Month: March 2018

Montana has been our second home for years now, and will become our primary summer months home soon.  We absolutely love this state, the spirit of its people, the near perfect summertime temps,  the endless opportunities for outdoor adventures and especially its world class fishing.  Before we even looked inside the pages of the Trout Unlimited’s Guide to America’s Greatest 100 Trout Streams book, we knew there would be numerous Montana streams included.  Below is the list of the 9 rivers included in the book, along with links to our “Guide Talks” and highlights of our time in Montana.

Big Hole

When we fished this river in June, 2017, we found a Big (fast) Hole flowing.  We’d just missed the famous Salmon Fly hatch by a couple of weeks, so we’ll be back.  Another reason to come back is the Beaverhead River which is nearby, and while for some reason excluded from the TU Top 100 book, is itself a tremendous trout stream.  If you visit the area, make sure to make Melrose (MT) your base came.  The true Montana feeling of this small town with the Sportsman’s Motel, Sunrise Fly Shop and Hitching Post restaurant/bar right next to one another is not to be missed.

Big Horn

We’d never fished the Big Horn before our River Ramble, but it has become one of our favorite rivers.  We took a memorable ride on the “Bighorn Mothership” with Merritt Harris and had a “Bighorn Blast” fishing in the area.   If you want to experience catching lots of big fish, this is a fishery not to be missed.

Bitterroot

Bitterroot Chase” Harrison was our guide on the Bitterroot and Pat’s Rubber Legs was the fly of the day.  When Chase learned we were interviewing “characters” along our River Ramble, he immediately recommended someone we had to meet, Andy Carlson.  Andy is a guide/outfitter, fly creator (Purple Haze among others) but most importantly, his “Conservation Leadership” has been critical to keeping the Bitterroot a world class fishery.

Blackfoot

We had the distinct pleasure of fishing with “Ben DeMers on the Blackfoot” River.  Ben, like Chase, guides for Missoulian Angler in Missoula.   It was our first trip on the Blackfoot and Ben made it memorable with both the fishing and his knowledge of the river and surrounding areas.  He gave us tips for fishing Rock Creek as well.  This river was highlighted in A River Runs Through It.

Gallatin

The Gallatin is our “home river” out of Bozeman and we’ve fished it from far up in Yellowstone National Park to its joining with the Jefferson and Madison Rivers to form the Missouri.  Our goto shop in Big Sky is “Wild Trout Outfitters” and we sat down with owner JD Bingham to talk about the Gallatin.  We also took time to feature our local waters with a highlight post “Gallatin-Big Sky Highlights“.

Madison

While the Lower Madison is closer to our Bozeman basecamp, the Upper Madison from Ennis into Yellowstone is our primary fishing stretch of the river.  We featured this river on two different float trips.  The first was “Madison Mayhem” with Spaz out of Kelly Galloup’s Slide Inn.  The second as a “Madison Redux” with Steve Smith out of River’s Edge fly shop in Bozeman.  Needless to say, we really enjoy fishing all the stretches of the Madison.

Missouri

While we both grew up in a small river town, Lexington (MO) on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, it bears little resemblance to the Missouri River in Montana, especially the section just below Holter Dam.  Our River Ramble “Mighty Mo” trip with Shane Wilson of Headhunters Fly Shop in Craig (MT), was not our first on the river, and it sure won’t be our last.  This stretch of the Missouri is filled with acrobatic, hungry bows and browns ready for an epic fight.

Rock Creek

We fished Rock Creek from Clinton to Phillipsburg and were blown away by the beauty of the area.  We didn’t have a guide for our time on Rock Creek as all of our guides in the area told us we’d be just fine on our own.  Turns out, they were right.  A stimulator, purple haze or parachute adams were all we needed to bring hungry trout to the surface…. so we dubbed our river post “Rock Creek ROCKS!”.

Yellowstone, Middle Section

Like the Gallatin and Madison, the Yellowstone is one of our “regular” rivers to fish and the section between Gardiner and Livingston is our favorite.  We’ve floated it many times with varying degrees of success.  Our last trip, with Jeff Pavlovich of Flies Only Fishing was incredibly successful.  As a matter of fact, we only used one fly to catch a lot of  beautiful Yellowstone Cutthroats…. which gave us our “Guide Talk” title “Chernobyls on the Stone“.  The only modification was between brown and yellow colors.

 

Last year, almost to the day, we fished the Lees Ferry Reach of the Colorado River with Skip Dixon and Kevin Campbell of Lees Ferry Anglers.  We were joined by fishing buddies Dan McCormack, James Kelly and his son, Andy.  What we discovered was one of the most strikingly amazing landscapes you can imagine…. as well as a world class fishery.  At the Lees Ferry put in, we watched as anxious rafters prepared for their journey downstream through the Grand Canyon while we boarded a jet boat for our run upstream toward Glen Canyon dam.  After a great day fishing, Skip and Kevin shared their perspectives on this fishery and its surroundings in Lees Ferry Fanatics.  While we were in Arizona, we also took numerous photos and incorporated them into our highlight video post, AZ Memories.

Our time last year was so good here, we decided to come back this spring.  Skip took us out again on a beautiful day in the canyon.  We found some gorgeous fish that Skip captured in his photos shown above in this post.  I told Skip that our post on this trip was going to be about him and his photos.  He has an eye for photography that captures not just the fish, but most importantly, the surroundings in this magical place.  He also uses a variety of filters to further enhance the images and their meanings.  His pictures are always treasured as mementos of our time with him on the water.

Skip avidly chronicles his time on the river, as well as providing fishing reports.   He takes a very mathematical approach to his guiding, making sure to document river flows, temperatures, hatches and fishing success among many factors.  His methods help assure his clients have the best chances at success on the river.  You can find his reports and chronicles on both his Instagram feed as well as on his Facebook page.

When to come fish with Skip?  Anytime is the right answer, but according to Skip, the summer Cicada hatch is not to be missed.  He also hinted that if you want to target big browns, think about fishing in January or February.  We can’t wait to get back whenever we are in the area to fish the river and experience this vividly stunning landscape.

There are three rivers listed in the Trout Unlimited’s Guide to America’s 100 Best Trout Streams that hail from Virginia (Rapidan) and West Virginia (Seneca Creek, Cranberry).  As we traversed these two states we couldn’t help but imagine there were many more rivers that could have been on the list, especially given that two of these rivers are very small mountain streams of which there are many in the mountains here.  We actually did fish another, Hazel Creek in Virginia, when we found we couldn’t get to the spot on the Rapidan that our guide, Carson Oldham of Albemarle Angler in Charlottesville had originally intended to take us due to the road being blown out.  Luckily, Barb and I had hiked up the Rapidan the day prior to fish it from another access point.

One of the things we were most struck by in both VA and WV was the natural beauty of these states.  As you’ll see when you watch our music video of The Virginias (above), this natural beauty was for us, the highlight of fishing here.  While we did hook into fish in each of these streams, the fishing was not spectacular from a “catching” or “size” perspective.  We fished Seneca Creek and the Rapidan in the fall and the Cranberry in the spring, so perhaps it was our timing.  We did enjoy our “Creek Stompin’ in West Virginia” and the “Wild and Wonderful” Cranberry.  However, one of the things we found fishing the two WV streams was the lack of guides and fly shops to assist us in our fishing.  We did get great help for the Rapidan and Hazel having Carson along with us on our “Oh Shenandoah” journey.  In a downpour of rain, we fished small pockets of water along these beautiful streams hooking into beautiful small trout.

We hope you enjoy this short video chronicling our time in The Virginias.  We’re sure to come back and find more of these small mountain streams to explore.

 

We’ve been hanging out on our local trout stream here in Texas, the Guadalupe River, for a couple of months now.  Our local  TU chapter, Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited, has stocked (see pic) the river several times over the past few months with mostly rainbows, but also a load of browns.  While the actual number of pounds of fish has remained pretty consistent year over year of stocking (see pic), this year fewer numbers, but bigger fish have been stocked in the river.  We’ve found ourselves regularly hooking into trout in the 18”-20+” realm (see pics).

The river has been great for wading this season as the flows have remained below 100cfs.  We’ve taken several hikes up and downstream to spots that before you’d have needed a raft or kayak to access.   This has made the river much more accessible to anglers and we’ve sensed an increase in the numbers of people we’ve seen on the river, both wading and taking guided fishing trips in rafts.  We had the pleasure of taking a trip with Dylan Mendoza of All Water Guides this past week and netted some beautiful bows and browns.  As always, we love seeing all the wildlife along the river, especially all the different species of birds (see pic).

This being our home water in winter, we’ve blogged about the Guadalupe before.  For those of you who may be new to our blog, or those who want more about this southernmost fishery, here are some previous post highlights.

Guadalupe Guide Talk

Our very first “Guide Talk” was done with two Texas fly fishing “legends”, Alvin Dedeaux and J.T. Van Zandt.  These two are real “characters’ who shared not just fly fishing stories, philosophies, Guadalupe tips, and general fishing intel…. but some great stories of their adventures together.

Jimbo!

We did a two part interview with Jimbo Roberts, our GRTU VP of fisheries, who is also one of those “characters” along the Guadalupe.   Jimbo, Part 1, deals with how Jimbo got into fly fishing and how GRTU came to be… and it’s about beer!   Jimbo, Part 2, deals with Guadalupe Fishing Tips.

GRTU TroutFest

One of GRTU’s primary fundraisers is TroutFest, an annual celebration of all things trout fishing.  As part of our River Ramble blog, we attended and covered the last two events, Troutfest 2017 and Troutfest 2018.

Local Waters

We also documented the Guadalupe River in much more detail with our “Local Waters” post from last year.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

If you want to see what the river is like, take a trip down the Guadalupe in this short music video chronicling our river trip with JT and Alvin.