Out and About in Montana/Wyoming

Articles Trip Reports & Travel
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Part 1

Lots of water in the rivers, lots of fish in the water, some fish were looking up and interested. Fun.

Whitlash, MT; father-in-law’s homestead in the Sweetgrass Hills. Awesome country

Driving the Highline

This one’s for Thunderthumbs; nice town, Havre.

Rock Creek and the (in)famous Testicle Festival

Sphynx Mountain, Madison Range; pretty cool lenticular cloud (for all the meteorology geeks)

All lit up. Hatches were spotty; no yellow warblers in the willows should have clued me in that the caddis were pretty much done

Used to be a mountain here

A required stop; Mr. Mathews was tying up some RAM Caddis

Columnar basalt, Tower Creek (for all the geology geeks)

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Part 2

Nez Perce Ford; water was way up for August; 5-6 big cutts feeding along the bank by the “No Fishing” signs at the picnic area (who says they’re “just dumb cutts”?).

Take a wrong step there and you end up here:

Then here:

How green is my (Lamar) Valley?

Nature’s grass clippers (bison were thick up along the road; 3-4 jams/day)

7 point jackelope (western count)

Soda Butte in the AM

and the PM (didn’t fish up there, crazy crowded; photo ops only)

world’s largest petrified mushroom

I was really hoping to see a mammoth in a restroom but no luck

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Part 3

Pocket water on steroids

Nature’s handholds (thank you very much)

Better be good on the sticks here

Emigrant Peak

Last campsite, terminus for the Bird Float

Where the well-heeled angler gets to fish

Where the rest of us get to watch (guess which side of the fence I was on?)

All-in-all, another fun trip; can’t wait to get back out in October.

Regards,
Scott

4

Nice, thanks for posting

5

Very well done - we will be here until mid-October, would love to meet you when you come back! Lunch on us.

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You’re on. That sounds a lot better than freeze dried Mountain House any day.

Thanks for the invite,
Scott

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Great photos , I really appreciate it when a photo is posted of an area I that I love and have not been in a long while comes up
makes me smile…

Thanks much!

8

Enjoyed your photo essay and captions immensely!

Especially liked the pics of Soda Butte and a couple of renowned fly shops.

Makes me most sad in that I can’t make it out there this year!!

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Hi, are you a pro photographer? Some very nice shots.must tell you, I’m not well heeled, but my son and I were on the “right” side of that fence one day, and it was not a highlight of our trip.

10

Byron,

With scenery like that it’s pretty easy to get some decent shots; thanks. Camera is just a cheapy point-and-shoot I picked up in Polson on the way down. Unfortunately I had it set in “portrait” mode for a lot of shots and they didn’t turn out very well; great thing about digitals is I can pitch them and no tech working in the photo lab is the wiser. I was at that last spot back in April (behind the wire) and talked to a guy fishing that pool. He said he hadn’t done too badly, considering it was blowing a gale and snowing; I walked down to the rocks on the public side and managed a couple decent rainbows feeding on a pretty good baetis hatch.

Regards,
Scott

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Scott, Thanks for the guided tour. That was fantastic. Jim

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Great report Scott, enjoyed that!