First Montana Tour

[jburge]

Quick summary:
- 2,722 miles driven
- 5 rivers fished
- 8 pounds lost
- 7 days fishing and 1 day trap shooting with my brother
- Priceless

Got back one week ago from what I'm now calling the "Gonzo-Fishing-Stealth-Camping-All-Southwest-Montana-Tour." My brother lives in Livingston, MT and we found we both had a small break in schedules--of course perfectly timed for hopper season. I loaded up the car and left Sacramento on Saturday, the 8th. By Sunday afternoon I was fishing the Beaverhead River in Montana. My brother met me at the Pipe Organ access and we were off.

First lesson learned: lots of bugs, and did I mention lots of bugs. The hatches were unbelievable.



And Entymology 101 from the front bumper of the car:



It's hard sifting through all the pix, so I'll just layout a few. The only thing I regret was not getting a single picture of all the browns we caught. Our days were typically drive to a take-out, park one of the cars, drive to the put-in, drift and fish 'til we dropped, take-out and go pick up the car at the put-in, then go find somewhere to camp for the night. Who cares about food when you're having this much fun? We caught brookies, browns, rainbows, one cutthroat, and a number of whitefish. We fished the Beaverhead, the Big Hole, the Bitterroot, the Ruby, and the Yellowstone.

Fair sized brookie from the Big Hole (caught on you guessed it... an FEB Hopper)



My brother working the Big Hole, with the town of Wisdom in the background:



My brother working the Bitterroot:



Bitterroot cutthroat:



The buffalo countryside near the upper Ruby:



Upper Ruby (the afternoon before we drifted at least 12 miles of this):



Yellowstone rainbow is on (nice bend to the 5wt):



My first rainbow from the Yellowstone. A strong, wild, 17-incher. Yeeha!



The day after I caught that fish, a massive front rolled in bringing rain and hail to the entire region (we were finally up near the Livingston area). We took some time to dry out and go shoot a bit, and reluctantly I had to hit the road to come back home.

It seems like I've spent the majority of my life wanting to fly fish, so I found it to be a perfect set of circumstances that I could be fishing in MT with my brother on the 1-year anniversary of me ever holding a fly rod. Wow, it doesn't get much better.

John

[texfly]

Thanks for sharing jburge. Great report and photo's. Are you going to make this a annual trip?

[Z]

Great report! Looks like a fantastic trip. Thanks!

[jburge]

texfly, You betcha it's now going to be an annual thing. We're already planning a multi-day trip either down the Gallatin or Yellowstone for next summer. I'm already counting the days

John

[JohnScott]

John-

Now THAT is the way to celebrate your first anniversary of fly fishing.

John

[mickalo]

Wow, sounds like a fantastic trip! I think I'd give up my first born, even though she's 30 now, for a fishing trip like that. Nice pics and summary report.

Mike

[Beaver]

John,

Sweet trip. Thanks for sharing.

Beaver

[jimsnarocks]

Awesome pics and report John. Lots of good memories there. Thanks, Jim

[vargoje3]

Looks like you had a great trip. Once you get Montana fever you can never be cured. Caught mine 10 years ago now at the age of 14. Now that i'm 24 I've been back 6 times and I love every second I'm there. Even thinking about finding a job or going back to grad school in Montana.

[JeffHamm]

What a great time and report! Glad to hear it will be an annual event.

- Jeff