootenai River Dam Part 2

After making more 3/4 oz slinkies we headed to the dam. We decided to fish a slightly different part of the river. This area of the riverbank is right in the middle of the area where I connected with 3 large fish.

This new spot would not show us any love. I don't enjoy this style of fishing. We had been using 1/2 oz to 3/4 oz slinkies. Our rods are rated for the weight, but the slinging that much over and over. Jack would bring two 15" rainbows to hand. We then decided to fish the dam for just a few hours.  

We then went to fish down into the lower Kootenai River. Here like in all trout waters you want to concentrate on where the trout are more likely to be. In this scenario we will be swinging soft hackles through boulder fields. For folks who do not know a boulder field in a river is a large amount of good size rocks that are partially submerged. This creates holding and feeding lies for the trout.

I strung up my 375 to 500 grain switch rod with a Skagit short 350 head and a 10 foot poly sinking leader (thank you Lou). My switch rod I rigged it up with a number 12 brown pheasant tail style soft hackle. I rigged up my TFO TiCr single hander with a number 8 chubby and a number 12 brown soft hackle. I rigged up Jack with the same tandem set up. I set him up on a nice small run with some broken water that the fish could use as cover.   

I waded out onto a freestone shoal. This shoal had a nice deep cut and good broken water to hide a trout. I used my switch rod and worked the water column. I then glanced over at Jack, and he had a fish on. I yelled out " you the man". I was so happy for him to see everything come together for him. 

I worked the water in this first area on the Kootenai and came up zero. That is all part of it to try n try again. We all hope for that one magical moment. I would have such a moment at the next boulder field. 

Jack and I drove down to the next spot. Now mind you the amount people fish this body of water with a watercraft. This next boulder field had no reel path to access it. As a matter of a fact, I had to set way points with my Garmin 64sx to find our way out. We beat the bush and dropped onto the Kootenai riverbank. 

You could hear the thunder of the water as it cascaded over the rocks. It can be intimidating if you don't take your time to read the water. After explaining to Jack what he needed to do and making sure he felt safe I went down stream.

I found some large pocket waters to fish. I rerigged my single-handed rod. I swapped my other flies for a tandem soft hackle set up. The point soft hackle was a number 12 olive, and the trailer soft hackle was a number 12 brown. Both flies had tungsten beads on them and about 3 feet apart. I used a bobber to drift them.   

I looked at Jack and he was landing a trout.   

Then on my third cast a large 15"+ fish breached the water. The fish also took the rear fly and broke off in the process of breaching out of the water. I hooted and hollered in the excitement and disbelief. We walked a little further downstream to see if we can connect with a trout or two.

This would prove to be pointless. We broke our rods down and began the Lewis & Clark esq-hike back to the truck. The hike back was rough in high weeds and since we were walking in the riverbed the entire way it was filled with potholes and undulating ground. We arrived battered but not beaten at the truck finally we called it a day and closed out this chapter.  

Day 7 - 9.22.2022 Glacier NP Road to the Sun and Two Medicine 

We woke up to rain and fog. Well, we headed out anyhow. Sure, picture taking would be tougher, but more opportunity to take some unique photos. The land in the Glacier NP is as pristine as it gets. You can tell some of the forest is old and thick. The smell of the conifers is intoxicating. Some of the water was this turquoise color. Enjoy the photo journal from the day.

Logan Pass video looking south