I live and fish in the Western Cape, South Africa and always thought our streams were really special and they are but I had the privelage to visit the USA in August to visit my son and of course we wangled 5 days in Missoula Montana. We were only able to fish until 12 noon each day (fire hazard warnings) but this was an experience of a lifetime. I am used to fishing #16 to #18 dries and nymphs on the Cape streams so trying to cast the monster 'hopper' patterns that were recommended was interesting. I can't say the fish were throwing themselves at me but I caught enough to make me very happy. The highlight of the trip was that my son landed two brown trout that each went better than 22 inches. I've never even seen a Brown of that size before.The condition of the fish was perfect and the fact that they came out of a relatively small stream - I think you guys call it a 'creek ' if you can comfortably cast across it, made it all the more special.
One day was spent floating the Missouri and I found this to be MUCH more difficult than it looks on TV - I kept getting hung up on weed and even managed to break my rod - bummer.
The bad news is that with our currency being as weak as it is, it takes plenty of raids on the 'money box' to get there but believe it - I will be back!
I think Dave Micus said it all in his article of 24/9/06